“The truth hurts”, “ignorance is bliss”, and “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” don’t contradict: they all say you’re better off not knowing some bit of information that would be unpleasant to know, or that a small “white lie” is allowable.
The opposite there would be phrases I’ve mostly seen via LessWrong like “that which can be destroyed by the truth, should be”, or “what is true is already true, owning up to it doesn’t make it worse”, or “if you tell one lie, the truth is thereafter your enemy”, or the general ethos that knowing true information enables effective action.
Or to add on to the thought, there are non-LW pro-truth/knowledge idioms like “knowledge is power”, “the truth will set you free”, or “honesty is the best policy”
“The truth hurts”, “ignorance is bliss”, and “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” don’t contradict: they all say you’re better off not knowing some bit of information that would be unpleasant to know, or that a small “white lie” is allowable.
The opposite there would be phrases I’ve mostly seen via LessWrong like “that which can be destroyed by the truth, should be”, or “what is true is already true, owning up to it doesn’t make it worse”, or “if you tell one lie, the truth is thereafter your enemy”, or the general ethos that knowing true information enables effective action.
Or to add on to the thought, there are non-LW pro-truth/knowledge idioms like “knowledge is power”, “the truth will set you free”, or “honesty is the best policy”