[Brendinooo]

I don't know if there's a named maxim for this phenomenon, but something I learned on Twitter is that everything you say can be interpreted in bad faith.

This can be done on purpose, or it just happens because there's not enough shared context to connect how you read something to what the other person was trying to say.

(Also, while a picture still says 1000 words, I've never had less faith in the veracity of those words.)

I've tried to be earnest on social media, for reasons like this. You see a photo of a guy with a typewriter, try to paint it in a good light for yourself.

I'm not sure how I would have reacted, but I had a short phase in college where I dredged up an old typewriter from a friend's garage and used it to type love letters to girls. So maybe I could have related a bit better!

[munificent]

One of the best changes I made during the pandemic for my mental health was realizing that I was starting to fall into that mental trap too and deliberately deciding not too.

I'm not always great at it, but since then, I have started to try to interpret most things I read online as charitably as possible, especially when I choose to respond to someone.

As if by magic, once I did, I started seeing that the world was a more positive place than I had realized. So much of my perception of negativity was something I was creating in the process of interpretation. It wasn't in the data itself.

Giving people more of the benefit of the doubt does set me up to occasionally be suckered. I accept that as a worthwhile price to pay to give kindness towards the majority of other people who are acting in good faith.

Sort of like the value of money, society is what we believe it to be.

[drdavid]

I like the HN guideline enough to consider it for use on other sites and on my own.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

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

[vadansky]

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

[dalbasal]

>>everything you say can be interpreted in bad faith.

You're only saying that to absolve yourself from understanding that people's criticism of whatever stupid or evil thing you're into is valid.

[Brendinooo]

Well done, I think.

Now I'm reminded of Poe's Law...

[dalbasal]

No, no. That was serious. ;)

[ergot_vacation]

Not only CAN it be interpreted in bad faith, but users are ENCOURAGED to do so, because that makes people angry, and people stay on the site and keep clicking longer if they're angry.

[chias]

"Men may construe things after their fashion, clean from the purpose of the things themselves." -- Bill S. (1599)

[9wzYQbTYsAIc]

It seems like an extension of the actor-observer bias / fundamental attribution error.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_asymmet...

[frankosaurus]

Intentional misunderstanding is a time-honored technique for getting people to talk. If the target is an engineer, it's a form of nerd sniping. https://xkcd.com/356/

PUA "gurus" sometimes suggest this as a flirting technique.