Hacker News Reader

> Why on EARTH would I 'assume good faith'? Am I a moron?

Assuming bad faith will never result in convergence.

Assuming good faith could result in convergence, even if you think the probability is low.

Therefore converging on truth, or at least shared opinion, must start with assuming good faith. Of course if you're not actually interested in those things, then I can't help with that.

Don’t “assume” either one. Use the evidence you have and your own intellect to discriminate between the two.

At least try to assume enough good faith that you would see yourself as arguing in good faith if you argued for the other side.

Most people don't even pass that low bar though, they demand that others assume way more good faith than they themselves do, that is the kind of people who need to hear this advice.

Why would you bother engaging someone in conversation at all if you didn't assume they were engaging in good faith?

If I'm going to assume there's a 50% chance the person I'm talking to is engaging in bad faith I'd rather do something more productive like scream my opinions out my window.

"Assuming good faith" is potentially a fantasy, but it's a useful fantasy for encouraging quality conversation.

>Why would you bother engaging someone in conversation at all if you didn't assume they were engaging in good faith?

Not all interactions are a conversation -at least not necessarily an on-going one. For instance, in a political thread you may choose to reply to a very obvious troll simply for the sake of countering misinformation -not because you want to run off and get married to them.

>If I'm going to assume there's a 50% chance the person I'm talking to is engaging in bad faith I'd rather do something more productive like scream my opinions out my window.

Fair. "Don't read the comments" has become a proverb for a reason. That said -there are times and places where it's useful (for your own sake) to interact.

Sure, adjust your conclusions as the conversation evolves, but that first interaction requires an assumption of good faith to make conversation possible to begin with.

It's like how tit-for-tat has been the most effective long-term strategy in the iterated prisoner's dilemma tournaments. An agent employing this strategy always starts by cooperating as it's first choice, and only switches to defecting after you've defected first.

The possibility of good faith is enough to start a conversation. However, there is an inverse correlation of this probability, and how likely I will start a conversation, at least for me.

People who don't assume good faith are arguing in bad faith, that is the crux of the issue.

For example, lets say you argue with a person like yourself, you both assume bad faith in the other person. Then as the conversation goes on and the other doesn't listen, your assumption gets "validated" and you got a shit conversation from it.

If however you both assumed good faith, now you see the other person listens, you get a great conversation where you share and listen and learn. This is by far the better scenario, you meet much more interesting people and get much better conversations this way.

So, how do people like you get a good conversation? Well, you only get good conversations with people who assume good faith, who keep that up long enough to convince you that they actually care. Those kind of people are rare, and the harder you make yourself to talk to the rarer they will be for you. For me, I meet people who listen and I can talk to everywhere, assuming good faith means that you find more good people, it is that simple.

>People who don't assume good faith are arguing in bad faith, that is the crux of the issue.

Assuming -as I've already said; that they're arguing. There are other reasons for interactions.

>So, how do people like you get a good conversation?

1)Cultivating a circle of people whom I trust have good intentions -usually IRL

2)Sticking to shared topics and guaging wether or not individuals I recurringly interact with are on the level or not (this requires pseudo-anonymity as found in traditional simple machine/phpbb style forums).

>People who don't assume good faith are arguing in bad faith, that is the crux of the issue.

Obviously I disagree -and that disagreement isn't something I've simply pulled out of my ass. It's based on 25 years of online interaction experience, as well as seeing how disinformation campaigns played out on social media such as twitter and facebook.

"people like you" is a very othering phrase and that's just funny as shit. You cannot "other" me without making a whole lump of assumptions about me. I'm not sure if that counts as a strawman argument in this case or not but anyway it doesn't matter.

You *can* have great conversations where you share and interact and learn *without engaging in naivete.* But you won't hear it from me.

Mind you, I am capable of learning from astroturfers (their salespitch), trolls (what's the party line?) and kooks. I simply have my eyes open and do not assume that they are something that they are not...it's amusing that several posters in this thread are unwilling (unable?) to grasp that not-terribly-subtle distinction.

All this passive aggression is making me reach for the pepto, I will say that!

I'm not sure why you care so much? It doesn't cost anything to assume good faith, its just a win win situation. As we see here you still waste time arguing with people even when you assume bad faith, so it doesn't even save you time, its just your loss.

Anyway, very few people really argue in bad faith, I almost always can make people listen if I just get to talk to them long enough. Assume good faith long enough and you will find it in almost anyone. But conversely assume bad faith and you will find that in almost anyone as well.

Edit:

> All this passive aggression is making me reach for the pepto, I will say that!

There is nothing passive about my aggressiveness here, I am very loudly and clearly stating that I think your approach leads to worse outcomes. There is nothing wrong about clearly stating when you think others are wrong about things.

I care because I feel that the attitude is destructive and that there are better approaches that can be taken. I've outlined them other places ITT already.

>As we see here you still waste time arguing with people even when you assume bad faith

>arguing

If there's another way to get my point of view read, I'd love to hear it!

>when you assume bad faith

Logical fallacy. I do not necessarily assume bad faith ...I simply do not assume good faith.

>Anyway, very few people really argue in bad faith,

I would encourage you to try to have some sustained long-term on youtube comments or facebook if you haven't already. I'm being completely serious here -that will present you with numerous examples of people arguing in bad faith.

I have the impression when you say "arguing" you could actually be meaning "discussing"; the difference being one aims to convince another person -the other simply seeks to share veiwpoints. One's adverserial, the other isn't. Am I reading you correctly?

I think "assume good faith" has to be taken as something of a Prisoner's Dilemma proposition.

You don't want to be a dove, and keep assuming good faith when it hurts.

Assume good faith initially because it least has a chance of being productive, but the moment bad faith is detected, either withdraw or "punish" (and propagate social signals that bad faith arguing has been detected so others know not to engage)

>Assume good faith initially because it least has a chance of being productive, but the moment bad faith is detected, either withdraw or "punish" (and propagate social signals that bad faith arguing has been detected so others know not to engage)

That's fair but I think a better solution is to enter into a conversation Tabla Rasa; you don't know someone's a kook/troll/whatever but you are aware that they may be. They may also be a potential friend/workmate/source of support/whatever.

With each interaction, over time, trust is either built up or torn down.

This is harder and harder to do in the current forum/anonymous posting climate not so much because of anonymity but because of different design elements that have stripped people's messages of ways to make distinctions (avatars, signature are two that come to mind, profiles are another).

Now posters all blend into one another so building up any kind of individual rapport is difficult; if not impossible.

Thanks for clarifying this. It made me reflect on the relationship between assuming positive intent, negative intent and blank slate as directly corresponding to strong positive and negative priors vs weak priors or even uninformative priors.

Even updating these priors with new data to form posteriors falls perfectly into place. Thank you.

It's been good to have the chance to articulate my annoyance and examine it closer and think of what alternatives I'd propose. I'm glad to have something more to go into future discussions with than inarticulate gripes. All in all a net win IMO!

> the whole "assume good faith" thing that you find on the tech sites (like here, like wikipedia) drives me completely up a wall

> Why on EARTH would I 'assume good faith'?

Perhaps because you've missed the implied part of this guideline. Spelled out, it would go like this: if you're replying, assume good faith - if you can't, you should not reply at all.

I mean, if you're not going to assume good faith, what are you doing in the conversation in the first place? Do you like to engage in fights, or stir up ones? Don't you have anything better to do?

>I mean, if you're not going to assume good faith, what are you doing in the conversation in the first place?

It depends on the specific conversation. One example (which I gave earlier) might be to counter misinformation -for the sake of people reading. Another example might be to give out warnings or clarifications in the capacity of a forum moderator.

>Do you like to engage in fights, or stir up ones?

There's other reasons possible too. HN is made up of smart people so I'll leave imagining them as an exercise for the readers.

> Why on EARTH would I 'assume good faith'? Am I a moron?

And this attitude is why we can't have nice things.

>And this attitude is why we can't have nice things.

Swing and a miss. I'd encourage folks reading this thread to go back and read the entire thing; or at least the paragraph that my quote was taken from.

The thought that I posted was; "why would I assume good faith when there are so many examples of bad faith out there?"

[edit]In the event my post gets killed/reported/downvoted into oblivion -here's the original context:

>Why on EARTH would I 'assume good faith'? Am I a moron? Have I not read the comment sections of youtube, yahoo news, assorted disqus and news forums and trolltalk? Am I completely unaware of 4chan?

No, the vast amount of bad faith, misinformation, trolling and piss-takes on the internet making such an assumption moronic is why we can't have nice things.

Reply as if you assume good intent because defeating someone's straw man as if they were serious is useful content.

Anything else is a flame war and might be fun but isn't helpful or valuable.