Fair point; I was assuming you had the capacity to lie/omit/deceive, and you’re right that we often don’t, at least not fully.
I still prefer my policy to the OPs, but I accept your argument that mine isn’t a simple Pareto improvement.
Still:
I really don’t like letting social forces put “don’t think about X” flinches into my or my friends’ heads; and the OPs policy seems to me like an instance of that;
Much less importantly: as an intelligent/self-reflective adult, you may be better at hiding info if you know what you’re hiding, compared to if you have guesses you’re not letting yourself see, that your friends might still notice. (The “don’t look into dragons” path often still involves hiding info, since often your brain takes a guess anyhow, and that’s part of how you know not to look into this one. If you acknowledge the whole situation, you can manage your relationships consciously, including taking conscious steps to buy openness-offsets, stay freely and transparently friends where you can scheme out how.)
The “don’t look into dragons” path often still involves hiding info, since often your brain takes a guess anyhow
In many cases I have guesses, but because I just have vague impressions they’re all very speculative. This is consistent with being able to say “I haven’t looked into it” and “I really don’t know”, and because these are all areas where the truth is not decision relevant it’s been easy to leave it at that. Perhaps people notice I have doubts, but at least in my social circles that’s acceptable if not made explicit.
I think it’s a pretty weak hit, though not zero. There are so many things I want to look into that I don’t have time for that having this as another factor in my prioritization doesn’t feel very limiting to my intellectual freedom.
I do think it is good to have a range of people in society who are taking a range of approaches, though!
Fair point; I was assuming you had the capacity to lie/omit/deceive, and you’re right that we often don’t, at least not fully.
I still prefer my policy to the OPs, but I accept your argument that mine isn’t a simple Pareto improvement.
Still:
I really don’t like letting social forces put “don’t think about X” flinches into my or my friends’ heads; and the OPs policy seems to me like an instance of that;
Much less importantly: as an intelligent/self-reflective adult, you may be better at hiding info if you know what you’re hiding, compared to if you have guesses you’re not letting yourself see, that your friends might still notice. (The “don’t look into dragons” path often still involves hiding info, since often your brain takes a guess anyhow, and that’s part of how you know not to look into this one. If you acknowledge the whole situation, you can manage your relationships consciously, including taking conscious steps to buy openness-offsets, stay freely and transparently friends where you can scheme out how.)
In many cases I have guesses, but because I just have vague impressions they’re all very speculative. This is consistent with being able to say “I haven’t looked into it” and “I really don’t know”, and because these are all areas where the truth is not decision relevant it’s been easy to leave it at that. Perhaps people notice I have doubts, but at least in my social circles that’s acceptable if not made explicit.
Does it feel to you as though your epistemic habits / self-trust / intellectual freedom and autonomy / self-honesty takes a hit here?
I think it’s a pretty weak hit, though not zero. There are so many things I want to look into that I don’t have time for that having this as another factor in my prioritization doesn’t feel very limiting to my intellectual freedom.
I do think it is good to have a range of people in society who are taking a range of approaches, though!