Lying and Social Dynamics [CF Article]

GOAL: React to this article. These are comments and thoughts I had in reading and reviewing article.

They often try to blind themselves to problems to protect their image of what kind of person they are, their image of what kind of life they have, and their self-esteem.

Since most people’s lives are not going that well, is low self-esteem and indication of some honesty?

The artcile made me think of this quote from Galt’s speech:

“Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value” (p. 144, For The New Intellectual).

To paraphrase Ayn Rand, lying is an attempt to put other people’s perception of reality above reality itself. You are using your mind for something other than trying to grasp reality. And trying to fool others makes you dependent upon their stupidity. Their ability to reason becomes your enemy.

I think the faking reality point is super important. It connects lying to harming your mind which is your tool of survival. I don’t like faking when I can tell it’s happening and I find it incredibly hard to avoid faking in social situations. That’s one thing that makes me avoid social situations. Saying less helps but people kind of expect certain reactions in social situations, including from non-verbal cues. Those little reactions can take up a lot of bandwidth when you’re not that into it. Not reacting much is a problem because people notice it and think its due to boredom, awkwardness, and disengagement. Also, they’re not totally wrong in thinking that’s what’s going on.

Reaction to this article linked within the CF article:
https://curi.us/2361-social-dynamics-summary-notes

I think my comments below mostly fall under the social dynamics category of conformity.

Compliments:

Sometimes compliments are passed out super liberally. For example, “I love those shoes” or “I love your decorations”. Normally, I would think the complementor is the lower status person, and the one who is doing the chasing. However, I’m not sure this is always the case. I think one way to look at these compliments is that they are ways of pointing out the effort that someone is making to impress you (or others). It could be a way of devaluing them by highlighting that they are high effort. Maybe this falls into the category of plausibly deniable insults.

Tangentially, I wonder about whether there is sub-category of social dynamics that account for the game theory of social dynamics or the meta-dynamics. I’m thinking of cases where someone is taking into account that you know that they know what they are doing. How is this accounted for? Do social dynamics just rely on the person being as convincing as possible that they are a natural at all the things the social world values? Do you always have to play dumb about doing social dynamics?

Partly, I’m wondering these questions because it seems like the advice or strategies that people use seem to have changed. How to Win Friends and Influence People has more stuff about remembering people’s names, giving them praise, and not bragging about yourself. A lot of the advice from that book and other older stuff focuses more on explaining how to be polite and seem nice. I think even older material emphasizes having attributes of virtue and demonstrating magnanimity. I’m thinking that people have to be more indirect in their approach to social dynamics than they used to be. Are the underlying social dynamics mostly the same or are they evolving as people sort of catch on to things?

A popular food reviewer has been critical of some of the food he reviews. IIRC he also won’t take free food/stuff b/c he wants to be unbiased. Then two more things:

https://www.tiktok.com/@keith_lee125/video/7197624882006478123

https://www.tiktok.com/@keith_lee125/video/7199420993419382059

I think the scores he gave Mr. Beast were inflated and he was trying to partly avoid fighting but he was still significantly more negative than Mr. Beast was happy with and he knew it. I thought he did OK and was reasonably honest in a tough situation and that Mr. Beast looked really bad.

Does Keith Lee have some actual integrity? Are there danger signs here? Could it be a trick?

My first impression is that Keith Lee does have some actual integrity. A blind taste test would be more objective if Mr. Beast actually had confidence in the objective taste superiority of his product. I was expecting Keith to try a Hershey’s during the video so they could compare. That would have been helpful.

Brainstorm danger signs:

  • accepting gifts from the companies after giving positive reviews, can still lead to bias, especially over time
  • willing to be nudged upward slightly in his ratings during in person review; he probably would have done better review on camera by himself
  • maybe he could be more critical of Jimmy John’s and Quizno’s and maybe he’s holding back to allow for the possibilty of future endorsements
  • hard to know what someone will or won’t do/say until they’ve been tested with a lot of temptation or negative backlash
  • it’s somewhat common to espouse ideals that one doesn’t actually live up to
  • easier to make a stand on a relatively minor issue and that helps you gain credibility without taking a big risk
  • Keith might be fooling himself about how much integrity he really has. He could be unaware of subtle forms of bias creeping into his reviews as he gains status. He could be more skeptical of himself and his ability to handle manipulation and pressure.