David_Gerard comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
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Off-topic, but I have run across this line of thinking recently, in regards to Wikileaks for example. Some expressed the view that since people on average are not good at dealing with information (jump to conclusions, cherry-pick to support hating or loving conclusion x, etc), revealing all this information actually makes people make worse decisions.
I couldn't articulate it at the time, but I feel like the reason people aren't good with information is because we don't give them enough, and that if we gave them this amount of information regularly, they would develop the skills to use it properly.
Something similar for blunt communication. People aren't good with it, so don't do it vs people aren't good with it, so do it to let them learn to be good with it.
On the subject of Wikileaks, I strongly recommend this blog post and the 2006 paper it analyses. Assange sets out in detail precisely what he's trying to achieve and how he plans to do it. It's the roadmap for Wikileaks. Casual commentators on the subject, particularly in the media, seem almost completely unaware of it.
On a personal note, I was somewhat perturbed to discover that Wikileaks is slightly my fault. Um, whoops.[/brag]