Personally I enjoy heresies too much to be worried about being biased against them, but that still leaves the problem of others responding negatively. I’m sure there are situations where lies are the least bad solution, but where possible I’d rather get good at avoiding questions, answering ambiguously or with some related opinion that you actually hold and that you know they will like, and so on. In addition to the point about eroding the moral authority of the rationalist community I’m somewhat worried about majority-pleasing lies amplifying groupthink (emperor’s new clothes, etc), liars being socially punished and ever after distrusted if found out, and false speech seeping into false beliefs through exactly the sort of mechanism described here (will we be tempted to believe consistently with past speech? does skill at lying to others translate into skill at lying to oneself? do there exist basic disgust responses against untruth that make rationality easier and that are eroded by emotional comfort with lying?) If nothing else I’d advise being clearly aware of it whenever you’re in “black hat mode” (for example, imagine quote marks around key words).
Personally I enjoy heresies too much to be worried about being biased against them, but that still leaves the problem of others responding negatively. I’m sure there are situations where lies are the least bad solution, but where possible I’d rather get good at avoiding questions, answering ambiguously or with some related opinion that you actually hold and that you know they will like, and so on. In addition to the point about eroding the moral authority of the rationalist community I’m somewhat worried about majority-pleasing lies amplifying groupthink (emperor’s new clothes, etc), liars being socially punished and ever after distrusted if found out, and false speech seeping into false beliefs through exactly the sort of mechanism described here (will we be tempted to believe consistently with past speech? does skill at lying to others translate into skill at lying to oneself? do there exist basic disgust responses against untruth that make rationality easier and that are eroded by emotional comfort with lying?) If nothing else I’d advise being clearly aware of it whenever you’re in “black hat mode” (for example, imagine quote marks around key words).