I suspect that a part of my attraction to truth was that my social skills were not good enough to make me a decent liar. For other people lying seemed to work often, but it did not work for me. I was not able to predict what people wanted to hear, and to say it plausibly.
So in my model of the world, knowing the truth seemed like the best strategy for me. In reality, it worked well in math and computer programming, but I failed to translate it into instrumental rationality. I was not able to deal with the amounts of existing disinformation myself, and I did not find other rational (outside the laboratory) people near me.
Interesting! Did you want to lie as much as the people it seemed to work for, or did you want to lie just a little? Or was it really some other group of skills you wanted, which just resulted in lies incidentally?
Lying is a part of “social skills”. It is not a necessary part—you can usually avoid expressing opinions on topics where speaking truth would harm your image—but it helps to make people feel better and do what you want.
I suppose most people are lying without being aware that they are lying; compartmentalization probably helps a lot. (But because I am not a good liar, you should not trust this hypothesis—perhaps I am missing something very important here.)
I don’t know what would the optimal amount of lying. It’s probably context-dependent.
I suspect that a part of my attraction to truth was that my social skills were not good enough to make me a decent liar. For other people lying seemed to work often, but it did not work for me. I was not able to predict what people wanted to hear, and to say it plausibly.
So in my model of the world, knowing the truth seemed like the best strategy for me. In reality, it worked well in math and computer programming, but I failed to translate it into instrumental rationality. I was not able to deal with the amounts of existing disinformation myself, and I did not find other rational (outside the laboratory) people near me.
Interesting! Did you want to lie as much as the people it seemed to work for, or did you want to lie just a little? Or was it really some other group of skills you wanted, which just resulted in lies incidentally?
Lying is a part of “social skills”. It is not a necessary part—you can usually avoid expressing opinions on topics where speaking truth would harm your image—but it helps to make people feel better and do what you want.
I suppose most people are lying without being aware that they are lying; compartmentalization probably helps a lot. (But because I am not a good liar, you should not trust this hypothesis—perhaps I am missing something very important here.)
I don’t know what would the optimal amount of lying. It’s probably context-dependent.