SoullessAutomaton comments on Honesty: Beyond Internal Truth - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 June 2009 02:59AM

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Tags: honesty self_deception other_optimizing

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Comment author: Alicorn 08 June 2009 11:45:19PM 3 points [-]

The problem, as I see it, is that it's not possible to lie to people and simultaneously act in their interests... There may be very special cases in which it's the act of an ally or friend...but they must be quite rare.

This would be true if we lived in a world in which there was always plenty of time to communicate before action needed to be taken. But we don't; occasionally action is urgent and a lie is the only thing that can induce an urgent action in a small number of syllables.

Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 09 June 2009 12:09:18AM -1 points [-]

But we don't; occasionally action is urgent and a lie is the only thing that can induce an urgent action in a small number of syllables.

The ends justify the means--how delightfully consequentialist!

Further, of course, sometimes, the situation is severe enough that the business end of a weapon is the only thing that can effectively induce action. The heart of the question is how to choose the least bad approach that is sufficient to attain the necessary results when you may not even have enough time to follow Yudkowsky's exhortation to "shut up and multiply".

Ethics is difficult.

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