Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Noob question: Can someone explain to me why arguing for something you don't believe in can sometimes get you modded or at least warned? I've witnessed it a few times and don't understand what the personal beliefs of the author have to do with the quality of an argument.
Example:
https://www.themotte.org/post/530/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/108271?context=8#context
First, the guy’s arguments were terrible, intentionally so. He never stuck arounnd to win any debate, and he had some weak opponents.
Second, why is lying bad, is that your question? It’s a very lossy, costly form of communication. Imagine if a sizeable minority of the people here were just aping their opponents to make them look bad or to troll, and this was accepted practice.
The other commenters would have to spend energy figuring it out, and then either : respond in kind with even stupider arguments, which will attract actual idiots, thinking they are in good company. Or call out the dishonesty, which is against the rules – you can’t have both the expectation to be believed and the normalization of lying.
But okay, say you favour the latter and consequently the mods should get rid of the charity rule. Every statement woud have to be double-checked and evaluated against all of a user’s other comments to maintain the coherence of his presented worldview. The coherence of even honest opponents’ worldviews would be called into question. Every debate, not just those presented by a few suspect users, would devolve into the question ‘is he lying?’.
So ironically, if we take the statements of likely liars at face value, all statements would no longer be worthy of being taken at face value.
Lying leads to suspicion, and the more suspicion, the harder it becomes to discuss the object level issues, “something-lurker” .
To me, devil's advocacy, false flagging and lying are not synonymous. I often use it in my personal life if I'm genuinely undecided on an issue or want to make sure my understanding of my "enemy" does not amount to a strawman.
That said, from the other replies I gather trolls can use it to waste time. I don't understand the mechanisms completely but I'll just trust the more experienced posters for now. I also didn't know that it's fine to argue for anything as long as my real worldview is stated for context, which resolves any issue I have with this rule.
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