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Mestroyer comments on White Lies - Less Wrong
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Thanks for telling the truth. But downvoted for "I dislike this position, don't want to hear it defended, and will punish those who defend it." This is a much stronger rationalist anathema than white lies to me.
I think it's worth distinguishing between punishing discourse in general and personal social consequences. Chris, the OP, has literally been physically in my house before and now I have learned that he endorses a personal social habit that I find repellent. I'm not trying to drive him out of Less Wrong because I don't like his ideas - I didn't even downvote the OP! - but it seems weird that you feel entitled to pass judgment on the criteria I have for who is welcome to be in my house.
Edit: separated these two quotes. LessWrong comment formatting stuck them together.
I don't care whether you let him in your house. You've publicly shamed him, and you are saying that this kind of status-attack is the just response to a particular argument, regardless of how it's presented. You also seem to be vilifying me and dodging my complaint by portraying my judgement as against your home-invitation policy, rather than against your public-backlash policy, which I resent as well.
"Vilifying you"? Because I didn't understand the thrust of your criticism because you didn't understand the point of my post? I'm tapping out, this is excessive escalation.
Sorry, that was uncharitable. Tapping out is a good idea.
If you want to share arguments for socially unacceptable ideas you can wrap them into an abstract layer.
When you however call for people changing their action in a way that causes harm I see no reason why that shouldn't be punished socially.
This is a forum for discussing ideas, it's not a forum for playing social games. (I'm saying this as someone who is extremely reluctant about white lies and who hates the idea that they are socially expected to lie. Asking a question when one doesn't want an honest answer is just silly.)
If you are just want to discus ideas, keep out words like I.
Don't say: "But I will implore you to do one thing: accept other people's right to lie to you."
Say: "Here are reasons why you might profit from accept other people's right to lie to you."
Maybe even: "Here are reasons why a person might profit from accept other people's right to lie to them"
You have a point there.
Except when you're looking for the social / mental equivalent of a shibboleth.
Okay. Asking as question and then being offended and/or hurt when one gets an honest answer is just silly (alternatively, evil).
Except when acting offended and/or hurt signals solidarity and prompts your allies to attack the alien who got the shibboleth wrong. (You can argue that that's evil, of course, but then you're trying to break away from some very, very deeply ingrained instincts for coalition politics.)
I think that's covered by "alternatively, evil". ;) More seriously, though: how is "knowing what the preferred answer is and either agreeing with it or being willing to lie" a reasonable criterion by which to filter your group?
It proves that you value loyalty to your group more than you value your own capacity to reason, which means that authoritarian leaders don't have to consider you a threat (and thus destroy you and everything you hold dear) if they order you to do something against your self-interest. Thus, perversely, when you're in an environment where power has already concentrated, it can be in your self-interest to signal that you're willing to disregard your self-interest, even to the point of disregarding your capacity to determine your self-interest.
Once ingrained, this pattern can continue even if those authoritarian leaders lose their capacity to destroy you - and perversely, the pattern itself can remain as the sole threat capable of destroying you if you dissent.
(Put a few layers of genteel classism over the authoritarian leadership, and it doesn't even have to look autocratic in the first place.)
Definitely covered by "alternatively, evil". Especially when considering a two-person relationship!
My problem with calling these behaviors "evil" is that they don't have to be consciously decided upon - they're just ways that happened to keep our ancestors alive in brutal political environments. Cognitive biases and natural political tendencies may be tragic, but calling them "evil" implies a level of culpability that I think isn't really warranted.
What if it doesn't really cause that much harm? What if it does more good than harm? Then this sort of punishing behaviour entraps us in our mistake.