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Comment by zero_shift | Hacker News Reader

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

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> 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.

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.

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