Comment by egeozcan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by egeozcan | Hacker News Reader

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IMHO, you should deal with actual events, when not ideas, instead of people. No two people share the exact same values.

For example, you assume that guy trying to cut the line is a horrible person and a megalomaniac because you've seen this like a thousand times. He really may be that, or maybe he's having an extraordinarily stressful day, or maybe he's just not integrated with the values of your society ("cutting the line is bad, no matter what") or anything else BUT none of all that really helps you think clearly. You just get angry and maybe raise your voice when you're warning him, because "you know" he won't understand otherwise. So you left your values now too because you are busy fighting a stereotype.

IMHO, correct course of action is assuming good faith even with bad actions, and even with persistent bad actions, and thinking about the productive things you can do to change the outcome, or decide that you cannot do anything.

You can perhaps warn the guy, and then if he ignores you, you can even go to security or pick another hill to die on.

I'm not saying that I can do this myself. I fail a lot, especially when driving. It doesn't mean I'm not working on it.

I used to think like this, and it does seem morally sound at first glance, but it has the big underlying problem of creating an excellent context in which to be a selfish asshole.

Turns out that calling someone on their bullshit can be a perfectly productive thing to do, it not only deals with that specific incident, but also promotes a culture in which it's fine to keep each other accountable.

You cannot call all the bullshit. You need to call what's important for you. That defines your values.

It's also important to base your actions on what's at hand, not teaching a lesson to "those people".

I think they're both good points. An unwillingness to call out bullshit itself leads to a systemic dysfunction but on the flip side a culture where everyone just rages at everything simply isn't productive. Pragmatically, it's important to optimize for the desired end result. I think that's generally going to be fixing the system first and foremost.

It's also important to recognize that there are a lot of situations where calling someone out isn't going to have any (useful) effect. In such cases any impulsive behavior that disrupts the environment becomes a net negative.

I honestly think this would qualify as "ruinous empathy"

It's fine and even good to assume good faith, extend your understanding, and listen to the reasons someone has done harm - in a context where the problem was already redressed and the wrongdoer is labelled.

This is not that. This is someone publishing a false paper, deceiving multiple rounds of reviewers, manipulating evidence, knowingly and for personal gain. And they still haven't faced any consequences for it.

I don't really know how to bridge the moral gap with this sort of viewpoint, honestly. It's like you're telling me to sympathise with the arsonist whilst he's still running around with gasoline

I thought assuming good faith does not mean you have to sympathize. English is not my native language and probably that's not the right concept.

I mean, do not put the others into any stereotype. Assume nothing? Maybe that sounds better. Just look at the hand you are dealt and objectively think what to do.

If there is an arsonist, you deal with that a-hole yourself, call the police, or first try to take your loved ones to safety first?

Getting mad at the arsonist doesn't help.

> I don't really know how to bridge the moral gap with this sort of viewpoint, honestly. It's like you're telling me to sympathise with the arsonist whilst he's still running around with gasoline

That wasn't how I read it. Neither sympathize nor sit around doing nothing. Figure out what you can do that's productive. Yelling at the arsonist while he continues to burn more things down isn't going to be useful.

Assuming good faith tends to be an important thing to start with if the goal is an objective assessment. Of course you should be open to an eventual determination of bad faith. But if you start from an assumption of bad faith your judgment will almost certainly be clouded and thus there is a very real possibility that you will miss useful courses of action.

The above is on an individual level. From an organizational perspective if participants know that a process could result in a bad faith determination against them they are much more likely to actively resist the process. So it can be useful to provide a guarantee that won't happen (at least to some extent) in order to ensure that you can reliably get to the bottom of things. This is what we see in the aviation world and it seems to work extremely well.

When bad behavior has been identified, reported, and repeated - as described in the article - it is no longer eligible for a good faith assumption.

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