Also, I doubt Torres is writing in bad faith exactly. âBad faithâ to me has connotations of âis saying stuff they know to be untrueâ, when with Torres Iâm sure he believes what heâs saying heâs just angry about it, and anger biases.
My model is, he has a number of frustrations with EA. That on its own isnât a big deal. There are plenty of valid, invalid, and arguable gripes with various aspects of EA.
But he also has a major bucket error where the concept of âfar-rightâ is applied to a much bigger Category of bad stuff. Since some aspects of EA & longtermism seem to be X to him, and X goes in the Category, and stuff in the Category is far-right, EA must have far-right aspects. To inform people of the problem, he writes articles claiming theyâre far-right.
If EAâs say his claims are factually false, he thinks the respondents are fooling themselves. After all, theyâre ignoring his wider point that EA has stuff from the Category, in favor of the nitpicky technicalities of his examples. He may even think theyâre trying to motte & bailey people into thinking EA & longtermism canât possibly have X. To me, it sounds like his narrative is now that heâs waging a PR battle against Bad Guys.
Iâm not sure what the Category is, though.
At first I thought it was an entirely emotional thing- stuff that make him sufficiently angry, or a certain flavor of angry, or anything where he canât verbalize why it makes him angry, are assumed to be far-right. But I donât think that fits his actions. I donât expect many people can decide âthis makes me mad, so itâs full of white supremacy and other illsâ, run a years-long vendetta on that basis, and still have a nuanced conversation about which parts arenât bad.
Now I think X has a âshapeâ- with time & motivation, in a safe environment, Torres could give a consistent definition of what X is and isnât. And with more of those, he could explain what it is & why he hates it without any references to far-right stuff. Maybe he could even do an ELI5 of why X goes in the same Category as far right stuff in the first place. But not much chance of this actually happening, since it requires him being vulnerable with a mistrusted representative of the Bad Guys.
Yes, iâm always unsure of what âbad faithâ really means. I often see it cited as a main reason to engage or not engage with an argument. But I donât know why it should matter to me what a writer or journalist intends deep down. I would hope that âgood faithâ doesnât just mean aligned on overall goals already.
To be more specific, i keep seeing reference hidden context behind Phil Torresâs pieces. To someone who doesnât have the time to read through many cryptic old threads, it just makes me skeptical that the bad faith criticism is useful in discounting or not discounting an argument.
Have you ever had conversations where someone has misrepresented everything youâve said or where they kept implying that you were a bad person every time you disagreed with them?
Also, I doubt Torres is writing in bad faith exactly. âBad faithâ to me has connotations of âis saying stuff they know to be untrueâ, when with Torres Iâm sure he believes what heâs saying heâs just angry about it, and anger biases.
Agreed.
My model is, he has a number of frustrations with EA. That on its own isnât a big deal. There are plenty of valid, invalid, and arguable gripes with various aspects of EA.
But he also has a major bucket error where the concept of âfar-rightâ is applied to a much bigger Category of bad stuff. Since some aspects of EA & longtermism seem to be X to him, and X goes in the Category, and stuff in the Category is far-right, EA must have far-right aspects. To inform people of the problem, he writes articles claiming theyâre far-right.
If EAâs say his claims are factually false, he thinks the respondents are fooling themselves. After all, theyâre ignoring his wider point that EA has stuff from the Category, in favor of the nitpicky technicalities of his examples. He may even think theyâre trying to motte & bailey people into thinking EA & longtermism canât possibly have X. To me, it sounds like his narrative is now that heâs waging a PR battle against Bad Guys.
Iâm not sure what the Category is, though.
At first I thought it was an entirely emotional thing- stuff that make him sufficiently angry, or a certain flavor of angry, or anything where he canât verbalize why it makes him angry, are assumed to be far-right. But I donât think that fits his actions. I donât expect many people can decide âthis makes me mad, so itâs full of white supremacy and other illsâ, run a years-long vendetta on that basis, and still have a nuanced conversation about which parts arenât bad.
Now I think X has a âshapeâ- with time & motivation, in a safe environment, Torres could give a consistent definition of what X is and isnât. And with more of those, he could explain what it is & why he hates it without any references to far-right stuff. Maybe he could even do an ELI5 of why X goes in the same Category as far right stuff in the first place. But not much chance of this actually happening, since it requires him being vulnerable with a mistrusted representative of the Bad Guys.
Yes, iâm always unsure of what âbad faithâ really means. I often see it cited as a main reason to engage or not engage with an argument. But I donât know why it should matter to me what a writer or journalist intends deep down. I would hope that âgood faithâ doesnât just mean aligned on overall goals already.
To be more specific, i keep seeing reference hidden context behind Phil Torresâs pieces. To someone who doesnât have the time to read through many cryptic old threads, it just makes me skeptical that the bad faith criticism is useful in discounting or not discounting an argument.
Have you ever had conversations where someone has misrepresented everything youâve said or where they kept implying that you were a bad person every time you disagreed with them?