Upvoted, not because I have anything against modern liberal society, but because we should routinely question our beliefs.
My point is more than that. It is that by lying for a cause you've made it much harder to properly question any of its beliefs. After all, properly questioning something requires getting accurate data, which is much harder if you're also spreading false data about the subject.
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.