The usual story is that couching truth in politeness is positive-sum—it helps everyone, compared to a world where everyone’s truth thorns are out all the time. Jessica does take a passing shot at that story (“non-zero-sum frames, of course, usually interpret truth-telling positively”), but it doesn’t seem conclusive to me.
The usual story is that couching truth in politeness is positive-sum—it helps everyone, compared to a world where everyone’s truth thorns are out all the time. Jessica does take a passing shot at that story (“non-zero-sum frames, of course, usually interpret truth-telling positively”), but it doesn’t seem conclusive to me.