If the baseline level of noble lies is zero, then it would make sense to keep it there, as a Schelling fence. However, I doubt that any society has a baseline of zero.
Or is the whole trick of Noble Lies that you’d never admit that they are lies?
When people say crazy, obviously false things, I more and more wonder how much of what they are saying are things they don’t believe themselves, but are just saying to go along with what others say, or manipulate others in Noble Lie fashion.
Noble lies we approve of seem to us to be truths. Noble lies we dont approve approve seem to plain old lies...”crazy, obviously false things”. So almost everybody thinks they are living ina Noble Lie free world.
Noble lies of the right include “my tribe is objectively better than everyone else’s” and “his majesty was placed on the theone, by God”. Obsessing about four point differences in IQ is a version of the former.
Doesn’t seem that way to me. If I tell a Noble Lie, I don’t believe it (in the epistemic sense), but intend others to do so. If I spread a claim I think is true and it is in fact false, I’m just spreading a falsehood that I’m unaware of.
If what I say is correct, you would not be able to tell, solipsistically, if you believed in any lies that seemed true to you. You need to start with other people’s lies, in particular by thinking about how persistent crazy ideas could fulfil an instrumentaal purpose.
If the baseline level of noble lies is zero, then it would make sense to keep it there, as a Schelling fence. However, I doubt that any society has a baseline of zero.
Do you have Noble Lies that you approve of?
Or is the whole trick of Noble Lies that you’d never admit that they are lies?
When people say crazy, obviously false things, I more and more wonder how much of what they are saying are things they don’t believe themselves, but are just saying to go along with what others say, or manipulate others in Noble Lie fashion.
Noble lies we approve of seem to us to be truths. Noble lies we dont approve approve seem to plain old lies...”crazy, obviously false things”. So almost everybody thinks they are living ina Noble Lie free world.
Noble lies of the right include “my tribe is objectively better than everyone else’s” and “his majesty was placed on the theone, by God”. Obsessing about four point differences in IQ is a version of the former.
Doesn’t seem that way to me. If I tell a Noble Lie, I don’t believe it (in the epistemic sense), but intend others to do so. If I spread a claim I think is true and it is in fact false, I’m just spreading a falsehood that I’m unaware of.
If what I say is correct, you would not be able to tell, solipsistically, if you believed in any lies that seemed true to you. You need to start with other people’s lies, in particular by thinking about how persistent crazy ideas could fulfil an instrumentaal purpose.