I don’t think actually believing the views you defend is relevant here. Playing devil’s advocate can be done in good faith. It’s about your intentions. In fact, I’d argue that being able to clearly articulate a view you don’t hold is a sign that you’ve genuinely understood your opposition’s arguments. You don’t need to be convinced by them yourself.

What does make it bad faith is if you put those arguments forward but then refuse to engage with the counterarguments - that’s where the line gets crossed.

For example, I don’t agree with the reasons Russia has given for attacking Ukraine, but I can still lay out those arguments in a way a pro-Russian person would recognize as accurate. That, on its own, isn’t bad faith. But if someone responds by calling me a delusional Nazi or something similar, that is bad faith - a strawman, specifically - even if that person genuinely believes people who argue that position deserve such a label.

Apollo 11 was quite nicely made.

It’s basically a documentary made using remastered original footage along with beautiful soundscape.

they don’t believe in the argument they are presenting

I don’t think that’s the case here. While people might lie when there’s something to gain from it, we generally don’t hold views we don’t believe in - because that creates cognitive dissonance.

More often, I think it’s that people hold views they feel are true on an intuitive level, but these beliefs usually aren’t something they’ve arrived at independently from first principles. Instead, they’ve adopted them from somewhere else - social groups, media, culture - and haven’t really thought them through.

The belief becomes part of their identity, and they accept it at face value. They know they’re right, so anyone who disagrees must automatically be wrong. That makes it easy to dismiss or ridicule opposing views rather than trying to understand where that “false belief” comes from. After all, why waste time listening to someone who just doesn’t get what you already know to be true?

What people need is humility. There’s no way one can be right about literally everything - we just don’t know what we’re wrong about. It might be something trivial but it also might be one of our core beliefs. The truth is not always intuitive or something that we like. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable.

So you think twisting people’s words, lying, cherry-picking information, and attacking them personally - rather than addressing their actual point - is a good way to make them change their minds?

I don’t think you really believe that either, but if I were to engage with you in bad faith, that’s what it would look like.

Good faith doesn’t mean you have to be polite - it means you make a genuine effort to understand what someone is actually saying and engage with that, rather than a cartoon version of their argument. That cartoon version might get you cheers from the audience, but it’s not going to change anyone’s mind. And if minds aren’t being changed - and no serious effort is even made to try - then what’s the point of the debate in the first place?

I’d argue that if someone is genuinely trying to persuade another person, it’s virtually impossible to debate in bad faith. Acting in bad faith means you don’t care whether the other person changes their mind - you just want to dunk on them, be mean, pretend they said something they didn’t, and rally a mob to dogpile on them. Then you tell yourself you’ve “won” the debate because you’re getting upvotes and they’re not - even though all you’ve really done is push them further into their corner.

I don’t even know what truths you think I’m not accepting here.

I don’t change my views because people bully me for them. I change my views when someone demonstrates to me that they’re worth changing and that haven’t happened in this thread. What ever convincing arguments you may have seen clearly have not been convincing to me.

this discussion isn’t about him

It’s you who brought him up with your smug “fine people on both sides” misquote and its him you’ve been talking ever since. Only now you’re moving the goal posts back to what I originally was talking about.

You said both sides have plenty of bad faith, which is wrong.

What are you even claiming here? That there is no “plenty of” bad faith on the left too?

I don’t consider anything I’ve heard so far to be the kind of evidence that would indicate what I said is somehow false.

You’re misquoting him - that’s bad faith. Whether or not you believe him is a separate issue. When you criticize someone for what they said, you should address their actual words - not your interpretation of them.

His unscripted comments did not include that, full stop.

Nor did they include the “fine people on both sides” comment that people are misquoting.

But it’s this very specific quote that people are misrepresenting. It’s not like he first said “there were fine people on both sides” and then, a few days later, clarified that he wasn’t talking about the Nazis. He said there were fine people on both sides and explicitly added that he was not referring to the Nazis - and it’s that latter part people omit when they spread the “fine people on both sides” quote.

This is where the “fine people on both sides” quote originates from.

Snopes article on the matter.

The issue with echo chambers is that they reinforce people’s existing beliefs instead of challenging them. That often comes with extreme hostility toward anyone who doesn’t share those beliefs. If the left in the US wants to win elections they need people to vote for them who might have voted right in the past. In order to achieve this, minds needs to be changed, and that doesn’t happen in echo chambers. I’m sure you can see the value in a left-leaning person going to a place like Truth Social and, in a calm and respectful way, arguing against the claims they disagree with. Well, in my view, Lemmy could use something similar.

I also don’t think right-wingers are the only ones to blame when it comes to the breakdown of polite discussion. If you put someone who feels just as strongly about the left as people here feel about the right, it’s no surprise it turns into a mudslinging match. It takes two to tango.

Maybe you should re-read my original comment? Because unless you think that Lemmy is not a left wing echo chamber then I have no clue what you’re arguing about here exactly.

Misrepresenting what someone says is a textbook example of bad faith so doing that in a discussion about bad faith is ironic to say the least. What he actually thinks is unrelated to this discussion as it’s about what he said. You’d call people out for twisting your words so hold yourself to the same standards.

What else do I need to know about them?

That people identify on the political right outside of US as well?

Speaking of bad faith…

Yes, and just like Trump, I’m not speaking of the white nationalists and nazies.

"So you know what, it’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists – because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.

“Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets, and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group.”

Source

“The right” consists of individuals, just like “the left” does - and there’s plenty of bad faith to be found on both sides.

People often accuse me of being a troll because I tend to voice views that are unpopular on this platform. Personally, I just don’t see any point in talking about things we all already agree on. I’d much rather try to change the views of those I disagree with - or have them try to change mine.

Not since I stopped posting on .ml communities

It’s just as much a left-wing echo chamber as Truth Social is a right-wing one - and that’s a problem in both cases. Some might say it’s fine because we’re on the right side of history and they’re not, or something along those lines - but the people on Truth Social think the exact same thing. No one’s views ever change that way.