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buybuydandavis comments on Is altruistic deception really necessary? Social activism and the free market - Less Wrong Discussion
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"The argument that people need to be deceived into social reform assumes either that they're stupid"
I think the relevant point isn't what is needed, but what is possible. If lying wins, people will do it. Though stupidity is relevant.
I look at politics, and MoreWrong seems to win just fine. In fact, it wins better than LessWrong. When you fail to avail yourself of the Dark Side, you're failing to avail yourself of power. When the enemy doesn't, you lose.
When some people are much more intelligent than others, the Dark Side will work:
You can win by having the better argument, or win by being the better arguer.
With some people, there's a cultural value of honesty in disagreement. No lies. And such people make liars and their compatriots pay a price when caught, so that they are deterred from lying. That makes for a culture with great social capital in trust and cooperation.
But if that culture stops making people pay a price for lying, I don't see how that culture survives defectors. This is especially a problem when the champion arguers on both sides are simply much better at it than their audiences. They can lie to and manipulate their audiences, such that liar detection breaks down and the contest reverts to Us vs. Them.
Further, honesty simply isn't a universal value. Honest people arguing with liars and dissemblers is a contest in persuasion. The honest grant strikes, while the liars do not. The honest retreat, and the liars take ground.
You're sidestepping my question, which is whether an ideology or an action issue that requires the Dark Side is considerably more likely to be wrong than one that doesn't.
I wasn't really sidestepping, I was just dancing my own jig a bit in the direction of an answer. I think I lost my train of thought, and just ended.
For your question, I think most of my jig was relevant. If we're talking about political power, given the tribal nature of the competition, and the realities of democracy, and population IQ variation within populations, and the political culture of significant dishonesty, then it seems to me that most any political cause requires the Dark Side, so needing the Dark Side is not particularly predictive of a bad argument.
The need of the Dark Side does not come from the particulars of the argument, but from the context in which the associated political power is decided.