11 ms·

These two items have always been true, they do not describe the future. For instance: "If I take position A on something and you take position B, it's possibl

These two items have always been true, they do not describe the future. For instance: "If I take position A on something and you take position B, it's possible that we can both believe the other person is conversing in good faith." There are only 8 or 9 people in the world with whom I can have good and challenging conversations. I have to know they are arguing in good faith. I don't waste my time arguing with someone who might be arguing in bad faith. I don't waste my time arguing with someone who is lying, or who doesn't believe in anything they themselves say, or who is simply trying to manipulate me, or who is simply trying to insult me, or whose idea of veritable fact is utterly different from my own. There are also those who are simply engaged in mental work so different from my own that I would have to devote years of study before I could understand them, and I have no interest in investing those years. Gödel's incompleteness theorems remind us that for any given system of axioms there will be statements that are true but which cannot be proven true using only the given axioms. If I were to waste time engaging such people in conversation then they might end up saying something that is logically consistent but it would take me several years of effort to figure out that their statement was logically consistent, and without investing those years of effort, it simply sounds like they are speaking nonsense. But I don't have enough lifetimes to figure that out. Therefore, challenging conversations, that are personally useful, have always been limited to small groups of people. Likewise: "I think there's a future for folks who self-organize into interlocking circles of trust." That is the way things have worked for humans for at least 10,000 years. We self-organize into interlocking circles of trust. That's how circles of friendship work.

dgf49 4y ago
IMHO very strong statements are always wrong -> "Therefore, challenging conversations, that are personally useful, have always been limited to small groups of people.".
- ever1337 4y ago
  very strong statements are always wrong -> "very strong statements are always wrong"
  - rnd0 4y ago
    ONLY a sith deals in absolutes!
  - dctoedt 4y ago
    "All categorical statements are bad, including this one."
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      "All categorial statements are false, including this one"
- bsder 4y ago
  > IMHO very strong statements are always wrong History seem contradict that and to demonstrate that the conservative, quiet "middle" is almost always wrong over time. The only people who are eventually "right" are invariably considered to have strong opinions and to be fringe by the "middle". This is almost tautological. The "middle" is where we are right now and "more right" is, by definition, not where were are right now.
  - 324tgresgw 4y ago
    Let's assume this is true for a moment. Then the issue is that you don't know which is which, a priori. Most strong statements end up false, eventually. The statements that eventually end up right may have been strong all along, but most of their strong cousins will eventually end up wrong instead. Consequently, the cautious approach is to be skeptical of strong statements, since they will likely turn out false. (I'm also not sure that the initial assumption is actually true. There are tons of examples where the strong statements have not prevailed. Remember those saying Covid-19 is a killer virus, decimating billions? Or that it's no big deal? Turned out neither. It was bad, but not that bad.)
    - bsder 4y ago
      Most strong statements end up false. Even more weak statements wind up false. "Weak statements" have no inherently better Bayesian prior to being more true than "strong statements".
      - 324tgresgw 4y ago
        I'd claim the opposite. The weaker a statement, the more flexible it is. A pretty much maximally weak statement is "something will or will not happen". It's true with 100% certainty. And it's quite useless, since it doesn't actually state anything meaningful. The more concrete and thus stronger you make a statement, the more you risk it turning up false. There are certainly outliers and exception, but there should be a pretty good correlation between strength of a statement and its likelihood of eventually not turning out true.
    - 4y ago
rnd0 4y ago
>I don't waste my time arguing with someone who might be arguing in bad faith. I don't waste my time arguing with someone who is lying, or who doesn't believe in anything they themselves say, or who is simply trying to manipulate me, or who is simply trying to insult me, or whose idea of veritable fact is utterly different from my own. THANK YOU! Seriously, 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'? 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? I mean, I can understand that ideal back in the days of kuro5hin when Rusty was naively asking his trolls to tell him if they felt the need to attack k5 (and then nights in white satin happened...)...but that was almost a fucking quarter of a century ago! To hold out that kind of naivete in 2010 -much less 2023, is idiotic to be quite honest. Obviously I don't advocate for some thunderdome style noise factory -more to the point I think it's on us to be aware that we're dealing with adversarys, keep our emotions in check (don't be baited) and do our own part to keep the conversation from descending into chan style flamage. But assume good faith? Hell to the fucking naw -gtfo with that noise!
- naasking 4y ago
  > 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.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    Don’t “assume” either one. Use the evidence you have and your own intellect to discriminate between the two.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      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.
seydor 4y ago
> or who doesn't believe in anything they themselves say, Disagree with this. I think it is important in conversation to attempt to defend all alternate views even without believing them > We self-organize into interlocking circles of trust. That's how circles of friendship work. circles of friendship are ~100-150 people , but if we look at recent decades, in the most advanced economies people freely choose to be atomized while using use the State (~millions of people) as their support network.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  "while using use the State (~millions of people) as their support network" That is such a misreading of what I wrote I have to wonder if you are being deliberately obtuse. I wrote "There are only 8 or 9 people in the world with whom I can have good and challenging conversations." I think it was clear what scale and type of conversation I was discussing.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    It looks to me as if they’re stating their own view of a point you brought up, not reformulating what you stated. If you want good faith discussions the best way would probably be to apply the principle of charity[1] and allow for the other person to engage in the discussion by also adding their own thoughts on the topic, not just sticking to your points slavishly - that would hardly allow for either refutation nor insight. It’s not all about you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
why does the person have to believe what they're saying? isn't that Socrates method or devil's advocate? you have to explore both sides even if you're leaning the other way

dgf49 4y ago

IMHO very strong statements are always wrong -> "Therefore, challenging conversations, that are personally useful, have always been limited to small groups of people.".

ever1337 4y ago
very strong statements are always wrong -> "very strong statements are always wrong"
- rnd0 4y ago
  ONLY a sith deals in absolutes!
- dctoedt 4y ago
  "All categorical statements are bad, including this one."
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    "All categorial statements are false, including this one"
bsder 4y ago
> IMHO very strong statements are always wrong History seem contradict that and to demonstrate that the conservative, quiet "middle" is almost always wrong over time. The only people who are eventually "right" are invariably considered to have strong opinions and to be fringe by the "middle". This is almost tautological. The "middle" is where we are right now and "more right" is, by definition, not where were are right now.
- 324tgresgw 4y ago
  Let's assume this is true for a moment. Then the issue is that you don't know which is which, a priori. Most strong statements end up false, eventually. The statements that eventually end up right may have been strong all along, but most of their strong cousins will eventually end up wrong instead. Consequently, the cautious approach is to be skeptical of strong statements, since they will likely turn out false. (I'm also not sure that the initial assumption is actually true. There are tons of examples where the strong statements have not prevailed. Remember those saying Covid-19 is a killer virus, decimating billions? Or that it's no big deal? Turned out neither. It was bad, but not that bad.)
  - bsder 4y ago
    Most strong statements end up false. Even more weak statements wind up false. "Weak statements" have no inherently better Bayesian prior to being more true than "strong statements".
    - 324tgresgw 4y ago
      I'd claim the opposite. The weaker a statement, the more flexible it is. A pretty much maximally weak statement is "something will or will not happen". It's true with 100% certainty. And it's quite useless, since it doesn't actually state anything meaningful. The more concrete and thus stronger you make a statement, the more you risk it turning up false. There are certainly outliers and exception, but there should be a pretty good correlation between strength of a statement and its likelihood of eventually not turning out true.
  - 4y ago

rnd0 4y ago

>I don't waste my time arguing with someone who might be arguing in bad faith. I don't waste my time arguing with someone who is lying, or who doesn't believe in anything they themselves say, or who is simply trying to manipulate me, or who is simply trying to insult me, or whose idea of veritable fact is utterly different from my own. THANK YOU! Seriously, 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'? 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? I mean, I can understand that ideal back in the days of kuro5hin when Rusty was naively asking his trolls to tell him if they felt the need to attack k5 (and then nights in white satin happened...)...but that was almost a fucking quarter of a century ago! To hold out that kind of naivete in 2010 -much less 2023, is idiotic to be quite honest. Obviously I don't advocate for some thunderdome style noise factory -more to the point I think it's on us to be aware that we're dealing with adversarys, keep our emotions in check (don't be baited) and do our own part to keep the conversation from descending into chan style flamage. But assume good faith? Hell to the fucking naw -gtfo with that noise!

naasking 4y ago
> 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.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Don’t “assume” either one. Use the evidence you have and your own intellect to discriminate between the two.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    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.

seydor 4y ago

> or who doesn't believe in anything they themselves say, Disagree with this. I think it is important in conversation to attempt to defend all alternate views even without believing them > We self-organize into interlocking circles of trust. That's how circles of friendship work. circles of friendship are ~100-150 people , but if we look at recent decades, in the most advanced economies people freely choose to be atomized while using use the State (~millions of people) as their support network.

lkrubner 4y ago
"while using use the State (~millions of people) as their support network" That is such a misreading of what I wrote I have to wonder if you are being deliberately obtuse. I wrote "There are only 8 or 9 people in the world with whom I can have good and challenging conversations." I think it was clear what scale and type of conversation I was discussing.
- brigandish 4y ago
  It looks to me as if they’re stating their own view of a point you brought up, not reformulating what you stated. If you want good faith discussions the best way would probably be to apply the principle of charity[1] and allow for the other person to engage in the discussion by also adding their own thoughts on the topic, not just sticking to your points slavishly - that would hardly allow for either refutation nor insight. It’s not all about you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago

why does the person have to believe what they're saying? isn't that Socrates method or devil's advocate? you have to explore both sides even if you're leaning the other way