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nerzhin comments on Dark Arts 101: Using presuppositions - Less Wrong
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Comments (81)
Seconding HughRistik's comment. If possible, use dark arts to convince people to play positive-sum games. But often you must play zero-sum games (status, winning over third parties, securing the correct apartment); use dark arts to dominate these games. Defense against the dark arts is good epistemology; using dark arts against people increases the chance they will seek out rationality training. Probably does not increase the chance enough to justify using it outside of zero-sum games though.
Also, beating up my son makes him tougher so that he can handle himself better in a dangerous neighborhood.
Scamming investors out of their savings makes them smarter and more discerning. They have to learn the lesson sometime, might as well be from me.
Stealing from the local 7-Eleven makes them improve their security. I'm really doing them a favor.
Not applicable. I said
So if your son picks a fight with you ... beating him up makes him tougher.
Voted down because this is a really bad way to make a point.
On the other hand, the basic point is a good one: "they'll learn from it" is not in general a good reason for doing things that hurt people in whatever sense.
"They'll learn from it" is most definitely a good reason for doing things that hurt people in the specific case of people trying to hurt you (and learning not to). That is why I specified zero-sum games above.