buybuydandavis comments on Be comfortable with hypocrisy - Less Wrong

32 Post author: The_Duck 08 April 2014 10:03AM

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Comment author: buybuydandavis 09 April 2014 06:39:37PM 1 point [-]

In the late-twentieth-century Weltanschauung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception-he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy.

Hypocrisy, and lying in general, is a large part of social advantage as long as there is not a high social punishment enforced when detected by others. Defecting works, if you can get away with it, or if you're not punished when found out. If there's no real cost to being found out (or even a potential benefit, as you've marked yourself as an in group liar), the benefits outweigh the costs.

I think an honest group out competes a dishonest one, but IMO, in today's world, a dishonest strategy out competes an honest one.

But the problem is that we're not all the machines the comment makes us out to be. Switching on psychopathology is no more easy than "just eating less" to lose weight. Easier said than done. For many, being a lying weasel, or even just dealing with them, causes the bile to rise in the gorge, while for other it's comes as naturally and comfortably as breathing.

The number of true psychopaths is low, I'm guessing. But the number who instinctively say whatever is socially advantageous is much higher. It's not like they're planning to lie and deceive, it's that they're interacting to their advantage. Correspondence to reality is simply irrelevant.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 09 April 2014 06:46:07PM 5 points [-]

The number of true psychopaths is low, I'm guessing. But the number who instinctively say whatever is socially advantageous is much higher. It's not like they're planning to lie and deceive, it's that they're interacting to their advantage. Correspondence to reality is simply irrelevant.

Thus the distinction between lies and bullshit.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 09 April 2014 07:03:29PM *  2 points [-]

Ha! Already got that book. But thanks, I'd forgotten about it. Looks like he has another book, this time "On Truth".

Someone gave me a novel for my birthday, but I'm struggling to remember the title. Something like "The Secret Theories of Doctor Modesto". Something like "Averageism", where your personality just oozes to the mean of any group.

I was just discussing Hypocrisy and lying weasels with my sister. Maybe I should send her the book for her birthday.

From the link you provided:

the bullshitter is a man or a woman whose principal aim — when uttering or publishing bullshit — is to impress the listener and the reader with words that communicate an impression favorable to the speaker, with no concern for the truth of what they're saying. Likewise, the bullshitter is not concerned with consistency between what they're saying at the moment, and anything they've previously said. Consequently, “the bullshitter is faking things, but that does not necessarily mean he gets them wrong.”.[1] He simply doesn't care. In contrast, the liar must know the truth, of the matter under discussion, in order to better conceal it from the listener or the reader being deceived with a lie; while the bullshitter’s sole concern is personal advancement and advantage to his or her agenda; bullshit thus is a greater enemy of the truth than are lies.

Yes! Truth is irrelevant, advantage is all.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 27 April 2014 06:33:09AM 0 points [-]

Found "On Bullshit" online.

https://athens.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf

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