Well, I’m not going to call you a monster or anything, but I will say that I sure would hate to find out one of my friends was the way you describe yourself. I don’t think I could continue to be friends with that person, and I sure wouldn’t choose to be close to a person if I knew in advance they were like this.
Why? Beanbag chairs can be useful, so long as you remember not to build your entire house out of them.
I’m not entirely sure I follow your analogy. Is it: “People with personality traits you hate can be fine to have as friends, so long as not all of your friends have personality traits you hate”?
Not being friends with people you hate is nearly a tautology. I’m saying you shouldn’t hate and shun people just for prioritizing your comfort over their own integrity.
If your social circle consists entirely of straight-talkers, where will you go when you need to be comforted? If a putty-person wants to associate with you, but you have a well-established reputation for shunning putty-people and a relatively homogenous social circle… well, then, they’ll pretend to be a straight-talker, because blending in is what they do. Eventually the game-theory of this makes you paranoid, which means more need and less opportunity for emotional comfort, which means any remaining infiltrators get more of your social bandwidth because they’re better at providing that comfort.
Also, you seem to have missed the distinction between in-principle independently-verifiable fact and self-reported preference. If moridinamael told me, due to my apparent feelings on the issue rather than a legitimate misperception, that a particular gun had been loaded with only five bullets when in actuality it contained six, that would be a much more serious issue than inaccurately reporting how enjoyable some sort of entertainment media had been, even if the entertainment preference went on to influence purchasing decisions and the sixth bullet wasn’t aimed at anything I cared about.
If brutal honesty satisfied all human emotional needs the world would look very different than it does.
By “comfort” here I am referring particularly to the feeling of finding someone who agrees with you closely on some essentially subjective issue, such as taste in art or the moral worth of specific individuals. It is in principle possible to find someone who holds the ideally matched set of opinions persistently, for their own reasons, but there are search costs, and such a person might have other features inconvenient or prohibitive to long-term friendship. A less-close match provides a weaker degree of the feeling. Someone you know to be, on some level, insincere, also provides a weaker degree of the feeling, but that can be outweighed by them being effectively a closer match, and the reduced costs in other areas.
Is my reasoning flawed, or is this a matter of you experiencing the latter effect (suspension of disbelief) more strongly?
It is in principle possible to find someone who holds the ideally matched set of opinions persistently
It’s easier (though still non-trivial) to find a set of someones, each of whom holds matching views on some subset of the relevant opinions, and who together cover most or all relevant opinions. It’s not easy to find people with whom you match thusly!
Finding good, true friends is not something that just happens trivially. But it’s worth it. I wouldn’t want to settle for less.
Is my reasoning flawed, or is this a matter of you experiencing the latter effect (suspension of disbelief) more strongly?
If I’m interpreting your phrasing correctly, then… um, yes. It’s a matter of that. I value truth, and honesty. If I know someone is lying to me, I’m not just going to “suspend disbelief” and pretend I don’t know they’re lying. Not to mention: how am I going to get around the fact that their lies and deceptions make it very difficult for me to respect them? More pretending? More self-deception?
No thank you.
Finally:
If brutal honesty satisfied all human emotional needs the world would look very different than it does.
Who said honesty has to be brutal? The truth may be, but its telling may not. And I am not comforted by lies.
If your social circle consists entirely of straight-talkers, where will you go when you need to be comforted? If a putty-person wants to associate with you, but you have a well-established reputation for shunning putty-people and a relatively homogenous social circle… well, then, they’ll pretend to be a straight-talker, because blending in is what they do. Eventually the game-theory of this makes you paranoid, which means more need and less opportunity for emotional comfort, which means any remaining infiltrators get more of your social bandwidth because they’re better at providing that comfort.
Er, what? What are you talking about? This doesn’t happen. Is that something you experience in your life? People infiltrating their way into friendships with you, when they know that their personality traits are something you hate? That must suck. :(
Also, you seem to have missed the distinction between in-principle independently-verifiable fact and self-reported preference.
“You can’t prove I hate your pie, so I might as well lie and say I like it.”?
No thanks. If that’s how you (the hypothetical you, a person who wants to be my friend) behave, then, all else being equal, I don’t want to be your friend.
Er, what? What are you talking about? This doesn’t happen.
It is a thing which I have seen happen to people. There are known countermeasures, which I am attempting to discuss and you are discarding as repugnant.
If you want me to boil it down to three words, “business before pleasure.” Accumulate some people you can count on to cover their own specialties and communicate with you accurately and precisely, and some other people who are fun to be around. Optimize those groups separately. If someone wants to straddle the line, never let them apply leverage from one mode to the other. Never forget which mode you’re currently operating in. Business gets priority in emergencies and strategic decisions, because survival, but there should be a balance overall: it’s “before,” not “instead of.”
I thank you for the information/advice, but with respect, I am going to ignore it entirely. I will continue to have a small circle of close friends who are both fun to be around, and don’t lie to me. I will continue to avoid closeness with people who lie to me; should any infiltrate my circle of friends (for reasons that I still can’t imagine), I will cut them off utterly as soon as I discover their true nature.
Why? Beanbag chairs can be useful, so long as you remember not to build your entire house out of them.
I’m not entirely sure I follow your analogy. Is it: “People with personality traits you hate can be fine to have as friends, so long as not all of your friends have personality traits you hate”?
If so, then I disagree.
Not being friends with people you hate is nearly a tautology. I’m saying you shouldn’t hate and shun people just for prioritizing your comfort over their own integrity.
If your social circle consists entirely of straight-talkers, where will you go when you need to be comforted? If a putty-person wants to associate with you, but you have a well-established reputation for shunning putty-people and a relatively homogenous social circle… well, then, they’ll pretend to be a straight-talker, because blending in is what they do. Eventually the game-theory of this makes you paranoid, which means more need and less opportunity for emotional comfort, which means any remaining infiltrators get more of your social bandwidth because they’re better at providing that comfort.
Also, you seem to have missed the distinction between in-principle independently-verifiable fact and self-reported preference. If moridinamael told me, due to my apparent feelings on the issue rather than a legitimate misperception, that a particular gun had been loaded with only five bullets when in actuality it contained six, that would be a much more serious issue than inaccurately reporting how enjoyable some sort of entertainment media had been, even if the entertainment preference went on to influence purchasing decisions and the sixth bullet wasn’t aimed at anything I cared about.
Oh, and:
To the “straight-talkers”, of course. Can you find comfort only in lies?
If brutal honesty satisfied all human emotional needs the world would look very different than it does.
By “comfort” here I am referring particularly to the feeling of finding someone who agrees with you closely on some essentially subjective issue, such as taste in art or the moral worth of specific individuals. It is in principle possible to find someone who holds the ideally matched set of opinions persistently, for their own reasons, but there are search costs, and such a person might have other features inconvenient or prohibitive to long-term friendship. A less-close match provides a weaker degree of the feeling. Someone you know to be, on some level, insincere, also provides a weaker degree of the feeling, but that can be outweighed by them being effectively a closer match, and the reduced costs in other areas.
Is my reasoning flawed, or is this a matter of you experiencing the latter effect (suspension of disbelief) more strongly?
It’s easier (though still non-trivial) to find a set of someones, each of whom holds matching views on some subset of the relevant opinions, and who together cover most or all relevant opinions. It’s not easy to find people with whom you match thusly!
Finding good, true friends is not something that just happens trivially. But it’s worth it. I wouldn’t want to settle for less.
If I’m interpreting your phrasing correctly, then… um, yes. It’s a matter of that. I value truth, and honesty. If I know someone is lying to me, I’m not just going to “suspend disbelief” and pretend I don’t know they’re lying. Not to mention: how am I going to get around the fact that their lies and deceptions make it very difficult for me to respect them? More pretending? More self-deception?
No thank you.
Finally:
Who said honesty has to be brutal? The truth may be, but its telling may not. And I am not comforted by lies.
Er, what? What are you talking about? This doesn’t happen. Is that something you experience in your life? People infiltrating their way into friendships with you, when they know that their personality traits are something you hate? That must suck. :(
“You can’t prove I hate your pie, so I might as well lie and say I like it.”?
No thanks. If that’s how you (the hypothetical you, a person who wants to be my friend) behave, then, all else being equal, I don’t want to be your friend.
It is a thing which I have seen happen to people. There are known countermeasures, which I am attempting to discuss and you are discarding as repugnant.
Well, ok. Let’s posit that this is a thing that happens. What are the countermeasures?
If you want me to boil it down to three words, “business before pleasure.” Accumulate some people you can count on to cover their own specialties and communicate with you accurately and precisely, and some other people who are fun to be around. Optimize those groups separately. If someone wants to straddle the line, never let them apply leverage from one mode to the other. Never forget which mode you’re currently operating in. Business gets priority in emergencies and strategic decisions, because survival, but there should be a balance overall: it’s “before,” not “instead of.”
Wow. That sounds like a terrible life.
I thank you for the information/advice, but with respect, I am going to ignore it entirely. I will continue to have a small circle of close friends who are both fun to be around, and don’t lie to me. I will continue to avoid closeness with people who lie to me; should any infiltrate my circle of friends (for reasons that I still can’t imagine), I will cut them off utterly as soon as I discover their true nature.
Personally, I find people who lie aren’t fun to be around.
I suspect it happens to celebrities and very rich people all the time.