There are few things I’m afraid of more than a man that thinks himself righteous, because there is very little that such a man would be unwilling to do.

So it makes sense to be cautious when I find myself feeling like one, or being pulled along by the emotions of another who does.

You're not wrong about the danger posed, but take a step back and consider who this attitude helps. The greatest beneficiaries of a culture in which good faith and civility are unconditionally granted for fear of misguided righteous anger is a paradise for fraudsters and bad faith actors. I think we're seeing that world now.

Spot on. Leaders in my company love to tout the line "assume good faith". If you say anything that indicates someone else is not operating in good faith, you are deemed the bad actor. This allows bad actors to run absolutely rampant.

You can assume good faith initially without having to tolerate a bad actor who invalidates that assumption.

It seems like your company leadership missed that part of the lesson.

I would argue that there's an incentive to "miss" that part of the lesson.

For people who abuse the concept, sure. Again, that's just evidence that you're clear to drop the initial assumption.

This is a good point. I tend to be careful not to fall into this trap myself, but it doesn't really do any good to call it out in public. it ends up empowering the bad actors. Thank you for this awareness.

That's the same line of reasoning racists use to justify their hatred. I will not have a part in it.

This is almost random its such an odd response. Unconditionally granting good faith should be given to people because... racism.

Do you know the amount of times I've been lectured about "Holocaust Privilege" using the same line of logic? Because I don't, I have long lost count.

There's a depressingly common tactic of using the Holocaust to defend current genocide and atrocities, one that has been very effective until recently. It's exactly the kind of strategy that always assuming good faith allows for, and what I'm warning against. Unfortunately, the backlash against allowing bad actors to use victims as a shield is emboldening bigots. Another knock-on danger of the culture of unlimited civility is that it will eventually end and the overcorrection will see a lot undeserving people hurt.

This isn't the danger with assuming good faith.

It's the danger with not updating your behavior when the balance of probabilities shows that the individual/group/organization you're dealing with is acting in bad faith.

Our modern era has so many megaphones blaring into the void that it's become significantly more difficult to determine which ones are overtly lying. Accordingly, it's far more difficult to establish a consensus about who's operating in bad faith.

Again, the failure point isn't with the assumption of good faith. It's with not recognizing bad faith when it's made manifest.

I agree, that's why I'm talking about unconditional assumption of good faith. I strongly believe in assuming good faith by default, and also in the importance of updating your priors as new information becomes available.

Tone policing is a time-honoured tactic for devaluing valid opposition.

Go fuck yourself you piece of shit.

Aw, that's too bad. My comment as originally drafted floated that you might be participating in that tactic, but I changed it because it could've been interpreted as accusatory. I offered you an assumption of good faith, and got burned for it again. Eventually this will train really bad behavior. I promise to try my best to keep it focused on the knowing defenders of genocide and fight the tide of antisemitism you're causing.

Please don't sermonize like you have in this thread. It's not cool to heap blame on one person for vast, complex global societal problems, and it's certainly not what HN is for. This site exists for curious conversation about interesting topics. It's specifically not for ideological battle, and the first rule of commenting on HN is "be kind".

You can't comment like this on HN, no matter who or what you're replying to. I understand it's a heated topic in which everyone was posting escalatory rhetoric, but it's everyone's responsibility to avoid pouring fuel on the flames. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> consider who this attitude helps

It helps the good people, who do good and influence their society to do the same, and live in a good society. The best societies give the accused the full protection of the law, and give them fair trials. The problematic ones have mob rule.

Much of what you write assumes the OP author and you know what evil is, with certainty. That is the critical and most dangerous flaw.

It comes from having the sort of parents whose behavior warrants this kind of suspicions.

I've decided that it's a weird reversed counterpart to "impostor syndrome" (when you secretly think you're not that good while trying your best to maintain a professional standard.)

I think there's this sort of "moral impostor syndrome" where people who carefully work to present an image of themselves as good people are totally willing to participate in fraud or theft at any level - the only consideration is whether they will be caught, because they value the appearance of being good people (and of course, that appearance gives them more opportunities to commit fraud and theft safely.) If they want to do something and there's no way they'll be caught, they'll do it 100% of the time.

This is the only way I can understand people who refer to fraud as a "mistake." They see other people caught in a fraud that they can imagine that they themselves might have done, because they also wouldn't have thought that they would have ever been caught. The "mistake" was evaluating the chances of the success of a fraud badly.

The fact that they relate to these people also makes them want to give them a second chance, just as they would want to be able to recover their careers if any of their past (or future) frauds had become "mistakes."

"There but for the grace of God go I."

It's terrible. It incentivizes evil. The desperation to give people a second chance to expiate one's own secret sins by proxy creates a system where people only initially draw attention through frauds, then get caught, then get second chances. Meanwhile, people who didn't participate in fraud never get noticed. It's a perverse incentive that filters for trash. Do anything to get your name out there, then the fact that your name is out there gets you into the conversation.

Meanwhile, somebody is scolding you for being upset about it: "You're just perfect I guess. Never made a mistake." Fraud is not a mistake. You do it on purpose.

Yup. You got me. Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.

ChatGPT?

Unlikely, but wouldn't surprise me if ChatGPT sounds a bit like ChrisMarshallNY given the amount of comments they've made here over the years :)

That deserves a +1. I trend prolix.

Seriously? Try looking at the profile.

This style of commenting is completely unacceptable on HN. You can't just blithely speculate about fellow community members being “evil”, or indeed anyone else; people can do wrong without being evil, and the first rule of the In Comments section of the HN guidelines is to “be kind”.

Some of your comments about controversial topics are egregious enough to warrant a ban. I don't want to ban you because some other comments are substantive contributions, but we need you to avoid inflammatory, ideological comments in future.

Please take a moment to remind yourself of the guidelines – https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html – and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47951566 and marked it off topic.