If you’ll lie when the fate of the world is at stake, and others can guess that fact about you, then, at the moment when the fate of the world is at stake, that’s the moment when your words become the whistling of the wind.
But there’s implicit assumptions there; for instance that you can credibly signal that you would not lie with the fate of the world at stake. You can do this by building up something of a reputation, but most people will not believe that you will scale your truth-telling to the “fate of the world” level.
There is only one way to do this: to have told the truth when the fate of the world was at stake, when it would have been advantageous to lie. Preferably, to have done this more than once.
Similarly, the only way of being entirely credible when the Nazis ask you “are you hiding jews?” is if you have previously hidden jews, and previously denounced them when asked.
If you’ll lie when the fate of the world is at stake, and others can guess that fact about you, then, at the moment when the fate of the world is at stake, that’s the moment when your words become the whistling of the wind.
But there’s implicit assumptions there; for instance that you can credibly signal that you would not lie with the fate of the world at stake. You can do this by building up something of a reputation, but most people will not believe that you will scale your truth-telling to the “fate of the world” level.
There is only one way to do this: to have told the truth when the fate of the world was at stake, when it would have been advantageous to lie. Preferably, to have done this more than once.
Similarly, the only way of being entirely credible when the Nazis ask you “are you hiding jews?” is if you have previously hidden jews, and previously denounced them when asked.