I can think instantly of at least two useful cases where a fully rational intelligent person fully informed of the situation and premeditating it, would nevertheless still want to pay people to lie to them; and not in any tendentious meaning of ‘lie’ (“you pay artists to lie to you!”), but full outright deception in causing you to believe false facts about them, which you will then always believe*: pentesting and security testing where they deceive you into thinking they’re authorized personnel etc, and ‘randomized response technique’ survey techniques on dangerous questions where a fraction of respondents are directed to eg flip a coin & lie to you in their response so you have false beliefs about each subject but can form a truthful aggregate.
* the pen testers might tell you their real names in the debrief, but don’t have to and might not bother since it doesn’t matter and you have bigger fish to fry; the survey-takers obviously never will. In neither case do you necessarily ever find out the truth, nor do you need to in order to benefit from the lies.
I don’t consider the randomized response technique lying, it’s mutually understood that their answer means “either I support X or both coins came up heads” or “either I support Y or both coins came up tails”. There’s no deception because you’re not forming a false belief and you both know the precise meaning of what is communicated.
I don’t consider penetration testing lying, you know that penetration testers exist and have hired them. It’s a permitted part of the cooperative system, in a way that actual scam artists aren’t.
What’s a word that means “antisocially decieve someone in a way that harms them and benefits you” such that everyone agrees it’s a bad thing for people to be incentivised to do? I want to be using that word but don’t know what it is.
“Deceive” sounds fine. I think the anti-social is implied—in fact, I have trouble coming up with an example of pro-social deceiving. Well, maybe variants of the old hiding Jews from Nazis” example.
I can think instantly of at least two useful cases where a fully rational intelligent person fully informed of the situation and premeditating it, would nevertheless still want to pay people to lie to them; and not in any tendentious meaning of ‘lie’ (“you pay artists to lie to you!”), but full outright deception in causing you to believe false facts about them, which you will then always believe*: pentesting and security testing where they deceive you into thinking they’re authorized personnel etc, and ‘randomized response technique’ survey techniques on dangerous questions where a fraction of respondents are directed to eg flip a coin & lie to you in their response so you have false beliefs about each subject but can form a truthful aggregate.
* the pen testers might tell you their real names in the debrief, but don’t have to and might not bother since it doesn’t matter and you have bigger fish to fry; the survey-takers obviously never will. In neither case do you necessarily ever find out the truth, nor do you need to in order to benefit from the lies.
I don’t consider the randomized response technique lying, it’s mutually understood that their answer means “either I support X or both coins came up heads” or “either I support Y or both coins came up tails”. There’s no deception because you’re not forming a false belief and you both know the precise meaning of what is communicated.
I don’t consider penetration testing lying, you know that penetration testers exist and have hired them. It’s a permitted part of the cooperative system, in a way that actual scam artists aren’t.
What’s a word that means “antisocially decieve someone in a way that harms them and benefits you” such that everyone agrees it’s a bad thing for people to be incentivised to do? I want to be using that word but don’t know what it is.
“Deceive” sounds fine. I think the anti-social is implied—in fact, I have trouble coming up with an example of pro-social deceiving. Well, maybe variants of the old hiding Jews from Nazis” example.