The endgames of bad faith communication

Consider this: are things always as they seem? If you consider the entirety of your history on this planet, has there ever been a time where you were at least partially mistaken? Or even easier: have you ever observed another human being mistaking belief for knowledge?

I mean technically: is it not true that you are representing/asserting your perception of "reality" (virtual/perceptual/cognitive reality) to be 100% perfectly and comprehensively aligned with reality itself?

> and, I'm sorry, you are coming across as incomprehensible.

This is extremely common in conversations within certain domains.

Consider this:

- if someone has a bias against certain things, might this have some negative effect on the style and effort they devote to trying to truly understand it (also taking into consideration what is happening in the subconscious mind, which is sub-perceptual, and arguably has the ability to place a ~"hard cap" on what any given individual is capable of, especially if they are not intimately(!) familiar with the phenomenon and actively taking measures to counteract its effects)?

- if one was to give a quantum mechanics textbook to someone who has no background in math/physics/etc, might it seem incomprehensible to them?

And based on prior conversations, it is perhaps a good idea to preemptively counter some common rebuttals to this sort of thinking: often the response I will get to this sort of reasoning is that it is "pedantic", or various memes/slurs such as /r/iamverysmart, Gish Gallop, JAQing off, etc. I promise that this is not what I am doing - I am genuinely trying to have a truly good faith conversation (which, unsurprisingly, may appear "very weird"), and I encourage you to disagree with any points I've made that you believe (after some self-critical contemplation, ideally) contain a genuine flaw(s), however small.

There are other ways to persuade: You could lie about the facts of the argument, you could convince others you're in their group or that your opponent is in a group opposed to them, or you could say whatever you think they want to hear and sprinkle your message in among it.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fEX7G2N7CtmZQ3eB5/simulacra-...

Expanding a bit further, all sorts of problems arise when participants bring with them different conversational frames. Take, for instance, the case where one participant frames a back and forth as in the same way they would a dyadic conversation, while the other participants frames the same strip of events as a debate in front of an audience. The former may see the later as being bombastic or evasive, while the later may see the former as being naïve or pestering. There are all sorts of rhetorical registers available or unavailable to each depending on how each frames the exchange and using an "unavailable" rhetorical register in a particular frame can be keyed as a deception. Bad faith arguments, can then be thought of as deliberately fabricating a frame in order to induce a false belief (ex: that the participants share a common frame).

> this is a misaligned incentive that social platforms should correct structurally, rather than via governance or policies. And pushing the corrective actions back down to the individual is a cop-out.

Can platforms do a better job at framing online discussion in such a way that makes it easier to maintain common framing? Which sort of laminations are available or could be invented in order to facilitate common framing and allow readers to identify frame-breaking activity? Platform creators literally create the mediums for these interactions, the choices they make make them structural participants in the ways in which these interactions play out. As such there is an implicit responsibility placed on them because of their agency in this process.

I believe that good faith communication dominates in ingroup discussion. Trust matters when you discuss with peers whose approval matters to you. Bad faith communication dominates in outgroup discussion. Trust is not important as you really don't care about the "others".

The choices critically depend upon context:

1. Is the dispute one-to-one, or is there an audience? With skill, you may be able to turn the opinion of a reasonable audience against your bad-faith interlocutor.

2. Is disengaging a practical option, or are you compelled to continue the discussion under threat of yet more unpleasant consequences?

So, I'd say that's 2*2=4 "game" scenarios, each fundamentally distinct.