10 Comments

"Yes your butt looks fat in that. Hey, I'm just being honest."

i believe is in no way an honest reply "what i mean is the answer should be" (compared to whom)......

This would enable one to give an honest reply in respect to the question....

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To start with, if you're attributing a single motivation to yourself, you're certainly being dishonest. People are multiple all the way down.

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When I said that the second half of "your butt looks fat, I'm just being honest" is also honest, I inferred that the speaker was describing the content of his statement about your butt. However I see now that "being honest" can better be read as applying to the speaker's entire state of being.

So I consider that yes, he was being honest about your butt, but that no, he was also in a state where he was trying to pull off a cheat.

When Eliezer says, "Well, to be honest, your AI theory has absolutely no hope of succeeding," he thinks he's adding the qualifier to emphasize that honesty is rare and valuable. I maintain no, instead he's doing it mostly because he's conscious of being a bit ungracious, and wants you to think less poorly of him for it. (I approve of this diplomacy.)

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Eliezer, to understand yourself better, first try to understand others better.

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When I say, "Well, to be honest, your AI theory has absolutely no hope of succeeding," I think I'm adding the qualifier to emphasize that honesty is rare and valuable - a gift given at cost to the giver - and if you ever want to see it again you'd better learn how to react well to it, whether you agree with it or not.

Who can speak to my subconscious motives? Not I, for then they wouldn't be subconscious, would they. No, on second thought that's just an excuse for giving up.

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Lee, a "dumb and futile cheat" is "honest"?

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"Yes your butt looks fat in that. Hey, I'm just being honest."

Robin: "In this quote, the first sentence may be honest, but the second seems not."

I think that both are honest. The reason it grates is that of the usual explanations for why we are reluctant to say "Your butt looks fat", the most common is that we wish the person to continue to like us. So adding on "I'm just being honest" is a dumb and futile cheat, trying to have it both ways.

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Excellent. To continue my plea for continental philosophy, is this not what Kierkegaard talks about with his distinction between objective and subjective truth? Because even though the sentence is objectively true it is not subjectively true, as it would be in answer to a question about it, for instance. He is very good laying out the distinction, although I am perfectly fine with meta honesty or reflexive honesty as well.

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pls keep in mind depressives who (according to quite a good deal of research) are in fact more honest and less self deluding than most, wherein lies a paradox with happiness and success.

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I consider myself "honest" with scare quotes. I don't "lie" but I do tell deceptive truths.

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