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How do you determine someone is arguing in bad faith? I'm not asking how do you determine that a bad faith actor exists somewhere but on the individual level, w
by Mountain_Skies 5y ago
How do you determine someone is arguing in bad faith? I'm not asking how do you determine that a bad faith actor exists somewhere but on the individual level, which is where we all exist, how do you know? Is everyone who disagrees with your individual personal view of science a bad faith skeptic? If not, how do you sort them out? Is based on how much effort was required to convince you of a particular POV? That should be something greater than zero, otherwise you're acting on faith not science. Should everyone require the exact same amount of evidence? And what about the situations where you believed something to be true but later found out you were wrong? Were you acting in bad faith all that time or were the people who were ultimate correct acting in bad faith until you agreed with them, at which point they were arguing in good faith?
Bad faith actors exist but the bad faith label appears to be an overused and a lazy way of shutting down debate. Not everyone who was skeptical about the link between smoking and cancer worked for the tobacco companies or were addicted to smoking. How often are medicines we're told are safe taken off the market because it turns out they're not? Are people who were skeptical of that safety bad faith actors until they were proven correct?
Why are there "scientific" subjects for which skepticism automatically bad faith? What is the criteria for being able to question the mainstream dogma and still be considered arguing in good faith? The people who proposed the possibility of a lab leak were not long ago considered to be arguing in bad faith. How did those arguments one day suddenly stop being bad faith arguments?
- sjwalter 5y ago> How did those arguments one day suddenly stop being bad faith arguments? I know you're asking this to demonstrate, but I'll answer anyways, because it's obvious: The elite who have very effectively captured the press, big tech, and the scientific institutions used their leverage to ensure that all such skepticism was "bad faith", even though it very clearly was not.
- quotemstr 5y ago> How do you determine someone is arguing in bad faith? You can tell when someone is arguing in bad faith by the fact that he disagrees with The Science. Duh. (I'm being sarcastic here, but that's what a frightening fraction of the population actually thinks.)
- dennis_jeeves 5y agoThe huge fraction is indeed frightening.
- verall 5y agoSkepticism is not automatically bad faith, and I really try to make that point clear when I say that most flat earthers are not arguing in bad faith, although their worldview seems to sustain a massive conflict with reality. I would even say that the vast majority of people who argue that climate change is not real do not argue in bad faith, they really believe it. But in both of my examples there _are_ bad faith shills, and they poison the discourse. Bad faith is when your external motives supersede your opinion on the topic. Good faith is engaging directly with the topic. Another example: If someone is arguing that abortion should be illegal because it is dangerous for the woman, and they believe this because a friend of theirs was injured in an abortion, or because they heard it on Fox news, they are making an argument in good faith. For whatever reason, they really believe in the risk to the health of the woman. If someone is making the same argument, after understanding the statistics on abortion and childbirth, because they care about the life of the unborn child, they are making an argument in bad faith. Their feelings about the effects of abortion are motivating an argument about the safety of abortion. I never said it was easy to distinguish - but clearly bad-faith skepticism exists. If you leave it be it will poison discourse. Engaging with and understanding the worldviews of people you are discussing with is expensive and it is painful if the person on the other side has no intention of engaging with your or even their own arguments.