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> our opinions should be formed from a careful examination of arguments and evidence on each side of the issue, reading from only one perspective is akin to not

> our opinions should be formed from a careful examination of arguments and evidence on each side of the issue, reading from only one perspective is akin to not reading at all The elephant in the room not addressed in this essay is the widespread use of bad faith arguments, and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings. On some issues it can be extremely difficult to find good faith arguments and evidence on each side of the issue. For me personally, I'm not going to waste my time attempting to ingest all of the bad faith arguments out there just for the sake of seeking varied perspectives. If you have a claim, persuade me with logic and evidence, not with fear mongoring and throwing straw men down slippery slopes.

mfer 6y ago
> The elephant in the room not addressed in this essay is the widespread use of bad faith arguments, and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings This highlights both a problem an opportunity. How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? How many know what good evidence looks like or how to spot beliefs and assumptions making their way into something? I would argue that many don't know how to spot or make a good argument. That they can't spot assumptions or what make for good evidence. People are taught something very different and it shows.
- Spivak 6y ago
  > How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? Even if you could spot "good" arguments that really isn't enough without knowing that it's also made in good faith. If the person making an argument doesn't actually believe what they're saying, is arguing with a particular outcome, or is arguing with an ulterior motive like flame-bait then you also shouldn't bother engaging them even if it's well-formed. I would take a bad argument made in good faith every time over the reverse. People who speak genuinely but are passionate, emotional, or aren't the best at expressing themselves can have productive conversations. Someone who's arguing to win isn't worth your time.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    How would you know whether someone is making a good faith argument? Without some outward signifier like a cartoon character for an online avatar, which even then wouldn't provide any measure of certainty, it would require mind reading. > People who speak genuinely but are passionate, emotional, or aren't the best at expressing themselves can have productive conversations. Someone who's arguing to win isn't worth your time. If you want to get along in some kind of shallow fashion then the former are better, if you want to find truth or open your mind to possibilities then the latter will outstrip the former by a long way. Both are needed in life but to dismiss either as stupid or bad intentioned seems a stretch.
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    If an argument is bad faith but right, doesn't that still make it right? Perhaps what you object to is being dragged into some messy going-in-circles argument. Those are frustrating but they happen because the good-faith participant tolerates some of the logical fallacies and false information presented by the bad-faith one. People have a powerful force driving them to argue for the thing they believe in so it makes sense to tap into that force to generate high quality arguments. If everyone was kind of passive and willing to accept whatever seems obviously right, we wouldn't push any boundaries. Being kind of passive can happen if you're not emotionally invested in your argument.
    - jrumbut 6y ago
      I found the position of preferring a poorly formed, good faith argument weird at first but I've come to like it, given we are talking about material world, practical problems (of any scale). Ultimately, most of our arguments are about solving problems (or pursuing opportunities). Most problems worth arguing at length require collaboration to solve. I would rather discuss problems and their solutions, and hash out disagreements, with someone who is likely to be a true partner in the implementation of the solution. Bad faith vs good faith can then be inferred by track records or commitments, same as you would for anything else.
- glitcher 6y ago
  I absolutely agree. I have been tempted to buy the logical fallacies and critical thinking posters from The Thinking Shop[1] as gifts for certain family members, but I know too much of my motivation comes from the self-centered position of wanting to prove I'm right, which I didn't want to perpetuate. Instead I just read through the posters and ended up recognizing several items I probably need to work on myself. The cognitive biases are especially tricky, and it seems the more we learn about neuroscience the more reasons we have to distrust our own thinking! [1] https://thethinkingshop.org/ https://thethinkingshop.org/
  - pm90 6y ago
    There are twenty four logical fallacies listed there... twenty four Genuine question: how does one keep 24 logical fallacies in mind when evaluating arguments? Do you mentally iterate through all these fallacies? Don't get me wrong: they are very valid and I think they will make me better and my arguments better. I just want to understand how people without photographic memories do this.
    - labster 6y ago
      Learn them one at a time, in such a way as you start seeing the pattern. Human brains are great pattern recognition machines, which is also where the errors come in. That’s okay: you want both zones to fire, so the cognitive dissonance forces you to consciously think about a potential fallacy.
    - new_guy 6y ago
      There's more like over 200 logical fallacies. A good starting point is https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Z-Nigel-Warburton-ebook/dp/B00B9KCKJ4 https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Z-Nigel-Warburton-ebook/dp/B...
    - CyberDildonics 6y ago
      You don't need to know them all for them to be useful (this falls into what the poster calls the "black and white" fallacy.
- redwall_hp 6y ago
  One would assume that such a skill should be a requirement to be a part of the profession of journalism. Presupposing, of course, that the goal of journalism is to inform. Don't hire people who aren't qualified.
bxk1 6y ago
> The elephant in the room not addressed in this essay is the widespread use of bad faith arguments, and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings. On some issues it can be extremely difficult to find good faith arguments and evidence on each side of the issue. "Good faith", "bad faith" labeling is not logical, it's more of an attempt to apply morality and ideology to reasoning to reject something based on your own preferred beliefs and feelings. Similarly illogical is evaluating evidence "from each side", this is not how to evaluate anything, there needs to be some base rate to compare the evidence to and all the evidence has to be compared, not just something cherry picked from each side, and not just evidence, known unknowns and unknown unknowns have to be considered too, and so on. It's way more complicated than people want it to be. And it's very hard to have good logical arguments not full of fallacies. You will certainly never see them in mass media, as mass media needs to influence your opinion, not provide background for making a good decision. Daniel Kahneman in his Thinking fast and slow book wrote plenty on reasoning, check it out if you haven't, it'll open your eyes on reasoning (I know the book had some crucial things wrong for his theory, but a lot of things throughout the book are still ok).
- watwut 6y ago
  I mostly agree with you, except one thing. There is such a thing as bad faith argument. There is such a thing as lying or manipulating truth so that it sounds like a lie. There is such a thing as throwing as much mud as you can waiting for something to stick. There are fallacies and mistakes too, sure. There are differences of opinion. But, there is also such a thing as person standing confidently in front of camera making claims or insinuations that person knows are false.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    There are bad faith arguments, but there are also people who label any argument that they don't want to or can't deal with as 'bad faith', so... yeah. At some point we can't avoid the fact that people are human and tend to seize upon things they agree with.
- stopwaffle 6y ago
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> throwing straw men down slippery slopes. I don't know if you just invented that phrase, but I love it, and it gives me the perfect visual for the general state of online discourse these days.
qazpot 6y ago
> and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings. This, I think is one of the most defining feature of Post-modernism where the notion of truth is challenged. If every belief and every opinion can be as valid as any other (by virtue of itself) it is really hard to have a debate. This is kind of a circular reasoning where the existence of the opinion is the proof of it's validity.
smsm42 6y ago
As it turns out, almost nobody actually wants a good faith argument. Public people that routinely engage in good faith arguments, with carefully considering opposing viewpoints, scrupulously and honestly analyzing evidence and making conclusion based on the strength of the argument presented - are routinely attacked for being harmful to whatever cause the activists prefer, not seeing the larger point, enabling the $BAD_GUYS, playing into the hands of $MORE_BAD_GUYS, being motivated by $ISM and $PHOBIA, and get whole online communities organized with a sole purpose of bringing them down, deplatforming them, de-employing them and generally getting them to stop what they are doing. OTOH, the bad faith arguers are getting praise in the media, adoration from their peers, popularity, well-paid speaking opportunities, pompous awards and get their bad argument - which is usually much simpler and palatable than a good one - endlessly repeated and praised. Sometimes even taught to large groups of people as the paradigm they have to conform to from now on.
- ithkuil 6y ago
  This. The "other side"'s bad faith arguments are often times so outrageous and patently wrong that even "your side" participates in spreading them and amplifying them by pointing fingers at them. It's like one side has the moral obligation to "keep watch" on the other side and keep finding arguments to remind people that the other side is dangerous and cannot be left unchecked in spreading these lies.
- agsqwe 6y ago
  That's an interesting point. What can we do as a society to fix this?
  - smsm42 6y ago
    Stop promoting bad faith arguers, even if you agree with the conclusion? Stop mobbing people for "enabling" $BAD_GUYS and start praising people for catching and dismantling bad arguments even if the argument served the cause which you agree with? I am not seeing this happening much though, it'd require saint-level commitment to the quality of argument which probably not many are capable of and not many would consider a good thing to do.

mfer 6y ago

> The elephant in the room not addressed in this essay is the widespread use of bad faith arguments, and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings This highlights both a problem an opportunity. How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? How many know what good evidence looks like or how to spot beliefs and assumptions making their way into something? I would argue that many don't know how to spot or make a good argument. That they can't spot assumptions or what make for good evidence. People are taught something very different and it shows.

Spivak 6y ago
> How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? Even if you could spot "good" arguments that really isn't enough without knowing that it's also made in good faith. If the person making an argument doesn't actually believe what they're saying, is arguing with a particular outcome, or is arguing with an ulterior motive like flame-bait then you also shouldn't bother engaging them even if it's well-formed. I would take a bad argument made in good faith every time over the reverse. People who speak genuinely but are passionate, emotional, or aren't the best at expressing themselves can have productive conversations. Someone who's arguing to win isn't worth your time.
- brigandish 6y ago
  How would you know whether someone is making a good faith argument? Without some outward signifier like a cartoon character for an online avatar, which even then wouldn't provide any measure of certainty, it would require mind reading. > People who speak genuinely but are passionate, emotional, or aren't the best at expressing themselves can have productive conversations. Someone who's arguing to win isn't worth your time. If you want to get along in some kind of shallow fashion then the former are better, if you want to find truth or open your mind to possibilities then the latter will outstrip the former by a long way. Both are needed in life but to dismiss either as stupid or bad intentioned seems a stretch.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  If an argument is bad faith but right, doesn't that still make it right? Perhaps what you object to is being dragged into some messy going-in-circles argument. Those are frustrating but they happen because the good-faith participant tolerates some of the logical fallacies and false information presented by the bad-faith one. People have a powerful force driving them to argue for the thing they believe in so it makes sense to tap into that force to generate high quality arguments. If everyone was kind of passive and willing to accept whatever seems obviously right, we wouldn't push any boundaries. Being kind of passive can happen if you're not emotionally invested in your argument.
  - jrumbut 6y ago
    I found the position of preferring a poorly formed, good faith argument weird at first but I've come to like it, given we are talking about material world, practical problems (of any scale). Ultimately, most of our arguments are about solving problems (or pursuing opportunities). Most problems worth arguing at length require collaboration to solve. I would rather discuss problems and their solutions, and hash out disagreements, with someone who is likely to be a true partner in the implementation of the solution. Bad faith vs good faith can then be inferred by track records or commitments, same as you would for anything else.
glitcher 6y ago
I absolutely agree. I have been tempted to buy the logical fallacies and critical thinking posters from The Thinking Shop[1] as gifts for certain family members, but I know too much of my motivation comes from the self-centered position of wanting to prove I'm right, which I didn't want to perpetuate. Instead I just read through the posters and ended up recognizing several items I probably need to work on myself. The cognitive biases are especially tricky, and it seems the more we learn about neuroscience the more reasons we have to distrust our own thinking! [1] https://thethinkingshop.org/ https://thethinkingshop.org/
- pm90 6y ago
  There are twenty four logical fallacies listed there... twenty four Genuine question: how does one keep 24 logical fallacies in mind when evaluating arguments? Do you mentally iterate through all these fallacies? Don't get me wrong: they are very valid and I think they will make me better and my arguments better. I just want to understand how people without photographic memories do this.
  - labster 6y ago
    Learn them one at a time, in such a way as you start seeing the pattern. Human brains are great pattern recognition machines, which is also where the errors come in. That’s okay: you want both zones to fire, so the cognitive dissonance forces you to consciously think about a potential fallacy.
  - new_guy 6y ago
    There's more like over 200 logical fallacies. A good starting point is https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Z-Nigel-Warburton-ebook/dp/B00B9KCKJ4 https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Z-Nigel-Warburton-ebook/dp/B...
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    You don't need to know them all for them to be useful (this falls into what the poster calls the "black and white" fallacy.
redwall_hp 6y ago
One would assume that such a skill should be a requirement to be a part of the profession of journalism. Presupposing, of course, that the goal of journalism is to inform. Don't hire people who aren't qualified.

bxk1 6y ago

> The elephant in the room not addressed in this essay is the widespread use of bad faith arguments, and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings. On some issues it can be extremely difficult to find good faith arguments and evidence on each side of the issue. "Good faith", "bad faith" labeling is not logical, it's more of an attempt to apply morality and ideology to reasoning to reject something based on your own preferred beliefs and feelings. Similarly illogical is evaluating evidence "from each side", this is not how to evaluate anything, there needs to be some base rate to compare the evidence to and all the evidence has to be compared, not just something cherry picked from each side, and not just evidence, known unknowns and unknown unknowns have to be considered too, and so on. It's way more complicated than people want it to be. And it's very hard to have good logical arguments not full of fallacies. You will certainly never see them in mass media, as mass media needs to influence your opinion, not provide background for making a good decision. Daniel Kahneman in his Thinking fast and slow book wrote plenty on reasoning, check it out if you haven't, it'll open your eyes on reasoning (I know the book had some crucial things wrong for his theory, but a lot of things throughout the book are still ok).

watwut 6y ago
I mostly agree with you, except one thing. There is such a thing as bad faith argument. There is such a thing as lying or manipulating truth so that it sounds like a lie. There is such a thing as throwing as much mud as you can waiting for something to stick. There are fallacies and mistakes too, sure. There are differences of opinion. But, there is also such a thing as person standing confidently in front of camera making claims or insinuations that person knows are false.
- Natsu 6y ago
  There are bad faith arguments, but there are also people who label any argument that they don't want to or can't deal with as 'bad faith', so... yeah. At some point we can't avoid the fact that people are human and tend to seize upon things they agree with.
stopwaffle 6y ago

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

> throwing straw men down slippery slopes. I don't know if you just invented that phrase, but I love it, and it gives me the perfect visual for the general state of online discourse these days.

qazpot 6y ago

> and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings. This, I think is one of the most defining feature of Post-modernism where the notion of truth is challenged. If every belief and every opinion can be as valid as any other (by virtue of itself) it is really hard to have a debate. This is kind of a circular reasoning where the existence of the opinion is the proof of it's validity.

smsm42 6y ago

As it turns out, almost nobody actually wants a good faith argument. Public people that routinely engage in good faith arguments, with carefully considering opposing viewpoints, scrupulously and honestly analyzing evidence and making conclusion based on the strength of the argument presented - are routinely attacked for being harmful to whatever cause the activists prefer, not seeing the larger point, enabling the $BAD_GUYS, playing into the hands of $MORE_BAD_GUYS, being motivated by $ISM and $PHOBIA, and get whole online communities organized with a sole purpose of bringing them down, deplatforming them, de-employing them and generally getting them to stop what they are doing. OTOH, the bad faith arguers are getting praise in the media, adoration from their peers, popularity, well-paid speaking opportunities, pompous awards and get their bad argument - which is usually much simpler and palatable than a good one - endlessly repeated and praised. Sometimes even taught to large groups of people as the paradigm they have to conform to from now on.

ithkuil 6y ago
This. The "other side"'s bad faith arguments are often times so outrageous and patently wrong that even "your side" participates in spreading them and amplifying them by pointing fingers at them. It's like one side has the moral obligation to "keep watch" on the other side and keep finding arguments to remind people that the other side is dangerous and cannot be left unchecked in spreading these lies.
agsqwe 6y ago
That's an interesting point. What can we do as a society to fix this?
- smsm42 6y ago
  Stop promoting bad faith arguers, even if you agree with the conclusion? Stop mobbing people for "enabling" $BAD_GUYS and start praising people for catching and dismantling bad arguments even if the argument served the cause which you agree with? I am not seeing this happening much though, it'd require saint-level commitment to the quality of argument which probably not many are capable of and not many would consider a good thing to do.