Selfish Honesty
⏲ 1-minute read | last updated 2 months, 4 weeks ago
"One of the things about truth is that all the true things are connected in the world, whereas lies are disconnected and don't fit into the web of everything else that's true.” - Dario Amodei (CEO of Anthropic)
As Dario Amodei wisely noted...honesty is the best policy. Not because of some high-brow moral obligations or appeal to our shared humanity, but because it's the easiest.
Lies
There's a lot of overhead that comes with dishonesty. Each lie creates more personal responsibility. You generate a story for the receiver(s) leaving a unique impression and a commitment to yourself to remember it. Eventually, depending on the frequency and complexity of the lies, this becomes a bit like warehouse management, needing to store, retrieve, and otherwise keep track of an increasingly complicated inventory of stories.
The Truth
In contrast, telling the truth is much simpler. When you’re honest, you're simply recalling what you remember. Although memory does change slightly during recall, this process is far more intuitive. When working with the truth, we're assembling a puzzle where all the pieces fit together naturally.
Putting the Puzzle Together
With honesty:
- You're operating in a world where there is an implicit understanding that, while you might not have all the pieces, you know the pieces exist.
- You can be confident that the pieces you match up with one another do, in fact, go together.
- As you build out new areas, you can be confident in your newfound understanding and broader perspective.
So selfishly, lazily, self-servingly - honesty is the best policy.