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> There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions. That's not always possible. > Lying in this case is

> There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions. That's not always possible. > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable. In what case? If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by an ex who is a cop required to be honest about their identities? Are reporters investigating sex trafficking required to be honest about their identities? In a more broad sense, there are many corporations and governments out there who follow no ethical rules whatsoever and are sucking up as much information on everyone as they can. These people don't have any sort of right to that information, and don't have a right to my honesty. If anything, I think the moral thing to do, if any, is to hamper these people's efforts by feeding them as much incorrect information as much as possible. > It is also a signalling issue. Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics, and therefore can't be trusted in nuanced situations. If you wouldn't lie to the police to protect a pot smoker, or lie to an advertiser to protect my privacy, you aren't an ethical person by my standards. I do believe you have good intentions, but intentions that don't translate into the correct actions don't mean much. > There is a universal social contract not to lie. This is what I mean about not-very-nuanced opinions. > If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy, because there is no reason to assume they would not lie or hold other social contracts in more serious cases when it does not suit them. 1. What issues are you considering minor? You seem extraordinarily willing to generalize some specific-but-not-described situation you're imagining to all of reality. 2. There are lots of reasons to assume that someone who lies to cops won't lie to me, for example.

zajio1am 4y ago
> That's not always possible. In most cases it is. And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona. > In what case? In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying. > Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics Or perhaps you just ignore the context of the article to strawman my position. > What issues are you considering minor? Where the cost of not telling a lie is just some social cost unrelated to personal security, employment or other similarly important needs.
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  > In most cases it is. If you protect your anonymity in 999,999 cases out of 1,000,000, your anonymity is blown. "Most cases" isn't enough. > And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona. Yes. Because lying ex-post-facto after people have already started trying to figure out who you are doesn't work. > In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying. The article doesn't say anything about it being "to avoid awkward social interactions". On the contrary, the reason given for doing so is as a further protection of one's anonymity. And to be clear, there are many cases where any reasonable person would agree it's ethical to lie to protect one's anonymity, some of which I've described in my previous post.
ttrefa 4y ago
> > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable. > In what case? > If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by [...] You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about. I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases. But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad. Please don't do this, it makes the discussion less interesting for everybody.
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  > You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about. I'm insinuating that they argue for _always_ because they are being extremely vague about what "this case" is. If they aren't arguing for _always_, they can answer the question. Notably, they responded to my post with an explanation of what they think "this case" is, and it's... a straw man that the original article wasn't talking about. > I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases. I'd be happy to have such a discussion with you if you can illuminate what "such cases" are. To be clear, the original article wasn't discussing lying "just to avoid awkward social interactions". That's a straw man. > But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad. Agreed!

zajio1am 4y ago

> That's not always possible. In most cases it is. And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona. > In what case? In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying. > Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics Or perhaps you just ignore the context of the article to strawman my position. > What issues are you considering minor? Where the cost of not telling a lie is just some social cost unrelated to personal security, employment or other similarly important needs.

kerkeslager 4y ago
> In most cases it is. If you protect your anonymity in 999,999 cases out of 1,000,000, your anonymity is blown. "Most cases" isn't enough. > And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona. Yes. Because lying ex-post-facto after people have already started trying to figure out who you are doesn't work. > In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying. The article doesn't say anything about it being "to avoid awkward social interactions". On the contrary, the reason given for doing so is as a further protection of one's anonymity. And to be clear, there are many cases where any reasonable person would agree it's ethical to lie to protect one's anonymity, some of which I've described in my previous post.

ttrefa 4y ago

> > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable. > In what case? > If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by [...] You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about. I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases. But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad. Please don't do this, it makes the discussion less interesting for everybody.

kerkeslager 4y ago
> You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about. I'm insinuating that they argue for _always_ because they are being extremely vague about what "this case" is. If they aren't arguing for _always_, they can answer the question. Notably, they responded to my post with an explanation of what they think "this case" is, and it's... a straw man that the original article wasn't talking about. > I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases. I'd be happy to have such a discussion with you if you can illuminate what "such cases" are. To be clear, the original article wasn't discussing lying "just to avoid awkward social interactions". That's a straw man. > But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad. Agreed!