The Nonlinear Library EA - Deep Honesty by Aletheophile
May 8, 2024
15:15
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Deep Honesty, published by Aletheophile on May 8, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Most people avoid saying literally false things, especially if those could be audited, like making up facts or credentials. The reasons for this are both moral and pragmatic - being caught out looks really bad, and sustaining lies is quite hard, especially over time. Let's call the habit of not saying things you know to be false 'shallow honesty'[1].
Often when people are shallowly honest, they still choose what true things they say in a kind of locally act-consequentialist way, to try to bring about some outcome. Maybe something they want for themselves (e.g. convincing their friends to see a particular movie), or something they truly believe is good (e.g. causing their friend to vote for the candidate they think will be better for the country).
Either way, if you think someone is being merely shallowly honest, you can only shallowly trust them: you might be confident that they aren't literally lying, but you still have to do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out what they actually believe or intend.
This post is about an alternative: deep honesty, and the deep trust that can follow. Deep honesty is the opposite of managing the other party's reactions for them. Deep honesty means explaining what you actually believe, rather than trying to persuade others of some course of action. Instead, you adopt a sincerely cooperative stance in choosing which information to share, and trust them to come to their own responses.
In this post, we've leaned into the things that seem good to us about deep honesty. Writing while being in touch with that makes it seem easier to convey the core idea. We've tried to outline what we see as disadvantages of deep honesty, but we're still probably a bit partial. We would love to see discussion of the idea, including critical takes (either that our concepts are not useful ones, or that this is less something to be emulated than we imply).
The rest of this post will be:
Some examples of where deep and shallow honesty diverge
Why and when you might want deep honesty
Various disclaimers about what deep honesty is not
A look at some difficult cases for deep honesty
What deep honesty might look like in practice
Examples of shallow (versus deep) honesty
Writing a very optimistic funding application which doesn't mention your personal concerns about the project
As opposed to being upfront about what you think the weaknesses are
Telling an official at border control that you're visiting America to 'see some friends'
Rather than explaining that you're also going to some kind of philanthropically funded conference about AI risk
Searching for and using whichever messaging makes audiences most concerned about AI risk
Instead of whatever best explains your concerns
Saying that you totally disagree with the ideology of an extremist group
And not that they are actually right about some important controversial topics, in a way that doesn't justify their actions
Reassuring your manager about all the things that are going well and privately trying to fix all the problems before they grow
Instead of telling your manager what's going wrong and giving them an opportunity to make an informed decision about what to do
Rejecting someone from a programme with a note explaining that it was very competitive
Rather than explaining what you perceived to be their weaknesses and shortcomings for the role
Telling yourself that you're doing something for utilitarian reasons
Instead of acknowledging that you also have a pretty weird kludge of motivations which definitely includes being recognised and appreciated by your peers
When a friend asks how you are, smoothly changing the topic because you don't want them worrying about you
Rather than opening up about private difficulties, or ...
Most people avoid saying literally false things, especially if those could be audited, like making up facts or credentials. The reasons for this are both moral and pragmatic - being caught out looks really bad, and sustaining lies is quite hard, especially over time. Let's call the habit of not saying things you know to be false 'shallow honesty'[1].
Often when people are shallowly honest, they still choose what true things they say in a kind of locally act-consequentialist way, to try to bring about some outcome. Maybe something they want for themselves (e.g. convincing their friends to see a particular movie), or something they truly believe is good (e.g. causing their friend to vote for the candidate they think will be better for the country).
Either way, if you think someone is being merely shallowly honest, you can only shallowly trust them: you might be confident that they aren't literally lying, but you still have to do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out what they actually believe or intend.
This post is about an alternative: deep honesty, and the deep trust that can follow. Deep honesty is the opposite of managing the other party's reactions for them. Deep honesty means explaining what you actually believe, rather than trying to persuade others of some course of action. Instead, you adopt a sincerely cooperative stance in choosing which information to share, and trust them to come to their own responses.
In this post, we've leaned into the things that seem good to us about deep honesty. Writing while being in touch with that makes it seem easier to convey the core idea. We've tried to outline what we see as disadvantages of deep honesty, but we're still probably a bit partial. We would love to see discussion of the idea, including critical takes (either that our concepts are not useful ones, or that this is less something to be emulated than we imply).
The rest of this post will be:
Some examples of where deep and shallow honesty diverge
Why and when you might want deep honesty
Various disclaimers about what deep honesty is not
A look at some difficult cases for deep honesty
What deep honesty might look like in practice
Examples of shallow (versus deep) honesty
Writing a very optimistic funding application which doesn't mention your personal concerns about the project
As opposed to being upfront about what you think the weaknesses are
Telling an official at border control that you're visiting America to 'see some friends'
Rather than explaining that you're also going to some kind of philanthropically funded conference about AI risk
Searching for and using whichever messaging makes audiences most concerned about AI risk
Instead of whatever best explains your concerns
Saying that you totally disagree with the ideology of an extremist group
And not that they are actually right about some important controversial topics, in a way that doesn't justify their actions
Reassuring your manager about all the things that are going well and privately trying to fix all the problems before they grow
Instead of telling your manager what's going wrong and giving them an opportunity to make an informed decision about what to do
Rejecting someone from a programme with a note explaining that it was very competitive
Rather than explaining what you perceived to be their weaknesses and shortcomings for the role
Telling yourself that you're doing something for utilitarian reasons
Instead of acknowledging that you also have a pretty weird kludge of motivations which definitely includes being recognised and appreciated by your peers
When a friend asks how you are, smoothly changing the topic because you don't want them worrying about you
Rather than opening up about private difficulties, or ...