Indeed. I think Friston is a genius, and I don't use that word lightly, but in common with all geniuses, he doesn't know much about setting realistic targets!

That company X or Y has done something in the past or even many bad things isn't reason enough to not use their products when they are safe and effective. You know one computer or cellphone maker that hasn't been sued? One car maker that never did anything shoddy? Should we express blanket mistrust for all car and cellphone makers and stop using cars and cellphones? — Olivier5

Where have I advocated blanket mistrust?

I didn't ask for the meaning nor for who else I could ask. I'm asking why you think my view 'paranoid'.

It's creepy and paranoid alright. — Olivier5

Why?

So which bit of any of that is actually false? I'm not, I presume, required to only write thing you agree with? We're talking about actual defamation, something has to be untrue. Simply pointing out true but negative aspects is not defamation, nor is it disgusting creepy or paranoid.

So what, in the quotes above, is false?

The matter of whether I trust the pharmaceutical companies or whether you trust me is irrelevant. I don't give a shit if you trust me or not, I'm not talking about trust, I'm talking about public accusations. That's not trust it's defamation. If I've publicly said something about the pharmaceutical industry which defames them, I'd like to know what it is so that I can correct it. You know, my...

disgusting, creepy paranoid shit about the pharmaceutical industry — Olivier5

Tell you what. If I've said anything unfair about you, then I'll be happy to correct it, but you do need to actually cite it in order for me to do that. — Olivier5

I don't think it's appropriate to fill a public discussion with minutiae of the individuals involved, I can PM you if you're serious (though that seems unlikely). If I've said anything untrue about the pharmaceutical industry, however, that relates directly to the discussion and is relevant to anyone reading along, so if you'd care (third request now) to just cite where I've misspoken, I'll sort it out straight away.

you started this mud sliding against them way before I paid any attention to your sorry behavior. — Olivier5

Believe it or not, I do care about the accuracy of what I write, even if I don't care so much about the tone, so I'd appreciate it if you could just cite the 'mud-slinging' so that I can post a correction to it. Or are you unfamiliar with the term 'mudslinging'?

If you accuse someone of mud-slinging, you are accusing them of making insulting, unfair, and damaging remarks about their opponents.

If I've said anything unfair about the pharmaceutical industry, then I'll be happy to correct it, but you do need to actually cite it in order for me to do that.

If you don't want to see the inaccuracy corrected, then it's rather hard to believe your concern to be genuine.

I think that if one were to start researching the evidence for and against a medical treatment, this would be an endless quest, resulting only in paralysis of analysis, and postponement or denial of treatment altogether, or undertaking it without much faith (which could jeopardize its effectiveness). — baker

I agree. My comments were more about someone in the fortunate position to be able to take a more distanced view of matters. Someone in the midst of a crucial decision will certainly be guided by more fast-heuristic methods than I've described, and probably not without some good cause.

What has changed with the coming of social media (and reality shows) is that now, more people get to express themselves in a relatively durable and wide-reaching medium. This way, the ratio between the publicly available opinions of experts and the publicly available opinions of non-experts is quite different than it used to be, say, up to 30 years ago, and it's a ratio in favor of the non-experts. — baker

Yes, we're certainly seeing that. One thing that I'm finding interesting in these debates is the extent to which one side believe they align with 'the consensus of experts' when what they actually they align with is the consensus of media reports. I doubt many have even so much as even looked at the front cover of a medical journal.

I’ll repeat: vaccine mandates have been around for decades — at schools and many workplaces. — Xtrix

You're incorrigible! The UK has never, ever, ever, had universal vaccine mandates, neither have hundreds of other countries in the world. The spectre of mandates now is absolutely not something which requires some kind of psychologising bullshit explanation in terms of politics. Gods! you really can't handle a shred of dissent from your view can you?

It’s not new technology. — Xtrix

So the CDC are lying?

So you mention newness because you want to highlight the risks, despite acknowledging that they’re safe. Do I have that right? — Xtrix

Yes.

Agreed! I find I sometimes have to point this out to people who point to the replication crisis as more evidence that science is bullshit. It's more evidence, not less, that science is, at least, intended to be a self-correcting communal enterprise. That is its great value, not the supposed — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, exactly. Only the problem today is that the means by which that is done is being eradicated. Experts raising

As Professor Stefan Baral put it in the BMJ

Engaging in discussions about the validity of complementary or even contradictory inferences can support an effective response. However, it is not feasible to engage meaningfully within 280 characters or if value judgments are ascribed to only certain positions. Public health means that the consensus view may have blindspots, so we must encourage healthy debate and dialogue. Debate was stifled during covid-19 in the name of fear.

Partly informing his view was an interview he had on the World Service. He mentioned the seasonality of coronavirus (suggesting that while cases would diminish over summer, they would likely surge again in autumn), and according to Baral - "After that, I got a series of warnings from professional contacts and others, asking me if I had aligned with Donald Trump,... Even the BBC producer asked me if I had aligned with Donald Trump, because I guess he had also talked about seasonality." (Coronavirus cases, of course, did dip over summer, exactly as Baral suggested - after all, he's an epidemiologist with 20 year experience of infectious disease) But he said a thing that Trump said so he must be wrong!

I don't think that Covid is the only cause, it's just one on an increasing number of issues which develop this way, where scientific conclusions are automatically assigned value (and political) positions, which, understandably, put pressure on scientists to speak out only if they're assured beforehand that they're sufficiently 'on message'.

I have a morbid fascination for this sort of development (deterioration?) which is why I'm so engaged in these discussions, I keep thinking there'll be some chink of light (gallows humour, even) in what's otherwise pretty dark. I actually find it truly scary that these kind of schoolyard social dynamics have leached into scientific debate.

I recall that you accused untold numbers of non-descript people of being criminals and profiteers, among the many many insults you keep dishing out here. — Olivier5

Uh huh. I presume here you're giving a demonstration of the fact that...

everyone of us once in a while argues in bad faith — Olivier5

..or alternatively you could actually quote me rather than more traducing.

You insisted on making it all about you you you. — Olivier5

I know.

like when you pretended to confuse an in vitro finding with an in vivo conclusion. — Olivier5

Didn't you harp forever about pharmaceuticals and politicians being all corrupt?

Didn't you pretend to equate a finding about the presence of certain molecules in the blood stream of 38 individuals with the effective immunity of all of us against COVID?

What are you proposing we do about COVID? — Olivier5

I'm constantly making it about me... What am I like?

When we develop models analytically, such as in science or in everyday reasoning, it is certainly possible - and seductive - to come up with a model that is resistant to falsification. But it seems to me that such a modelling system would be difficult to evolve in the first place, because the selective pressure would be weak to non-existent. — SophistiCat

Yes, I agree. I think the development of beliefs is far more directly causal than that. I see hidden states of the system as causing the states internal to the system which, by interaction, seeks to minimise the surprise those external states can generate, not teleologically, but as a simple free energy reduction. There's a good paper by Friston (although very speculative, I should stress) on how this might come about.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1399513/1/Friston_Journal_of_the_Royal_Society_Interface.pdf

I don't know how to react to that except with contempt and disgust. — Srap Tasmaner

Appropriate reaction, I think. It's a problem on both sides of the debate, and I don't think I'm just being nostalgic in saying it didn't used to be. It's funny, working in psychology, we responded to the replication crisis quite well I think (after a period of bristling at the temerity!), there was a movement, with some strong support to take considerable steps not to p-hack, not to overreach on low powered trials... I moved to pre-prints and eventually to using a full pre-print service for papers. Now it's like the wind has been taken out of those sails and the rest of pop-science has looked at the old habits of psychology and thought "we'll have a bit of that". I really felt like we were getting somewhere, but then it all just fizzled out (round about the time social media took off...), it's one of the reasons I quit academia for the consultancy gigs.

Now it's ten times worse. It's all about 'the message' and hang the rest. I don't know why we bothered.

If I come across bitter and resentful, it's because I am.

Right, ideology. — jorndoe

Select opinions. Means to an ideological end. — jorndoe

So are we all ideologically driven. Or is it just conclusions opposed to yours?

Yes, I think active inference is walking the same knife edge that quantum physics has to walk. On one side is a much better understanding of how the brain works, on the other is "woooah...I mean what is, like... really real man". I get the fascination. I think active inference accounts of perception are eye-opening, they're certainly more than just mundane bits of cognitive psychology and I believe they can give us some insights into other areas of psychology, but we mustn't fall of the rails in doing so. Hoffman has.

There were too many holdouts, for mostly irrational reasons, and so now it's time for mandates. Seems reasonable to me. — Xtrix

To the first question, I think the jury is in: yes, it is sufficient to mandate safe, effective vaccines during a pandemic, that protect others, slow the spread, and get our lives and economy back on track after 9 months of refusal from a significant portion of the population.

Low risk groups -- yes, I'm also low risk. It's not about *me*. Whether you're low risk or not, you can still contract and spread the virus.

I think there should be other health policies as well — Xtrix

This is not a Gallup poll. I don't think anyone on this site (and I suspect anyone within a twenty mile radius of you) is in any doubt as to what you think. The question is whether your assumption about the motives of anyone who doesn't think what you think is justified.

Take it up with the medical establishment and present them your theories. — Xtrix

They're not my theories and I don't need to present them to the medical establishment. There are already hundreds of experts in the medical establishment who believe them - that's who I've been citing.

If you just want to engage in the same mud-slinging Olivier started then I'm not interested. If you think I've proposed a theory that is not supported by experts in the medical establishment then quote me and I can provide the relevant support.

Vaccines, their safety and efficacy -- as well as vaccine mandates -- have all been well established and around for decades. There does indeed require "grand evidence" to justify the sudden wave of resistance. — Xtrix

You do realise that the UK has never had childhood vaccine mandates? Are you seriously suggesting that the whole of UK public health policy is akin to belief in UFOs or 9/11 'truthing', requiring some 'grand evidence' it currently lacks?

The official UK Government Position is

Medical and ethical opinion is divided on the introduction of immunisation policies that involve some degree of coercion (such as fines)...The effectiveness of mandatory vaccination policies is not clear, partly because attitudes to immunisation vary between countries and there can be several factors contributing to declining or poor immunisation coverage. — UK Vaccine Policy Briefing

In fact the UK has never had mandatory vaccines without 'objector' clauses.

In the Lancet...

getting rid of non-medical exemptions altogether and making mandatory vaccination truly compulsory risks substantial public backlash and could be counterproductive to the ultimate objective of reaching and sustaining high rates of immunisation coverage and disease control. — https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(15)00156-5/fulltext

From the BMJ regarding healthcare professionals...

Under this analysis, mandating COVID-19 vaccination for HCP would not be ethically permissible insofar as the less coercive measure of providing proper PPE and other protections to HCP has not been fulfilled. — Ethical Issues in Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination of Healthcare Personnel - BMJ Global

Is your argument that the health services in several major countries, the Lancet and the BMJ are touting a theory which is on a par with UFOs?

From same source: "Researchers have been studying and working with mRNA vaccines for decades." — Xtrix

Yep. As I said before...

Of possible interest...

https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-once-dismissed-idea-became-a-leading-technology-in-the-covid-vaccine-race/

The problem, she knew, was that synthetic RNA was notoriously vulnerable to the body’s natural defenses, meaning it would likely be destroyed before reaching its target cells. And, worse, the resulting biological havoc might stir up an immune response that could make the therapy a health risk for some patients.

behind the scenes the company’s scientists were running into a familiar problem. In animal studies, the ideal dose of their leading mRNA therapy was triggering dangerous immune reactions — the kind for which Karikó had improvised a major workaround under some conditions — but a lower dose had proved too weak to show any benefits.


mRNA is a tricky technology. Several major pharmaceutical companies have tried and abandoned the idea, struggling to get mRNA into cells without triggering nasty side effects.

The indefinite delay on the Crigler-Najjar project signals persistent and troubling safety concerns for any mRNA treatment that needs to be delivered in multiple doses — https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/


The technology is so old because no one could get it to work without triggering nasty immune responses. The exact type of response some experts are concerned about now, particularly with multiple booster doses. — Isaac

Scientists have been "studying and working with mRNA vaccines for decades" because they couldn't get the damn thing to work without nasty side effects. That they now can is new technology.

So why mention "newness" if you agree they're safe and effective? — Xtrix

Come on! It's you that keeps insisting that the word 'safe' doesn't mean 'without risk'.

Seems like you've just fallen back on your characteristic confusion of 'things you think' and 'things which are actually the case'. I can draw a diagram if you like...

Strongly emergent properties are a problem for physicalism. It means something entirely new comes into existence. — Marchesk

Yeah, I can see that, but claiming colour sensations are strongly emergent is still begging the question. It's the matter the thought experiment is meant to show. It's obviously going to do that if you assume it at the outset.

Weird thing happened to my reply. It's above.

.

Rocks don't have strongly emergent properties like color sensation. — Marchesk

Why would that change the fact that we don't expect the contents to be there in the description.

Obviously because those changes are not color sensations. — Marchesk

Why not?

It's saying the world is fundamentally made up of X and nothing else. — Marchesk

Right.

if the physical can't describe something, then that something is being left out of the picture — Marchesk

OK. So what's wrong with the entirely physical description I gave?

Learning about colours causes changes in the parietal-temporal-occipital region, the hippocampus, the frontal cortex... Seeing colours causes changes in the V4 and VO1 regions. — Isaac

If everything is physical, then a complete physical description of something should be necessary and sufficient to define it. — RogueAI

Why? It doesn't seem to follow at all. Why would it be the case that if everything is physical we can describe it? What is it about being physical which makes something describable?

If someone gives a theory about vaccinations -- who is a layman -- during a time when the issue has been highly politicized, and vaccine mandates have been around for years, and who would otherwise just trust the opinions of medical experts...yeah, at that point I think we have good reason to simply say "This is coming from a place of x, not from an unbiased assessment of evidence." — Xtrix

Yep. I agree with you on that one.

No, I'm doing exactly the first part. I'm saying we should take you with a pinch of salt -- despite the fact that you could be the rare exception. — Xtrix

How have you done the first part? How have you determined the presence of a conflict of interest or history of bias with me, you've not read any of my work.

If all you're arguing for is a nuanced and careful approach to vaccines -- fine, we agree. — Xtrix

No we don't. Mandating vaccines is not nuanced. Not even every medical expert agrees with it.

So we'd be wrong to attribute any "nefarious motive" to the conclusion that the earth is 6,000 years old and the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood? — Xtrix

No, but those matters are well established, so grand claims need grand evidence. The claim that we didn't ought to mandate vaccines or that not everyone needs vaccinating is not remotely grand, it's quite an ordinary position, even if an unpopular one. It's nothing like invoking supernatural beings to create geographical features. It's just daft to suggest it is.

It's really not new technology. — Xtrix

mRNA vaccines are a new type of vaccine to protect against infectious diseases. — https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

even if it were, this excuse can be used at any time. The polio vaccine was "new" technology, too, after all. — Xtrix

Yes. And the same would be true then.

Expert opinion is that vaccines are safe, effective, and slow the spread of the virus. — Xtrix

Yep. And we've already agreed on that. It's not the issue here. The question here is whether that fact is sufficient justification for mandates, whether it's sufficient justification for administering vaccines to low risk groups, whether it's sufficient justification for focussing on vaccination to the exclusion of other health policies...

So, now what? Do the right thing (like help stomping the pathogen down)? — jorndoe

Yes. That one. But why would I do what you think is the right thing? Would you do what I think is the right thing?

(There are scores of mad/ideological anti-vaxxeries out there, spreading and lapping up dis/mal/misinformation/bullshit; probably best to distance from those.) — jorndoe

Weren't we just talking about stepping up and doing the right thing? Now you think I should be more concerned about my public image?

Your claim is that people here argue in bad faith and I'm one of them. That's the claim I'm asking you to defend. — Isaac


I have already. — Olivier5

By citing one post. Keep counting.

Given this, do we just ignore them? Isn't it wrong to assume because others are ridiculous that this INDIVIDUAL making claims is also ridiculous? — Xtrix

Not wrong, no. It's about having reasons, not proving beyond doubt that those reasons are true.

If a 'climate scientist' is being paid by the oil industry, that's a reason to disregard his conclusions. If a holocaust denier consistently views ambiguous evidence in favour of the Nazis and against the Jews. that's a reason to disregard his conclusions. If a creationist geology professor is a life long fundamentalist Christian, that's a reason to disregard his theories about the age of the earth. They may not be affected by these conflicts and biases. I might be wrong to dismiss them. But I have good reason to.

In all these cases, the reasons precede the theories. You are doing the opposite. You're saying first that anyone whose theory is that vaccination should be restricted must hold that theory because of some bias or conflict of interest, then you go looking for what that might be. You're not first finding some bias or conflict of interest and then saying "well, we might want to take whatever they say with a pinch of salt", you're assuming there must be a bias, just because they're saying something you think is implausible.

ask yourself the question: exactly what "insight" do you have for determining someone's "conflicts of interests or histories of bias"? — Xtrix

Conflicts of interest are declared, usually at the bottom of the paper. Biases are an historical matter. If every paper favours one side in an ambiguous matter, that's bias. David Irving famously lost his libel case on exactly those grounds, sufficiently established for a court of law, it's not that nebulous at all and can be established. The problem I'm highlighting here is that if you establish nefarious motive from the argument's conclusion only, then you're just dogmatically dismissing anything you don't find plausible.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say those who are pushing against mandates or who are "questioning" government or "critical" of vaccines are doing so largely because this issue has become politicized. Why? Because it's clear it has been politicized, for one thing -- plenty of data about that. Secondly, because vaccine mandates have been around for decades. — Xtrix

Why do you think politicisation only affects one side of the disagreement?

When something like vaccines and mandatory vaccination -- or any other phenomenon that's been around for decades -- suddenly becomes "controversial," we have to start asking "Why now?" — Xtrix

Because it's a new technology, a different economic climate, a different political climate and the pharmaceutical companies have more than a tenfold increase in lobbying power since childhood vaccinations were first mooted. But in any case, I'm opposed to mandatory childhood vaccination too, always have been. It's convenient to dismiss your opponents by finding some unlikeable group who share some of their conclusions. It's just cheap shot, not worthy of a serious discussion forum.

If you can't see that in this case, or feel it's an exception, or believe it's truly just good faith "skepticism," and not manufactured or motivated by political ideology, then perhaps we have to agree to disagree. — Xtrix

If the sum total of the evidence with which you dismiss a whole slew of experts is that "vaccinations have been around for a while" then yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. I need a substantially stronger reason to dismiss expert opinion than that.

Knowing all the physical facts about the brain states of people having experience x (e.g., seeing red) won't lead to knowing what experience x is like (e.g., what it's like to see red). — RogueAI

No, of course not. Because

Learning about colours causes changes in the parietal-temporal-occipital region, the hippocampus, the frontal cortex... Seeing colours causes changes in the V4 and VO1 regions. — Isaac

So still

I can't for the life of me work out what this has to do with challenging physicalism. — Isaac

Some of us know more than some others about immunology, or climate, but when we speak we are not always listened to. And for this reason, there are no obvious reason for any competent poster to engage you on the matter of immunology here. For that to happen, you'd have to pay any serious attention first. — Olivier5

Maybe, but how would anyone know (and trust) who those people were such as to ensure they paid sufficiently serious attention to them? I haven't read anyone declaring a professional or academic qualification in immunology.

I for one haven't occupied the TPF bandwidths with countless arguments about immunology. — Olivier5

Then what's...

I've already explained it to you. Bis repetitas: 1) variants are a big factor. This thing keeps mutating and one may develop an immunity for one variant one has been exposed to but not to another; this is why we are not all immune to the flue as that bug too constantly mutates. 2) the article was based on blood samples taken from 50 individuals, 40 of whom had had covid. Results from blood analysis show that: " 95% of the people [38 people out of 40 if my math is correct] had at least 3 out of 5 immune-system components that could recognize SARS-CoV-2 up to 8 months after infection." It says nothing about their actual in vivo immune response, and extrapolating from 38 people to billions would be a bit iffy and so they don't do it either. 3) the finding is limited to this 8 month period and says nothing about what happens later. — Olivier5

...an argument about?

each member can come to his or her conclusion and we can all decide to take our medical advice from our medical doctor, or from Fauci, or from Trump, or from you or anyone else here for that matter. I know who I trust and who I don't. — Olivier5

Of course. But that's not what you're arguing here. Your claim is that people here argue in bad faith and I'm one of them. That's the claim I'm asking you to defend. Nothing to do with where we get our medical advice from.

if a guy with no knowledge of immunology would start to talk to no end of vaccines and immunity and stuff, and discuss scientific articles to no end, as if he could understand what them immunologists are talking about in those articles. — Olivier5

That's literally all of us. No one here is an immunologist, yet we've just had massive long conversations about "vaccines and immunity and stuff", including you. We've all "discuss[ed] scientific articles to no end", including you.

It's just more 'I'm right but everyone else is wrong, because I says so' bollocks. You're allowed to repeat what you believe to be an honest, unbiased summary of what the experts are saying, but anyone else doing so (and disagreeing with you) is speaking out of turn.

Learning about colours causes changes in the parietal-temporal-occipital region, the hippocampus, the frontal cortex... Seeing colours causes changes in the V4 and VO1 regions.

I can't for the life of me work out what this has to do with challenging physicalism.

Safe, effective, and dangerous.

Very sensible, as always. — Xtrix

No @Yohan is spot on. It's exactly the question the medical ethicists are asking.

The question remains of how safe is safe enough to warrant mandatory vaccination. It is vanishingly unlikely that there will be absolutely no risk of harm from any biomedical intervention, and the disease itself has dramatically different risk profiles in different groups of the population. In an ideal world, the vaccine would be proven to be 100% safe. But there will likely be some risk remaining. Any mandatory vaccination programme would therefore need to make a value judgement about what level of safety and what level of certainty are safe and certain enough. Of course, it would need to be very high, but a 0% risk option is very unlikely. — Professor Julian Savulescu in the BMJ

one can demand some level of good faith and indeed responsibility in propagating ideas online or anywhere, especially on topics that involve the sickness and death of quite a few, when one is not professionally qualified. — Olivier5

Yep. Again, did you think anyone would disagree with such an obviously true statement? Or were you looking for brownie points? Here...4 gold stars for clarifying that we shouldn't be complicit in killing each other.

Now, do you actually have some mechanism we can agree on by which we can judge whether that responsibility has been executed in any particular case? Or would you just like another gold star for pointing out that we ought try?

I'm just a retrobate liar. — frank

Yeah, but you're only saying that because...

No, I'm not going to flog that any further.

(Although, I'm only saying that because...)

can you imagine the chaos and bloodshed that would overtake the world if we didn't all believe exactly the same things? — frank

Yes, the horror. Of course, though, with our newfound abilities to discern motives from a few internet posts, I can confidently say that you're only saying that because you had an incident with a rocking horse when you were three, and the eight years of wearing braces has left you with a distrust of horses, which has grown during your time in the army into a distrust of people in general. Am-I-right?

Should we engage in the “hard work” of thoroughly debunking each and every claim made by these people? — Xtrix

No. As I've said dozens of times before. They don't meet the normal minimum standard of being experts in the appropriate field without discoverable conflicts of interest or histories of bias.

Evolution isn’t “self evidently true” either. Nor the Holocaust. I assume you don’t put in much “hard work” with people who deny either? — Xtrix

No. As I've said dozens of times before. They don't meet the normal minimum standard of being experts in the appropriate field without discoverable conflicts of interest or histories of bias.

What are the reasons that these individuals are saying such things?” — Xtrix

And you'd have insight into this how? Apart from my views, what do you know about me that could possibly provide you with any data at all about my reasons?

Hence the ridicule of your notion. You're saying that on no other grounds than that they disagree with you, you can somehow determine a person's motives. Do you seriously not see how utterly absurd and frankly messianic that sounds?

What are you trying to say, Isaac? That nobody ever lies? That we never lie to ourselves? That trust ought to never break down between people? That it's all about some misunderstanding between well-meaning folks? — Olivier5

Nope. I'm saying that it's nonsensical to use the fact that people sometimes lie as an argument that this particular person in this particular instance is lying.

What you need for that is evidence of a sort that both parties already agree on. If we agree that saying "the sky is blue" and then later saying "the sky was green" is an example of lying, then you might have some purchase in accusing me of lying by providing those contradictory quotes.

What you're doing here is accusing me of lying for no reason at all other than that I've reached a conclusion you strongly don't agree with, since all the 'reasons' you give form part of our disagreement, rather than part of a shared agreement outside of it.

End of conversation, I suppose. — Olivier5

And you couldn't have seen that coming a mile off?

Of course. Simple deceit. How could we have overlooked that? — frank

Yes, it seems so obvious now. Everyone who disagrees with me must be a lair, it's the only realistic option - after all, intelligent people couldn't possibly reach different conclusions in good faith could they? That literally never happens. Well do I remember my first day as faculty - the corridors were blocked as we all agreed on where to go next. Only one textbook, obviously, with all the actual answers in it. The canteen was a nightmare - only one option on the menu of course (because we all agreed on what the optimum food item was for that day) but the queues for it...

I suspect you know what you are doing. This is why I call it bad faith. — Olivier5

I suspect you know what you are doing. This is why I call it bad faith. Now what?

evidently you are, by saying it is pointless to call for good faith — Olivier5

It is pointless to call for something everyone already approves of.