Im a real fan of insane ideas. I literally do Acid every monday. But I gotta say among crazy ideas ‘be way way more honest’ is well trodden ground and the skulls are numerous. It just really rarely goes well. Im a pretty honest guy and am attracted to the cluster. But if you start doing this you are definitely trying something in a cluster of ideas that usually works terribly.
If anything I have to constantly tell myself to be less explicit and ‘deeply honest’. It just doesnt work well for most people.
This sounds like a case of the Rule of Equal and Opposite Advice:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any-advice-you-hear/
I’m sure for some people more honesty would be harmful, but it does sound like the caveats here make it clear when not to use it. I more agree with questions Tsvi raises in the other thread than with “this is awful advice”. I can imagine that you are a person for whom more honesty is bad, although if you followed the caveats above it would be imo quite rare to do it wrong. I think the authors do a good job of outlining many cases where it goes wrong.
John Carmack is a famously honest man. To illustrate this, I’ll give you two stories. When Carmack was a kid, he desperately wanted the macs in his schools computer lab. So he and a buddy tried to steal some. They got caught because Carmack’s friend was too fat to get through the window. Carmack went to juvie. When the counselor asked him if he wouldn’t get caught, would he do it again? Carmack answered yes for this counterfactual.
Later, when working as a young developer, Carmack and his fellow employees would take the company workstations home to code games over the weekend. Their boss eventually noticed this and wondered if they were borrowing company property without permission. He quickly hit on a foolproof plan to catch them: just ask Carmack because he cannot tell a lie. Carmack said yes.
These stories aren’t really a response to your point. I just find them to be hilarious examples of the inability to lie. They’re also an existence proof of someone being unable to lie but still doing very well.
Might be an uncharitable read of what’s being recommended here. In particular, it might be worth revisiting the section that details what Deep Honesty is not. There’s a large contingent of folks online who self-describe as ‘borderline autistic’, and one of their hallmark characteristics is blunt honesty, specifically the sort that’s associated with an inability to pick up on ordinary social cues. My friend group is disproportionately comprised of this sort of person. So I’ve had a lot of opportunity to observe a few things about how honesty works.
Speaking as somebody who is inclined to say too much myself, it’s taken a long time to realize that the first thing that comes to mind isn’t always the most honest thing. And it’s surprising how easy it is to think of honesty that way. It’s obvious when you think about it in retrospect how that would be a fraught definition of honesty but, in my experience, it doesn’t prevent you from falling into that trap over and over.
Deep Honesty, if I’m understanding the authors properly, isn’t anything like trying to be universally candid, or being blunt. It’s more like searching for opportunities where you’ve been too conservative and trying to unlock the potential value of establishing more honest communication in those situations.
Im a real fan of insane ideas. I literally do Acid every monday. But I gotta say among crazy ideas ‘be way way more honest’ is well trodden ground and the skulls are numerous. It just really rarely goes well. Im a pretty honest guy and am attracted to the cluster. But if you start doing this you are definitely trying something in a cluster of ideas that usually works terribly.
If anything I have to constantly tell myself to be less explicit and ‘deeply honest’. It just doesnt work well for most people.
This sounds like a case of the Rule of Equal and Opposite Advice: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any-advice-you-hear/ I’m sure for some people more honesty would be harmful, but it does sound like the caveats here make it clear when not to use it. I more agree with questions Tsvi raises in the other thread than with “this is awful advice”. I can imagine that you are a person for whom more honesty is bad, although if you followed the caveats above it would be imo quite rare to do it wrong. I think the authors do a good job of outlining many cases where it goes wrong.
John Carmack is a famously honest man. To illustrate this, I’ll give you two stories. When Carmack was a kid, he desperately wanted the macs in his schools computer lab. So he and a buddy tried to steal some. They got caught because Carmack’s friend was too fat to get through the window. Carmack went to juvie. When the counselor asked him if he wouldn’t get caught, would he do it again? Carmack answered yes for this counterfactual.
Later, when working as a young developer, Carmack and his fellow employees would take the company workstations home to code games over the weekend. Their boss eventually noticed this and wondered if they were borrowing company property without permission. He quickly hit on a foolproof plan to catch them: just ask Carmack because he cannot tell a lie. Carmack said yes.
These stories aren’t really a response to your point. I just find them to be hilarious examples of the inability to lie. They’re also an existence proof of someone being unable to lie but still doing very well.
Many things can be done by the right people. But Idk ‘radical honesty’ adjacent ideas usually go real bad.
Might be an uncharitable read of what’s being recommended here. In particular, it might be worth revisiting the section that details what Deep Honesty is not. There’s a large contingent of folks online who self-describe as ‘borderline autistic’, and one of their hallmark characteristics is blunt honesty, specifically the sort that’s associated with an inability to pick up on ordinary social cues. My friend group is disproportionately comprised of this sort of person. So I’ve had a lot of opportunity to observe a few things about how honesty works.
Speaking as somebody who is inclined to say too much myself, it’s taken a long time to realize that the first thing that comes to mind isn’t always the most honest thing. And it’s surprising how easy it is to think of honesty that way. It’s obvious when you think about it in retrospect how that would be a fraught definition of honesty but, in my experience, it doesn’t prevent you from falling into that trap over and over.
Deep Honesty, if I’m understanding the authors properly, isn’t anything like trying to be universally candid, or being blunt. It’s more like searching for opportunities where you’ve been too conservative and trying to unlock the potential value of establishing more honest communication in those situations.