= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Gleb_Tsipursky comments on Is altruistic deception really necessary? Social activism and the free market - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (96)
This all depends on your goals and what you're optimizing for, as an agent. If your goals require lying, then from a rationalist perspective, you should lie. The requirement of lying is not evidence for or against the value of your goals. These are orthogonal issues.
That's the question my post asks. I posted a small amount of empirical evidence that goals that appear to me to be more worthy are less likely to require lying. So I would rather you present a counter-argument, or other evidence, or an explanation of why my evidence is invalid, rather than a simple declaration of your position.
Fair enough.
1) I would say that that weird, counterintuitive, and non-obvious goals are those that would be most likely to benefit from lying. This is independent from whether these goals are worthwhile.
1A) I would agree with the OP that it is more likely for worthwhile goals to benefit less from lying, as it should ideally be easier to convince people of their benefit truthfully. However, considering the amount of irrationality in the world, there will be plenty of goals that are worthwhile and would not be easy to convince people of using only truthful methods.
2) Lying may be a more efficient way to accomplish worthwhile goals than not. By denying the tool of lying, one's options are limited.
2A) Now, this does not mean that lying is a worthwhile tool to use. It may be more efficient, but also more risky. Likewise, some goals may be undermined by using the method of lying to get to them. A rational agent is best off calculating the expected utility of lying as a tool before using it.