It seems to me that the number of false things¹ that it is actually instrumentally useful to believe is much less than the number of false things that someone else would like me to think that it is instrumentally useful to believe in order that they may take advantage of my belief in false things.
In other words, for any belief X, if X is false and some person S wants to convince me that my believing X would be instrumentally useful to me, it is almost certainly the case that ① believing X actually isn't instrumentally useful to me, and indeed ② my believing X would put me at a disadvantage to S.
In other other words, the more you try to convince me that believing false things is good for me, the more I will conclude that you are bad for me.
¹ As opposed to merely inaccurate but usually-good-enough approximations, as found in classical physics or kindergarten hygiene instruction
Not sure how this is related to what I posted. It was about accurate accounting, not accurate reporting of your account to someone who doesn't want an accurate account.
The Litany of Tarski (formulated by Eliezer, not Tarski) reads
If the box contains a diamond,
I desire to believe that the box contains a diamond;
If the box does not contain a diamond,
I desire to believe that the box does not contain a diamond;
Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.
This works for a physical realist, but I have been feeling uncomfortable with it for some time now. So I have decided to reformulate it in a more instrumental way, replacing existential statements with testable predictions. I had to find a new name for it, so I call it the Litany of Instrumentarski:
If believing that there is a diamond in the box lets me find the diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that there is a diamond in the box;
If believing that there is a diamond in the box leaves me with an empty box,
I desire to believe that there is no diamond in the box;
Let me not become attached to inaccurate beliefs.
Posting it here in a hope that someone else also finds it more palatable and unassuming than straight-up realism.
EDIT: It seems to me that this modification also guides you to straight-up one-box on Newcomb, where the original one is mired in the EDT vs CDT issues.
EDIT2: Looks like the above version resulting in people confusing desiring accurate beliefs with desiring diamonds. It's about accurate accounting, not about utility of a certain form of crystallized carbon.
Maybe the first line should be modified to something like "If I later find a diamond in the box...", or something. How about the following?
If I will find a diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that I will find a diamond in the box;
If I will find no diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that I will find no diamond in the box;
Let me not become attached to inaccurate beliefs.
For some reason the editor does not let me use the <strike> tag to cross out the previous version, not sure how to work around it.