Even if they have good motives, it’s sometimes difficult. You cannot keep compensating for other people’s deficiencies. You are not Atlas to be able to bear the weight of the whole world.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Some people would like to see themselves as good people with good intentions but all too often their actions are actively counterproductive, a la The Shirky Principle that organizations tend to keep alive the problem they were created to address.

Some people just have broken mental models and then fail to update them when their efforts consistently prove "this does not actually work." We all make mistakes, but if you keep making the same mistake without any improvement, at some point others should stop making excuses for you.

Yes, intentions =/= faith, the article has that, too, even including ones' own ego:

Put Error to Work

> But let’s never, never, cover up error with the misguided thought that we must protect someone — either our brother, or our department, or our own pet ego. The recognition of error and its examination, if openly talked of, is a sure way to avoid its being repeated, either by the same man or by others. Everyone errs at one time or another. The Company pays for it. Okay. But the Company should not have to pay twice. Nor should other men be denied the benefit of warning-signs.

Yeah I don’t agree you can make or should attempt to have a universal policy to follow in your interactions with others. The situation matters , the relationship to the person matters. Those two variables can branch off to policies. Interacting with any stranger in real life for example - What about the cost benefit analysis of these interactions. Benefit - in my entire life I can say I never received any longstanding benefit. Costs - throughout my life I have incurred an incredible amount of trouble and problems from interacting with strangers when I have not instigated the interaction. Therefore you should assume bad faith even danger and not interact going forward for all strangers that approach you.

I take it as “your communication assumes good motives” which is not “you assume good motives”

I think most people have good motives based on their world view and this will work.

Assuming good motives can help you uncover them.

For example the “asshole” at work who seems to be blocking you - they might have good reasons you can explore.

Of course their are liars, scammers, psychopaths. If possible cut ties otherwise you have to consider dealing with them tactically.

None if this is easy though!

You no longer need to make an assumption once there is proof otherwise.

Agreed. "Assume good faith" is a good rule in absence of other evidence.

But "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" is also true.

In written communication CYA will usually trump "Assume good motives"

Corollary: even with the proviso it can pay to "pretend assume good faith". Give them enough rope to hang themselves.

I think when you don't "pretend assume good faith", you end up making less convincing counter arguments, and communicate less well in general, plus many other negative things.

It's especially important when there are people reading or listening who don't recognize the bad faith.

> But if they explicitly tell you they have hostile motives or the preponderance of the evidence suggests such,

... you don't have to assume, right? So I see no reason it is overly contradicting and would render that rule void.

Over here, to assume good faith is required by law to be the standard mode, you have to expect it otherwise society would crumble. IMHO you can't take and stress this far enough, and I can't imagine where it can be taken too far. But yes, please don't ignore your intellect.

Once the assumption of good faith is broken, the conversation is basically fucked anyway. May as well say goodbye (if you want to be helpful to subsequent passerby-by, leave a note about why you think the other person isn’t engaging in good faith, so subsequent passers-by don’t end up taking their arguments too seriously).

> often called assume good faith on HN

It's a stock phrase, but it gained popularity online because of its use in Wikipedia. HN hadn't existed yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Assume_...

I believe OP is pointing out that the culture on HN uses a different phrasing than the article, not that it originated here.