ConvenientlyPrompted comments on Open thread for December 17-23, 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: ciphergoth 17 December 2013 08:45PM

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Comment author: ConvenientlyPrompted 18 December 2013 11:22:46PM 0 points [-]

Even your dislike for deceit is part of the deceit mechanism. If you unilaterally decide to stop playing the game, it most likely means you lose.

I think I ADBOC. It's not like the "disliking to be deceitful" gene evolved to make its bearers lose the game.

Certainly there are risks to being honest, but there are also benefits. Admittedly, the most salient one to me right now is "I don't want to treat my current employer poorly", and I'm not sure that lying about going to interviews is actually significantly worse than merely not telling them about interviews.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 19 December 2013 09:44:06AM *  1 point [-]

It's not like the "disliking to be deceitful" gene evolved to make its bearers lose the game.

For people who properly compartmentalize, it helps to win the game. By signalling dislike to deceit, they gain other people's trust... and then at the right moment they do something deceitful and (if they are well-calibrated) most likely profit from it..

It's the people in the valley of bad rationality who may lose the game when they realize all the consequences and connections, and try to tune their honesty up to eleven. (For example by telling their boss that they would be willing to quit the company if they had a better offer from somewhere else, and that they actually look at the available information about other companies.)

Comment author: hyporational 19 December 2013 02:26:38PM 0 points [-]

Disliking deception also makes people more cautious and frugal about it, which is probably beneficial too.