Good faith vs Bad faith

So yes.

― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Friday, 31 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Feeling this is bad faith from you

Its more that he has decided what I've said before I've said it.

I initially put the 'blame' on him for this (and there is some to go there don't get me wrong). But I've also had to think, well what can I do to try and make that not the case). In some ways the phyiscal reactions, body language, signs of irritation, tone of voice, he's using those as cues and much of the conversation is actually happening there (and for me it must be too). So when I say he's already decided what I've said before I've said it, maybe thats only partially true and whats actually happening is he's listening to my mannerisms and speech patterns more so than my words, And even if I'm speaking as neutrally as possible and aiming to not give away visual cues, if my underlying mode is to win, then thats still obvious, more obvious than any words that might be said

This is really what I've gradually tried to jettison, the focus on being right, and to try and get more towards understandings

I think it’s possible for people to hold un-PC beliefs / beliefs that I find reprehensible and not necessarily be acting in bad faith when they argue them.

Of course it is. Most people would say Richard Spencer argue in good faith? Its right there on the tin. Someone like Tim Pool on the other hand..

I assume everyone is arguing in good faith unless they’re obviously trying to speak to/influence an audience - ie arguing with one person on Twitter but it’s actually for the benefit of 500k followers who will see it.

'bad faith' to me is when you really believe one thing, but you aren't comfortable admitting it, so you go for the plausible deniability of objecting on procedural grounds ("I don't have a dog in this fight, but I question the logic you're using here!") or sea-lioning ("I'm not against Black Lives Matter, but why not a more open-tent approach?") in an attempt to chip away at the opposition so that you can win the debate through attrition (the other person flipping out at you or retreating).

like that one Hendrix vs Van Halen thread when a few people were saying it was obviously Hendrix who was a better guitarist, and St3v3 Goldb3rg started arguing with these people, saying that it's fine to find Hendrix better, but you can't use bad logic and poorly constructed arguments like he alleged they were. but then after pushback he admitted he just thought Van Halen was better and that was his real M.O..

In my lexicon, arguing in "bad faith" does not equate to employing an indefensible argument, based in ignorance. Ignorance itself is not a form of bad faith. Rather, it means knowingly employing a weak or false argument and adhering to it in the face of contrary facts and a stronger argument structured around those facts. iow, at the point where your interlocutor begins to deny the relevance of a reality contrary to their position they've entered the wonderful world of bad faith arguing.

An example that comes easily to hand is when "death with dignity" laws are being opposed on specious and false grounds, such as the slippery slope argument that it is just a preliminary step to euthanasia of the old and disabled. Such laws have been in existence for decades now and no such slippery slope has appeared. Pointing out this reality should result in their rethinking and retracting the slippery slope. If they say "that proves nothing", then they are committing to asserting a non-existent reality, based on no facts observable anywhere. That's instant "bad faith".

'bad faith' to me is when you really believe one thing, but you aren't comfortable admitting it

Contra my boundless optimism in this regard, it does happen all the time on ILX, i.e.

The Official, 100% Anonymous ILX Self-Censorship Poll

Bad Faith is also Earth-2 George Michael's best album

Boolean faith vs Fuzzy faith

For me, there are two criteria for whether I enter a discussion. 1) do I genuinely think that there's a chance that *I* might learn something, through having the discussion? 2) is there a genuine chance that at least one of the people involved might be willing to change their mind? (And the person in criteria 2 might very well be me!)

then after pushback he admitted he just thought Van Halen was better and that was his real M.O

for some reason this is really poignant to me rn -- like, it should become some sort of shorthand to deploy -- a la is this a "Van Halen was better" clusterfuck?

good faith means you’re stating something you believe or are willing to posit while accepting people may disagree, may find disagreeable, or may question your basic assumptions. you don’t have to accept those disagreements, reply to them, or make assumptions about where they are coming from without reasonable discussion

bad faith isn’t necessarily a thing. it comes from dissembling, being unwilling to accept your wording or premises (or even their historical/institutional stance) may have been in error, or that you are posting something you don’t want to be questioned

our words have contexts, sometimes based on past interaction, and insisting that others interact in good faith when you’ve been guilty of any of the above in the past assumes a lot. be kind, perhaps even walk on quiet feet when you’re trying to speak to a group where your words have been unclear in the past. if someone seems unnecessarily aggrieved by your current words, do not take personal offense but consider the past.

tl;dr no knee-jerk reactions to the knee-jerk reactions to those you’ve quarreled with in the past unless they’re universally bad actors. it’s better in that case to play dumb or just ask, not assume

is making an argument that is obviously intended to refer to a specific set of circumstances or an individual person but without stating that -- is that good faith or bad faith? or just passive-aggressive? asking for a friend. ... not to be self-righteous about it, because I have done it as well, but it's uh, impressively self-referential here and now

Bad Faith is also Earth-2 George Michael's best album

my brain read this as Earth doing a George Michael cover album and if someone could get Dylan Carlson on the phone that would be great

xp - I don't think it's either. "Bad faith" (in terms of debate/argument/conversation) is pretty simple, IMO - arguing what you know to be untrue, to serve your desired ends. Bush/Cheney/Powell leading up to Iraq were arguing for it in bad faith, knowing that there were no WMDs or links to al-Qaeda. Your dimwitted cousin who was pro-war was most likely acting in good faith because they believed their leaders were telling them the truth.

The line becomes blurry when you can't tell if someone is stupid or in on it. Joe Rogan is acting in good faith because he's a numbskull; Ben Shapiro is probably acting in bad faith because he either has a career to serve or he's an ideological true believer who's happy to get his followers riled up to serve those ends. But he might actually just be as much of a numbskull as Rogan.

If we're going to accept the premise of 'bad faith' then some, most, or even all of this thread would now appear to qualify. It the 'obviously' in obviously intended is referring to this thread itself it definitely wasn't obvious to me!

If true then yes, soliciting opinions on a specific thing without stating it is a form of bad faith. The removal of specificity can be done with the idea of making something 'clearer' but it is a form of skullduggery. It makes an assumption that the specific is an example of the abstract and asks you to implicitly agree with the premise but without being told thats whats been done

Rogan's position can change of its own accord. Shapiro's would only change by design.

I think a lot of this might actually be about how zoomed in or out you are. eg if your position is scousers are thieves and you use a particular example of a theft as evidence knowing it not to be true. Its bad faith in that you're arguing something you know not to be true - but you don't care because its handy evidence and it will do, and you think bigger picture 'all scousers are thieves' is true regardless of this one particular scouser, so it becomes true in the abstract even if not in the specific.

So whether its bad faith or not starts to depend on your stance (pointing out this particular case isn't a scouser becomes nitpicking)

If true then yes, soliciting opinions on a specific thing without stating it is a form of bad faith. The removal of specificity can be done with the idea of making something 'clearer' but it is a form of skullduggery. It makes an assumption that the specific is an example of the abstract and asks you to implicitly agree with the premise but without being told thats whats been done

Anvil, you're very perceptive. I get caught out by this a lot. It's a form of bait and switch.

I took the topic of the thread seriously, thought about specific examples in recent conversations I had decided to have or not have (and weirdly, none of them were conversations on ILX? One was a private twitter DM thread I decided to engage; the other was a set of private DMs on another messageboard where I noped out of the conversation when it became apparent in which direction it was going.) That I was using it as a place to think carefully about my own actions, without realising that others were using it as a soap box to give their opinions on others' actions!

I did not see that possibility, and I now feel foolish about that. It's always a shock to realise that I am seeing one set of contexts, while other people are working with a completely different set of contexts that did not occur to me. (And it's completely mutual, that my context is as obscure and inexplicable to them, as theirs are to me.) As an autistic person, grasping the contents of other people's minds can be *incredibly* difficult. It's like being inside a very specific kind of philosophical solipsism all the time. (Which some people choose to read as narcissism, which... you know, whatever.) But the blithe assumptions that others make about the contents of my own mind, and put forward as the truth - since diagnosis, I am at least aware that I have little grasp on other people's interior worlds - but they seem genuinely unaware that they don't have a grasp on mine, either.

When I am having an Actual Discussion, and not just ~messageboard chit-chat~ I really do try to discuss the background and context of each word in the original question, to make sure that that the actual argument under discussion is clear to both parties. ("Do you belive in god?" well, what does 'you' mean, what does 'believe' mean, what does 'god' mean? Once we are in agreement on those words, then I can answer the question.) That a discussion where two people are using the same words with different contexts and interpretations may not actually *be* bad faith, even though it sure can feel like it. But an argument where one person is deliberately using one word or context in a way that obscures other meanings or contexts they are still continuing to draw on (or deny) is bad faith from the start?

This comes up a lot in litigation — I tend to think of a “good faith” argument as one that has some reasonable basis in the law or the facts even if it could be wrong, whereas a “bad faith” argument is one where you just willfully ignore contradictory facts or law. Like the other day I took a deposition and I asked the guy “Did CrookedCo ever have a policy against doing x?” And he said “Absolutely not, we never had any policy against that.” And then I showed him an email in which he wrote “We at CrookedCo do not do x, please keep this confidential.”

He was trying to claim that it wasn’t really a “policy” but that email made it a bad faith argument imo.

This comes up a lot in litigation — I tend to think of a “good faith” argument as one that has some reasonable basis in the law or the facts even if it could be wrong, whereas a “bad faith” argument is one where you just willfully ignore contradictory facts or law.

This is consistent with U.S. tax practice as well -- though there are a bunch of different metrics about how "good" one's faith in based on percentages of likelihood that it would be accepted/accurate. ... Most of this w/r/t to the tax code is relevant to what type of citation and fine you can get if the IRS/tax court disagrees with your position. Basically the penalties for making a good faith mistake are much lower than those for making bad faith mistakes, which may/may not constitute "tax fraud" -- where the penalties for preparers / agents / attorneys are the equivalent often of being dis-barred from doing tax work.

example related to run-of-the-mill stuff:

tax pro: how many miles did you drive for your business?
client: 25,000
tax pro: that's a lot of miles! are you sure that's a good estimate of the total for the year 2019?
client: oh yeah
tax pro: *puts 25,000 business miles on client's return, which at the standard mileage rate is approximately a $13,000 deduction, and could save the client anywhere from $2k to $10k in taxes

tax pro is obligated to take what client reports in good faith, and assume that client is being honest ... unless there are facts and circumstances that indicate what the client is reporting isn't accurate, facts and circumstances the tax pro would be a complete idiot if they were to ignore. Like (these are common):
1. client told tax pro that they didn't own a car
2. client reported travel expenses with a lot of it being the cost of rental vehicles
3. client's business doesn't entail much driving, but they also have a job where they are paid as an employee and have a long commute
4. client tells tax pro their previous accountant used to help them make up numbers and invent expenses so they wouldn't owe taxes

If you were tax pro and got one or more of these answers from your client and still accepted that 25,000 miles number without digging further ... then that would probably be bad faith on the part of the tax pro

When I input everything into the Quicken nothing flashed red so... that's got to mean everything's OK, right?

hahah -- ok sorry for day job-posting

xpost hai Skylar

???

Kinder's quote is from Breaking Bad I think........or very similar

yeah sorry sarah! In Breaking Bad {{{spoiler alert}}}

Skylar avoids getting done for tax fraud or something by acting the ditz

ohhhhhhhh i need to rewatch that show

Getting threads locked where arguments are happening and genuine issues as to your behavior are being raised doesn’t seem like good faith imho

I can see why someone who feels entitled to set the terms of every conversation they are involved in would feel entitled to end those conversations too

There’s actually an easier way of ending the conversation though which is leaving

Which is what I was gonna do until we went around asking mods to lock a thread as soon as someone points out that we are being a dick

But as previously mentioned I’m a big idiot not earth’s most advanced thinker

So... lock this one too?

I dunno man!!!!

You tell me, the notorious dumbass

you could just move the argument to another thread if you want to continue discussing it ...

i mean, this is ILX, you can even appropriate a dormant sub-board for your purposes!

silbs, here ya go:
https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=74

What’s wrong with this thread tbh

i suppose, nothing, tbh -- just, y'know, I Love Computers could be yours if you have the ambition

I hate computers tho

I was hoping for the summarise Cerebus thread tbh

aardvark, surrealism, misogyny, profit?

ugh I did not know about the misogyny. Led Zeppelin? ugh maybe we should just move to I Love Computers.

wasn't that a major critique of Dave Sim/Cerebus -- the misogyny? I haven't read it in like 25 years

tbf I am pretty sure the “I Love Computers” board was named as such in bad faith

i realize i have an entrepreneurial spirit which is oft associated with capitalism and i apologize for suggesting silbs expand his domain to the dormant subboard of I Love Computers