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bryjnar comments on If epistemic and instrumental rationality strongly conflict - Less Wrong
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I agree that the conclusion follows from the premises, but nonetheless it's hypothetical scenarios like this which cause people to distrust hypothetical scenarios. There is no Omega, and you can't magically stop believing in red pandas; when people rationalize the utility of known falsehoods, what happens in their mind is complicated, divorces endorsement from modeling, and bears no resemblance to what they believe they're doing to themselves. Anti-epistemology is a huge actual danger of actual life,
Absolutely! I'm definitely dead set against anti-epistemology - I just want to make the point that that's a contingent fact about the world we find ourselves in. Reality could be such that anti-epistemology was the only way to have a hope of survival. It isn't, but it could be.
Once you've established that epistemic rationality could give way to instrumental rationality, even in a contrived example, you then need to think about where that line goes. I don't think it's likely to be relevant to us, but from a theoretical view we shouldn't pretend the line doesn't exist.
Indeed, advocating not telling people about it because the consequences would be worse is precisely suppressing the truth because of the consequnces ;) (well, it would be more on-topic if you were denying the potential utility of anti-epistemology even to yourself...)