[Previous] Fantasy is Fragile | Home | [Next] Substitutes

Blatant Lying Example

People lie so much and so blatantly.

i went on a diablo 2 stream on twitch today, that says "legit" in the title

then he goes to eat and starts botting.

and then his mods defend it

i was informed botting is legit if:
  • you do it to help others
  • you're eating
  • you work very hard at the game
  • the game is very hard
  • you play on East
i was also told to read his chat rules, which I noticed say not to post links to "bots or hacks"...

the point about doing it to help others, as if it didn't benefit himself, is a lie too. he wants the xp himself for ladder rank. and then when the streamer got back from his break, he started playing with his own bot and having it kill stuff for him.

Elliot Temple on April 8, 2015

Messages (17)

People lie so much, so blatantly, that this can be a meme.

Also people seeing this pic don't recognize it as lying. They don't think like "that girl is a liar" or "that girl is really dishonest, i shouldn't trust anything else she says". I think they just don't even analyze it, they don't think about it.


Anonymous at 12:20 PM on March 25, 2019 | #12065 | reply | quote

pro dishonesty sentiment

Gavin on Discord:

> I agree that the two guys in the video are being dishonest. I find a type of person in startups and companies which is doing deception in an attempt to portray their organization in a positive light so that the organization will benefit financially. I am not the kind of person to do this deception (intentionally). But I have thought that it would benefit my startup to have someone like that working with me as a partner.

Does anyone have a criticism of this?


curi at 11:38 AM on September 11, 2020 | #17982 | reply | quote

#17982 If an employee will lie to your investors, then he may lie to you. And if he's really good at it you might not know.

If you hire somebody to lie to investors your investors may dislike being lied to and may tell other people you're dishonest. Depending on what lies he tells he might also get you in legal trouble. And if the investor doesn't figure out the lie, then are you just attracting gullible and stupid investors?

Other employees who know about the lies may dislike the lies and be less inclined to work hard for you, or they might leave. And the people who stay are stupid or gullible or don't mind lying.


oh my god it's turpentine at 1:33 PM on September 11, 2020 | #17983 | reply | quote

#17983 Suppose he keeps the lying within standard social boundaries, keeps it externally directed, doesn't piss people off, doesn't break laws, etc. Suppose most people react positively and view it as something like good marketing. Then would it be effective and beneficial?

> attracting gullible and stupid investors?

Is that a bad thing? If you take their money and don't give them decision making power.


curi at 1:44 PM on September 11, 2020 | #17984 | reply | quote

#17983

> If an employee will lie to your investors, then he may lie to you. And if he's really good at it you might not know.

Also, if a *FOUNDER* will like to investors and the public, why should employees trust them?

> If you hire somebody to lie to investors your investors may dislike being lied to and may tell other people you're dishonest.

I'm actually not sure about this - at least in totality. I wrote this to someone the other day. They're in the startup-space (tho more on the VC side)

>> Personally I think [focusing a 'white-paper' on profit generation] is the best way to frame it for VC, but my feeling is there needs to be plausible deniability. Like the expectation is that one presents something profitable but that profit isn't the main selling point. Instead one should have some other reason (altruism, changing the world, etc) that *just happens( to line up. That might be an over-simplification but I think it lines up somewhat okay.

> Depending on what lies he tells he might also get you in legal trouble.

Potentially, but usually lawyers are involved with any financing stuff and all my anecdotes indicate the lawyers try pretty hard to make sure you know what *not* to say (or at least make sure you're not saying it).

> And if the investor doesn't figure out the lie, then are you just attracting gullible and stupid investors?

3 yrs ago, if you mentioned a list of gullible/stupid investors I might have said 'sign me up'. Getting VC money is *hard* in Australia (not sure about USA).


Max at 7:47 PM on September 11, 2020 | #17987 | reply | quote

Criticisms of Gavin's quote (only)

I think the important parts of this analysis are at the end, starting with "I am not ..."

> I agree that the two guys in the video are being dishonest.

Note: Gavin agrees w/ and identifies the dishonesty. (Particularly WRT the founders saying how great and transformative their product is).

> I find a type of person in startups and companies which is doing deception in an attempt to portray their organization in a positive light so that the organization will benefit financially.

I think Gavin means 'some of the people doing startups are deceptive so the startup benefits financially'. I also think there's an implicit scope here of two particular things: public perception and VC funding. The deception for financial benefit does not include stuff like scamming old people; it's particularly benefit WRT *funding* from VC. Making their idea look better than it is, or more successful, or transformative, or whatever.

Gavin says "a type" so he's not saying *everyone* doing startups, but I think it's fewer ppl than "a type" implies. Note: that's anecdotal so IDK if the broader situation is worse or it's worse in the US, etc.

I think startup founders are often incentivised to be dishonest like this, but not all of them do. Founders that are dishonest like this are wrong to do that.

> I am not the kind of person to do this deception (intentionally).

Gavin says this, however he (sorta) contradicts it with the next sentence.

> But I have thought that it would benefit my startup to have someone like that working with me as a partner.

Why is this "sorta" a contradiction? Gavin is hedging in two ways: first via '(intentionally)' -- it's good he realises he might do it unintentionally; second via 'I have thought' which is posed as a sort of hypothetical. So there are still issues here, but it's not as bad as if Gavin were e.g. actively looking for business partners who are okay lying in the ways described.

The following criticisms treat the situation as though there weren't any hedging / ambiguity. That way the criticisms can be clear. I'll indicate this with '~Gavin' instead of 'Gavin'. If that's not clear, think of '~Gavin' as 'the worst parts of Gavin' without any restraint/hesitation/etc.

First, WRT the contradiction between these last two sentences. Having someone be dishonest on your behalf (or wanting that and benefiting from it) **is in itself dishonest in the same way**. It's a proxy/accomplice type situation. It's like saying 'I'm not a thief, but it would be useful if someone stole other ppls stuff and gave it to me'. What ~Gavin means by "I am not the kind of person to do this deception" is more like "I don't like being [seen as] ..." or "I am not good at being ...".

It's also **second-handed** - it suggests ~Gavin wants his startup (himself too?) to be seen and valued based on **other people's subjective and social ideas**. And it's okay that this is *based on a lie* -- so it lacks principles and integrity too.

Second, ~Gavin is (probably unintentionally) dishonest when he claims "I am not the kind of person ...". ~Gavin genuinely thinks this (which is in itself a static meme repressing criticism, typically via triggering defensiveness). ~Gavin is also expressing second-handedness when he claims this b/c it's calibrated to make other ppl think more positively about him and his intentions. It's a way to excuse the last sentence and let ppl like him still.

It's second-handed b/c of the comparison to the hypothetical less-moral founder (the one actively doing the lying); It's easier for ppl to approve of ~Gavin than the other founder.

(I'm not sure if Gavin is a founder, or works at a startup, or what, but I don't think it matters and the above still applies).

Lastly, I think it's questionable that this sort of dishonesty would lead to better outcomes for your startup. Not only is investment predicated on a lie (which can complicate things down the line), but more importantly:

**it suppresses criticism** -- as a founder you should **want** to know where your issues and pain points are and which things *aren't working*. Lying about how well those bits work means you're not just hiding it from *yourself*, but you're also *dedicating resources to hiding it* which is like suicide for a startup. Startups are resource constrained, and any $ not spent on fixing problems is, in essence, being spent *prolonging* problems instead.


Max at 8:18 PM on September 11, 2020 | #17988 | reply | quote

#17984

>> attracting gullible and stupid investors?

> Is that a bad thing? If you take their money and don't give them decision making power.

I suspect there aren't too many to attract (or the amounts of $ are small). Evolution and all that.

I think it's a good thing for the startup if it happens, though - maybe not for the investors (or maybe?)

Some investors, like family, have lower standards (not necessarily gullible/stupid). I think it's good and important those sort of financing sources are available to some ppl.


Max at 8:27 PM on September 11, 2020 | #17989 | reply | quote

#17988

> I think Gavin means 'some of the people doing startups are deceptive so the startup benefits financially'.

I wonder if every company which has success creating technology has people who are being intentionally deceptive. Is there a company which has success creating technology which does not have people who are being intentionally deceptive? Can a company which is trying to create technology have success without using intentional deception? Can an honest company which creates technology compete in the same market where every other company is being dishonest?

> I also think there's an implicit scope here of two particular things: public perception and VC funding. The deception for financial benefit does not include stuff like scamming old people; it's particularly benefit WRT *funding* from VC. Making their idea look better than it is, or more successful, or transformative, or whatever.

I have seen people who deceive target investors, consumers, producers, and themselves.

When I talk about a "type" of person in a company I mean that there can be people in the company or organization who are not being intentionally deceptive. These people who are not being intentionally deceptive have their head in the sand. And a reason why they have their head in the sand is because management intended the organization to be structured in such a compartmentalized way.

> **it suppresses criticism** -- as a founder you should **want** to know where your issues and pain points are and which things *aren't working*. Lying about how well those bits work means you're not just hiding it from *yourself*, but you're also *dedicating resources to hiding it* which is like suicide for a startup. Startups are resource constrained, and any $ not spent on fixing problems is, in essence, being spent *prolonging* problems instead.

The meeting with the engineering team is very different from the meeting with the consumer. Should the company record their meetings with the engineering team and make those meetings available to the consumer? Is there any company doing this? Is there a company with complete transparency? I heard about https://buffer.com/ recently but I don't think they are 100% transparent either.

Most of the deception I see tends to be a "lie by omission" or a "lie by accident" because truth is not perceived to be valuable.


Gavin at 6:02 AM on September 12, 2020 | #17997 | reply | quote

Peter Thiel and Eric Weinstein Quotes

For context, I wrote a post to Peter Thiel and Eric Weinstein where I saved some quotes (notes) from their podcast and that episode is close to front of mind for me. Note that my claim is that they are doing a kind of self deception where their arguments against institutions can be redirected toward themselves or any individual (including myself) or organization (family, neighborhood, company, government, etc.). I practice trying to judge functional behavior and not the person (or thing) itself. And I practice judging my own behaviors with the same measure I would judge other people’s behaviors.

I recommend listening to the whole podcast many times, but I will share a few interesting quotes.

https://theportal.wiki/wiki/1:_Peter_Thiel

> Peter Thiel: And the reason for this is that in late modernity, which we are living in, there's simply too much knowledge for any individual human to understand all of it. And so in this world of extreme hyper specialization, where it's narrower and narrower subsets of experts policing themselves and talking about how great they are, the string theorists talking about how great string theory is, the cancer researchers talking about how they're just about to cure cancer, the quantum computer researchers are just about to build a quantum computer, there'll be a massive breakthrough. And then if you were to say that all these fields, not much is happening, people just don't have the authority for this. And this is somehow a very different feel for science or knowledge than you would've had in 1800 or even in 1900. In 1800, Goethe could still understand just about everything.

There is too much information and always has been too much information at every level: individual and group. Goethe didn’t understand everything. What Peter means is that Goethe could understand everything that had been written. And this is relevant because there will always be knowledge which is not written. And much of the stuff which is written is not true.

> Eric Weinstein: One thing that I'm very curious about is how this discipline seems to have arisen, where almost everyone representing the institutions tell some version of this universal story.

Everyone is telling a story.

> Peter Thiel: You know, one of my friends studied physics at Stanford in the late '90s. His advisor was this professor at Stanford, Bob Laughlin, who, you know, brilliant physics guy, late '90s he gets a Nobel prize in physics, and he suffers from the supreme delusion that now that he has a Nobel prize he has total academic freedom and he can do anything he wants to. And he decided to direct it at, you know, I mean, there are all these areas you probably shouldn't go into, you probably shouldn't question, climate science, there are all these things when one should be careful about, but he went into an area of far more dangerous than all of those. He was convinced that there were all these people in the university who were doing fake science, who were wasting government money on fake research that was not really going anywhere, and he started by investigating other departments, started with the biology department at Stanford university. And you can imagine this ended catastrophically for Professor Laughlin, you know, his graduate students couldn't get PhDs. He no longer got funding, Nobel prize in physics, no protection whatsoever.

The institutions didn’t like Laughlin. But neither does the individual enjoy having someone tell them they are making big mistakes.

> Peter Thiel: If one of the big drivers of scientific and technological progress was actually just the military dimension, when that became absurd did the whole thing slow down to the space age? Not in 1972 when Apollo left the moon, but was the key moment 1975 when you had the Apollo Soyuz docking? If we're just going to be friends with the Russians, does it really make sense for people to be working 80 hours, 100 hours a week around the clock? And again, I don't think it's all that, but I think one of the challenges, that we should not understate how big it is in resetting science and technology in the 21st century is, how do we tell a story that motivates sacrifice, incredibly hard work, deferred gratification for the future, that's not intrinsically violent?

Peter said we need a good story but hours earlier said we need to get out of the “Truman Show”. I think we should stop believing stories. I think we should practice entertaining a story and analysing its usefulness. But we should avoid submitting to a belief entirely. There should always be a good place for people to question the story so that learning can happen.


Gavin Palmer at 6:02 AM on September 13, 2020 | #18005 | reply | quote

https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1306982560682008576

I appreciate that patio11 is willing to point out lies.


curi at 2:52 PM on September 18, 2020 | #18064 | reply | quote

Lying can get you a $20 billion company:

https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/

Theranos only got to $9 billion by lying.


curi at 5:35 PM on September 19, 2020 | #18079 | reply | quote

#17984

> Suppose he keeps the lying within standard social boundaries, keeps it externally directed, doesn't piss people off, doesn't break laws, etc. Suppose most people react positively and view it as something like good marketing. Then would it be effective and beneficial?

Lying requires spending some of your time and attention on maintaining the lie rather than solving real problems.

>> attracting gullible and stupid investors?

>

> Is that a bad thing? If you take their money and don't give them decision making power.

Gullible and stupid investors can't give you much useful feedback on your plans.


oh my god it's turpentine at 5:32 AM on September 21, 2020 | #18094 | reply | quote

#18094

> Lying requires spending some of your time and attention on maintaining the lie rather than solving real problems.

Yes but if the effort isn't too huge, and you get lots of money for it, couldn't that be worth it? It might be less effort than it takes to get money in other ways.

> Gullible and stupid investors can't give you much useful feedback on your plans.

Sure but you can get their money and get feedback elsewhere. Money is fairly hard to come by. Why is that a bad idea?


curi at 11:13 AM on September 21, 2020 | #18101 | reply | quote

> #17983 Suppose he keeps the lying within standard social boundaries, keeps it externally directed, doesn't piss people off, doesn't break laws, etc. Suppose most people react positively and view it as something like good marketing. Then would it be effective and beneficial?

i think that would be better financially, but idk if u actually would want to do that. i think it would kind of be like: do you want to be Peter Keating or Howard Roark situation. i dont know if Howard Roark ever lied in FH, i dont think he did.

curi's article on lying seems like it would be relevant. maybe i could read the article then try to see if any of it applies to this situation

>> attracting gullible and stupid investors?

> Is that a bad thing? If you take their money and don't give them decision making power.

when Roark built the summer resort at Monadnock Valley he had investors who wanted him to fail and build a summer resort that did NOT make money so their scam would work, but the resort Roark built ended up making money

so having bad investors doesnt seem like to much of a problem if what your doing is good.


internetrules at 6:02 PM on September 23, 2020 | #18114 | reply | quote

i cant think of whats wrong with lying right now. i dont think i wanted to say that in the last message so im saying it now.

curi's lying article seems relevant!


internetrules at 6:04 PM on September 23, 2020 | #18115 | reply | quote

> Yes but if the effort isn't too huge, and you get lots of money for it, couldn't that be worth it? It might be less effort than it takes to get money in other ways.

You have no way of knowing how much effort will be required in the future to maintain the lie. It might not be huge. But it might be. It depends on the future growth of knowledge in people's minds. That you cannot predict.


Anonymous at 11:22 PM on September 24, 2020 | #18124 | reply | quote

#18124 The effort needed to maintain lies is (in many cases) predictable to a significant extent, just like most other things we can predict decently but imperfectly.


Anonymous at 11:26 PM on September 24, 2020 | #18125 | reply | quote

Want to discuss this? Join my forum.

(Due to multi-year, sustained harassment from David Deutsch and his fans, commenting here requires an account. Accounts are not publicly available. Discussion info.)