Akka
Moody old mage.
Coming from another thread :
(basically, the point is that dishonesty goes against the self-interest of someone)
It took some time, but I finished it at last, so I can keep my promise ^^
Overall, this a very good work. The analysis is of very high level, clear, neat, and precise.
The part with self-deception is simply brilliant. It should be mandatory for many people to read it (particularly many libertarian on this board
). It's nearly flawless, except I think the author underestimate the ability for the mind to refuse, block and ignore something which annoys it.
The concepts are well explained, with examples and reasoning. I'm in agreement with most of the paper.
But (you saw this coming) there is some points that I disagree with, and they are at the basis of the conclusion.
First, the author, though talking only about tendencies, imply that by being dishonest, someone lose the fact from view, or at least use a lot of energy to keep the record of both the fictionnal world of lies and the real world. It's not necessarily the case. Someone can be dishonest WITHOUT losing the grasp on fact. Politicians are especially proficient at that, for example.
Second, and it's a more important point, the author is quite contempt about the importance of others' points of view in a lie. He repeatedly say that fooling others won't change the facts, like in "making them believe you're more competent won't make you more competent".
While he's right on some case, he's SERIOUSLY downplaying the importance of the others' opinion in a society. Interaction with people is a HUGE part of the regular life of someone (even a geek like me, so imagine
), and a lot of what people think about you is influenced by what others tell them.
The facts also determine what someone think about you, but how he views as the fact is also determined in part by what he already think about you.
You can get immense benefit by manipulating people. Publicity, adds and PR are, in fact, an enormous part of any big business, and they mostly consist in presenting the facts in the best light possible, which usually mean lying flatly about them.
The author, all in all, vastly underestimate the importance of the opinions of others.
Third, this paper is very interesting as a theorical stuff. It's good at giving guidelines for people on an ideological point of view. But it's still theory. The rationnal self-interest thing is interesting as long as it stays in the "objective self-interest" stance (like health, business and son on). But it's somehow lacking in the "subjective self-interest" (as in self-fulfillement, desires and so on), which is where it doesn't work as well. Something could be considered not in the rationnal self-interest of someone, but it could, because of the character of the person, be really what's most interesting for him (someone whose ultimate desire is to do a very dangerous and unhealthy sport, by example. He would ruin his health doing it, but he would ruin his life not doing it ; so, his real best self-interest would be to still do it, even at the cost of his health).
I disagree on a fourth point, but it's more on a principle basis : he prices honesty only as he considers it the best way to achieve your self-interest, while I value honesty because it's a moral absolute. That's an ideological difference about values and ideals, so it's something that was expected.
And the last point I wish to address, is also a somehow important one. The author talked about lies and dishonesty in the long term. He explained how, in the end, it was usually not worth it.
But he simply wasn't convincing about short-term dishonesty, ie the one that gives you an instant benefit, with negligible bad consequences, and no need to sustain a lie afterward.
It could be as simple as lieing to a girl about your feelings so you could hump her, and then drop her.
It could be a single well-planned crime that bring you enough of money to not have to do another one again. Provided the plan is good enough, you wouldn't be caught, and you wouldn't need to build a false world of lie to keep it all running.
It could be sneaking into the mail of an entreprise you wish to work for, and remove every application for the job but yours, to ensure that you will get the job.
Etc.
His answer to that is simply that, as someone can never know all the consequences of his acts, then he simply should stick to honesty, just in case, because honesty as a better chance to work in his self-interest.
But that's a VERY weak argument. In fact, we could say the same for every business, and say that, in the end, it's safer to just be a salary man. Taking risks is part of mankind, and as such his argument doesn't look convincing at all.
All in all, while I consider this an excellent paper, and while I agree with the biggest part of it, the conclusions that the author draws in the end look quite faulty to me.
I promised him that I would make a new thread with my answer once I have read it.newfangle said:@Akka
This is possibly the worst time to introduce this, but I found a 16-page essay on why being a criminal isn't in your bests interests.
Yeah yeah, it's about a year late. Whaddya gonna do, shoot me?
http://journals.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5139594
(basically, the point is that dishonesty goes against the self-interest of someone)
It took some time, but I finished it at last, so I can keep my promise ^^
Overall, this a very good work. The analysis is of very high level, clear, neat, and precise.
The part with self-deception is simply brilliant. It should be mandatory for many people to read it (particularly many libertarian on this board

The concepts are well explained, with examples and reasoning. I'm in agreement with most of the paper.
But (you saw this coming) there is some points that I disagree with, and they are at the basis of the conclusion.
First, the author, though talking only about tendencies, imply that by being dishonest, someone lose the fact from view, or at least use a lot of energy to keep the record of both the fictionnal world of lies and the real world. It's not necessarily the case. Someone can be dishonest WITHOUT losing the grasp on fact. Politicians are especially proficient at that, for example.
Second, and it's a more important point, the author is quite contempt about the importance of others' points of view in a lie. He repeatedly say that fooling others won't change the facts, like in "making them believe you're more competent won't make you more competent".
While he's right on some case, he's SERIOUSLY downplaying the importance of the others' opinion in a society. Interaction with people is a HUGE part of the regular life of someone (even a geek like me, so imagine

The facts also determine what someone think about you, but how he views as the fact is also determined in part by what he already think about you.
You can get immense benefit by manipulating people. Publicity, adds and PR are, in fact, an enormous part of any big business, and they mostly consist in presenting the facts in the best light possible, which usually mean lying flatly about them.
The author, all in all, vastly underestimate the importance of the opinions of others.
Third, this paper is very interesting as a theorical stuff. It's good at giving guidelines for people on an ideological point of view. But it's still theory. The rationnal self-interest thing is interesting as long as it stays in the "objective self-interest" stance (like health, business and son on). But it's somehow lacking in the "subjective self-interest" (as in self-fulfillement, desires and so on), which is where it doesn't work as well. Something could be considered not in the rationnal self-interest of someone, but it could, because of the character of the person, be really what's most interesting for him (someone whose ultimate desire is to do a very dangerous and unhealthy sport, by example. He would ruin his health doing it, but he would ruin his life not doing it ; so, his real best self-interest would be to still do it, even at the cost of his health).
I disagree on a fourth point, but it's more on a principle basis : he prices honesty only as he considers it the best way to achieve your self-interest, while I value honesty because it's a moral absolute. That's an ideological difference about values and ideals, so it's something that was expected.
And the last point I wish to address, is also a somehow important one. The author talked about lies and dishonesty in the long term. He explained how, in the end, it was usually not worth it.
But he simply wasn't convincing about short-term dishonesty, ie the one that gives you an instant benefit, with negligible bad consequences, and no need to sustain a lie afterward.
It could be as simple as lieing to a girl about your feelings so you could hump her, and then drop her.
It could be a single well-planned crime that bring you enough of money to not have to do another one again. Provided the plan is good enough, you wouldn't be caught, and you wouldn't need to build a false world of lie to keep it all running.
It could be sneaking into the mail of an entreprise you wish to work for, and remove every application for the job but yours, to ensure that you will get the job.
Etc.
His answer to that is simply that, as someone can never know all the consequences of his acts, then he simply should stick to honesty, just in case, because honesty as a better chance to work in his self-interest.
But that's a VERY weak argument. In fact, we could say the same for every business, and say that, in the end, it's safer to just be a salary man. Taking risks is part of mankind, and as such his argument doesn't look convincing at all.
All in all, while I consider this an excellent paper, and while I agree with the biggest part of it, the conclusions that the author draws in the end look quite faulty to me.