> The Principle of Charity probably fails within society as a whole, or in open-membership forums with exponential growth, e.g. Reddit or Usenet.
I disagree. It likely won't maintain itself naturally, but I see no reason why it couldn't be maintained with a more substantial enforcement/education initiative. Similarly with overall society - I agree achieving this in a widespread fashion down to the individually is likely possible, but if we could even achieve some compliance from the media, politicians, and experts, I reckon it would go a long way toward improving the current state of affairs.
>> Alt-righters (the real ones) can use the Principle of Charity as cover, cherry-picking their talking points...
Members of every tribe do this, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly. It seems to be an "unavoidable" artifact of the evolution of the human mind. But with some work, I believe this too could be dramatically improved.
The classical "community" being referred to here is academia. The Principle of Charity works within academia. It also works within trade-guilds, member's clubs, etc. Any group with both friction to get in, and the ability to exclude people for bad behavior, filters for there being almost-entirely "well-behaved towards fellow group-members" people inside the group at any given time.
The Principle of Charity can work in open-membership communities, like HN, but only for as long as the community remains a niche community with linear growth.
The Principle of Charity probably fails within society as a whole, or in open-membership forums with exponential growth, e.g. Reddit or Usenet.
And it especially fails when you have people from cultures with conflicting beliefs in the same place. Which is why "diplomacy" was invented: to create a shared "diplomatic pseudo-culture" that diplomats can be members of, such that they share norms with one-another and can communicate in a way their non-diplomat citizens cannot.