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Other peoples' intent is fundamentally unknowable. Labeling someone's speech as "bad-faith" is repackaging an individual's subjective dislike of certain argumen
by Lammy 4y ago
Other peoples' intent is fundamentally unknowable. Labeling someone's speech as "bad-faith" is repackaging an individual's subjective dislike of certain arguments into a justification for denying everyone else the ability to evaluate that argument and make their own individual judgement.
- lazide 4y agoWhich, if there is enough consensus, is generally pretty accurate and saves everyone a whole lot of brain processing. Only so many things can be evaluated and judged a day per person.
- otterley 4y agoFirst of all, we have to make reasonable inferences of intent all the time. Being able to do so lies at the heart of criminal law (see mens rea). We'll never be able to probe into the subjective heart of someone, but we do our best based on available evidence and tolerate the errors, while always trying to converge closer to objective truth. There are plenty of interesting things to talk about in this world. Not all comments are worth publishing or reading; some are deemed more valuable than others. Editorial discretion is one of the distinguishing characteristics of different discussion fora. Just like you could read a different newspaper if you disagreed with the editorial bent of one, a great thing about the Internet is that you can always start your own forum if you disagree with the editorial choices of an existing forum owner. And the startup costs are a whole lot lower, too.