OTOH, the bad faith arguers are getting praise in the media, adoration from their peers, popularity, well-paid speaking opportunities, pompous awards and get their bad argument - which is usually much simpler and palatable than a good one - endlessly repeated and praised. Sometimes even taught to large groups of people as the paradigm they have to conform to from now on.

This highlights both a problem an opportunity. How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? How many know what good evidence looks like or how to spot beliefs and assumptions making their way into something?

I would argue that many don't know how to spot or make a good argument. That they can't spot assumptions or what make for good evidence. People are taught something very different and it shows.

Instead I just read through the posters and ended up recognizing several items I probably need to work on myself. The cognitive biases are especially tricky, and it seems the more we learn about neuroscience the more reasons we have to distrust our own thinking!

[1] https://thethinkingshop.org/

Hi unknown friend!

twenty four

Genuine question: how does one keep 24 logical fallacies in mind when evaluating arguments? Do you mentally iterate through all these fallacies?

Don't get me wrong: they are very valid and I think they will make me better and my arguments better. I just want to understand how people without photographic memories do this.

1. The premises are themselves valid: you buy that they are truthful. 2. The argument's logic coheres: when added to your existing beliefs there is no contradiction.

Fallicies manifest through violations of these claims. But you don't have to know the name of that violation to raise a complaint: you can derive it on the spot. Discussing these fallicies mostly acts as a practice tool, and provides a useful bit of jargon if you are writing philosophy and need to convey the idea quickly. But most arguments in online spaces are dismissed with: "the premise is invalid" or "the reasoning is incoherent."

> "This tire is made of rubber, therefore the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber."

The fallacy of division page[1] also has a good one:

> 1. The second grade in Jefferson elementary eats a lot of ice cream

> 2. Carlos is a second-grader in Jefferson elementary

> 3. Therefore, Carlos eats a lot of ice cream

You can also categorise large numbers of common fallacies, for instance fallacies of relevance, and then - which is the larger point about fallacies - you don't need to know which exact fallacy someone has committed (they don't care, for one) but you know it's fallacious because what their argument relies upon is irrelevant.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division

Edit: formatting

A good starting point is https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Z-Nigel-Warburton-ebook/dp/B...

Even if you could spot "good" arguments that really isn't enough without knowing that it's also made in good faith. If the person making an argument doesn't actually believe what they're saying, is arguing with a particular outcome, or is arguing with an ulterior motive like flame-bait then you also shouldn't bother engaging them even if it's well-formed.

I would take a bad argument made in good faith every time over the reverse. People who speak genuinely but are passionate, emotional, or aren't the best at expressing themselves can have productive conversations. Someone who's arguing to win isn't worth your time.

> People who speak genuinely but are passionate, emotional, or aren't the best at expressing themselves can have productive conversations. Someone who's arguing to win isn't worth your time.

If you want to get along in some kind of shallow fashion then the former are better, if you want to find truth or open your mind to possibilities then the latter will outstrip the former by a long way. Both are needed in life but to dismiss either as stupid or bad intentioned seems a stretch.

Perhaps what you object to is being dragged into some messy going-in-circles argument. Those are frustrating but they happen because the good-faith participant tolerates some of the logical fallacies and false information presented by the bad-faith one.

People have a powerful force driving them to argue for the thing they believe in so it makes sense to tap into that force to generate high quality arguments. If everyone was kind of passive and willing to accept whatever seems obviously right, we wouldn't push any boundaries. Being kind of passive can happen if you're not emotionally invested in your argument.

Ultimately, most of our arguments are about solving problems (or pursuing opportunities). Most problems worth arguing at length require collaboration to solve.

I would rather discuss problems and their solutions, and hash out disagreements, with someone who is likely to be a true partner in the implementation of the solution.

Bad faith vs good faith can then be inferred by track records or commitments, same as you would for anything else.

I don't know if you just invented that phrase, but I love it, and it gives me the perfect visual for the general state of online discourse these days.

This, I think is one of the most defining feature of Post-modernism where the notion of truth is challenged.

If every belief and every opinion can be as valid as any other (by virtue of itself) it is really hard to have a debate.

This is kind of a circular reasoning where the existence of the opinion is the proof of it's validity.

"Good faith", "bad faith" labeling is not logical, it's more of an attempt to apply morality and ideology to reasoning to reject something based on your own preferred beliefs and feelings. Similarly illogical is evaluating evidence "from each side", this is not how to evaluate anything, there needs to be some base rate to compare the evidence to and all the evidence has to be compared, not just something cherry picked from each side, and not just evidence, known unknowns and unknown unknowns have to be considered too, and so on. It's way more complicated than people want it to be.

And it's very hard to have good logical arguments not full of fallacies. You will certainly never see them in mass media, as mass media needs to influence your opinion, not provide background for making a good decision.

Daniel Kahneman in his Thinking fast and slow book wrote plenty on reasoning, check it out if you haven't, it'll open your eyes on reasoning (I know the book had some crucial things wrong for his theory, but a lot of things throughout the book are still ok).

There is such a thing as bad faith argument. There is such a thing as lying or manipulating truth so that it sounds like a lie. There is such a thing as throwing as much mud as you can waiting for something to stick.

There are fallacies and mistakes too, sure. There are differences of opinion. But, there is also such a thing as person standing confidently in front of camera making claims or insinuations that person knows are false.

As for private individuals, like posters arguing on the internet, yes they probably tend to believe what they say in the moment. A big problem there, perhaps ironically, is people assuming bad faith about each other.