Yes, intentional signaling is hard, and the easiest way to do it is to just be honest most of the time. I follow and recommend this (though I do NOT recommend truthful-but-misleading linguistic games in most cases, and don’t make much moral distinction between that and lying. It is more deniable, so more convenient signaling). But I don’t hesitate to diverge when it’s clearly positive-value.
To be clear, I recommend meta-lie-ing to the gestapo as well. Claim that I’ve gone further down the road since they read my blogs and taken a vow of absolute object-level truth. Claim that I’ve discovered meta-meta-truth, which prevents withholding information even if not asked, and confess some other minor crime instead. Whatever it takes to get them to leave.
Yes, intentional signaling is hard, and the easiest way to do it is to just be honest most of the time. I follow and recommend this (though I do NOT recommend truthful-but-misleading linguistic games in most cases, and don’t make much moral distinction between that and lying. It is more deniable, so more convenient signaling). But I don’t hesitate to diverge when it’s clearly positive-value.
To be clear, I recommend meta-lie-ing to the gestapo as well. Claim that I’ve gone further down the road since they read my blogs and taken a vow of absolute object-level truth. Claim that I’ve discovered meta-meta-truth, which prevents withholding information even if not asked, and confess some other minor crime instead. Whatever it takes to get them to leave.