Letting trolling dickheads wander about has never backfired for this community, I say let him stay.
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What is the distinction between ābad-faith,ā ātrolling,ā and just posting right-wing shit?
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whether he believes it or not is independent of whether heās acting in good or bad faith
Really? I think believing it is definitely positively correlated with good faith. Itās possible to believe something and post in bad faith (and I did say that he will do that on occasion). But I think that most of the time people who are true believers are mostly posting in good faith.
Unless youāre defining good faith/bad faith very differently from how I am.
thereās the ābad faith argumentā in the sense of some sort of reverse strawman, using proxy positions to hide what you actually believe, and thereās more of what Iām thinking of, a bad faith action, where you āparticipateā in a ādebateā not for the purpose of exchanging ideas and considering but for spewing talking points.
I see. Every time I use bad faith, I meant ābad faith argumentā.
As far as bad faith action. I guess that is possible. I just donāt see what purpose it would serve here. Even Kelhus is not dumb enough to think that spewing talking points here is going to accomplish anything. There are definitely other places on the interwebs where I could see that advancing someoneās agenda.
Weāre spending a bunch of our time here posting memes and mocking people. I think diverting some % of that time to arguing with a right-winger is useful and productive. Even if convincing him is fruitless and he might be participating with the nebulous notion of bad-faith, Iām pretty certain that the types of arguments he uses will be similar to those used by someone who isnāt. And when it comes time to meet that man you might not be able to tell the difference.
Thatās fine, and thereās definitely some value in refuting the arguments for the benefit of lurkers and passers by, but going 12 rounds with him is a huge waste. One which Iāve been guilty of a gazillion times, but do as I say and such.
For anyone following along in these recent discussions and wondering where absolutely terrible political ideas come from, this is very instructive. This right here sounds very reasonable on itās surface, but it is an absolutely awful way to go about learning about the world and identifying solutions to problems. Rhetorical skill is not reason. Rhetorical skill is not knowledge. Imagine a world where we do NOT build bridges based on the designs of the engineer that uses sound engineering principles, developed on decades to centuries of materials science and proven physical sciences concepts, and meticulously prepared and reviewed calculations. No, instead what we will do is build bridges based on the plans of the engineer with the most persuasive rhetorical skills. Who would be happy to drive over that bridge?
When you turn any kind of debate, including political debate, into a duel of competing rhetoric you are practically guaranteed to reach incorrect conclusions. You will dismiss the relevant information of people that are experts but that donāt suit what you want to be true, and you will latch onto liars that provoke your most base instincts. At best you will have a wildly distorted view of the world. More likely you will become an unwilling mouthpieces for liars and charlatans that will manipulate you into advancing their agenda.
If anyone is considering approaching politics (or learning about anything else) in that absolutely horrible way, please donāt start. If you are already doing it, then stop. This is literally making Both Sides and Whatabout the foundation of your understanding of the world. Donāt be an idiot.
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Just skimmed, but I am a fellow Los Angeleno who has had to rush home due to a hostile homeless person banging on my homeās door (in my case it wasnāt my wife at home, it was a babysitter with my four year old - this was many years back). I donāt know any of my local 7-11ās hours. Anyway, the homeless situation in LA is clearly out of control and extremely tragic. Iād like to hear this guyās proposed solutions.
Also, the gangs within the Sheriffās department are indeed a product of their environment - an environment where cops are above the law and thereās zero accountability. Blaming these gangs on liberal policies is some seriously lol stuff.
i see you are using rhetorical devices in your manifesto. Who is the Charlatan now???!!!
/jk. good post. although experts can stand to learn how to be engaging as well, instead of yelling scientist lady from Dont look up.
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You seem to be working under the paradigm this is some sort of competition, and all understanding/insight is preset and static, and the discussion itself is just a game of rhetoric. That isnāt what I was suggesting. I believe you can actually reach a deeper level of insight and understanding, and even discover errors, flushing out ideas. Especially with people you may disagree with.
If you disagree, then that is fine.
Kind of a depressing post (sad but not surprising that it got so many likes). Listening to arguments and choosing based on the available info is literally how I make every decision in life. Of course expertise, evidence, and knowledge is important. But if an engineer canāt explain why his principles are more sound than another engineerās, thatās at least partially on him. This is one of the principal ways of defining and evaluating expertise! Or itās on the listener for being fooled by the flawed arguments of the fraud engineer. You appear to be advocating for decision-making in the vein of - appeal to authority and close the book on everything else - which I promise you is a much more dangerous approach to solving problems than a free exchange of ideas.
Surely a big part of winning any debate is citing experts, submitting relevant evidence, and displaying sound reasoning skills.
Geez man, there are more than two sides in any political discussion. Choosing to be on āone sideā because you donāt like the āother side,ā or shutting yourself off to new information because youāve already reached your desired conclusion aināt the way to go.
You want to be listening to reasoned arguments backed up by demonstrable facts. Thatās the point.
No, Iām advocating for appeal to facts.
Iām not suggesting any of this. āSidesā or positions or whatever, claims and assertions, need to be backed up with facts and research and testing. This shouldnāt be controversial.
I guess weāre in agreement then. Iād assume than any serious political debate would be largely fact-based (though obviously not true when debating against the foxnews crowd).
Thatās ā¦ the whole point.
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But your post was railing against the idea of debate/political debate as a whole?
Unfortunately, there are 5 bad actors furiously mashing the F5 key waiting for me to āexpose my levelā (or whatever the exact term is, I forget), and then predictably they will come rushing in with faux moral outrage and accusations of racism, sexism, etc. And the entire thing will completely derail and I will most likely end up banned. So there really is no point in even going down this road.
I will say that IMO there are some very big macro conditions (breakdown of nuclear family, loss of blue collar jobs, trade imbalance, debt leverage, immigration) that need to be addressed before addressing the micro stuff. And the second we get bogged down in micro culture war issues we have lost the plot.
If you think that societal pathologies can and will be fixed by putting big rock issues on the back seat and and focusing first on culture war issues such as āwhite supremacyā and ātoxic masculinityā and āpolice gangs,ā then we will have to agree to disagree on whether any real progress can be made this way.
Suffice to say, IMO the āwar on poverty/homelessness/mental illnessā is starting to mirror in many ways the āwar on drugsā where it seems to exist mainly just to serve itself, and despite massive resource deployment no real progress is ever made. And the insistence we need to keep doubling down on ideas that arenāt working at all will yield very predictable non-results.
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