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ZoneSeek comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong
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Currency is binary, either genuine or counterfeit. Ideas are on a continuum, some less wrong than others. Generally, bad ideas are dangerous because there's some truth or utility to them; few people are seduced by palpable nonsense. Parsing mixed ideas is a big part of rationality, and it's harder than spotting fake money.
A technicality: Officially, currency is binary, but in practice that's not the case. Fake currency that is convincing still has value. A fake dollar bill with a 50% probability of going un-noticed is in practice worth 50 cents (ignoring social consequences of passing off fake money). Fake currency with 100% convincingness is 100% as valuable as real currency (until you make enough to cause inflation).
Why?
Because it's immaterial to the central point. For a high enough level of "convincingness", fake money has significant real-world value.
In most societies this is more than outweighed by the sanctions for using it. As it should be.
You've got to multiply those sanctions by the probability of getting caught, though. (ISTM that robertskmiles is thinking purely CDTically/act-consequentialistically, ignoring acausal/Kantian/golden rule/rule-consequentialist concerns.)
That's accurate, yes.
Admittedly, there is a certain point where the odds of discovery are low enough that it balances out and can even have a net positive. Those are pretty rare, though - remember that the punishment for discovery usually vastly outweighs the benefit received. And, of course, higher denominations are subject to greater scrutiny.
I remember having a conversation with my mother where she recounted an experience of having a twenty dollar bill examined at a store, and wondering who on earth bothers counterfeiting twenties anyway. I said that if I were going to counterfeit money, that's the denomination I'd pick, because it's the largest bill that most people spend regularly and casually. Hardly anyone seriously examines them, so your chances of getting caught are that much smaller.