What if you are Jewish and are trying to stop a Hitler from coming to power and the best means would be to spread a deliberate lie about him.
If I lie about him, then the most likely consequence is that Hitler will have verified proof that "Jews are lying about me". So the consequence is that I would end up helping cause the holocaust, not stopping it.
More generally what's the point of using a hypothetical scenario where the assumption is that the best means would be to spread a lie, when that's exactly what I'm contesting (that lying is the best means)? That's begging the question. Tell me in what exact way I'd be in an epistemic position to know that lying is the best means?
The set of things you could say is vastly larger than the set of true things you could say so unless lying is observed and punished you should assume that you are probably better off at least occasionally lying.
I'm a game theorist and think that wearing makeup or acting more confident than you really are, are forms of lying that frequently benefit individuals.
Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.