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Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)

blog.danieldavies.com

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Re: Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)

#4

Post by nkurz »

dbt00 wrote: post #3

2004, actually, with a minor update in 2008. This was the same principle I used coincidentally at the same time to also disbelieve the same thing.

I think the standard is that the parenthesized date shows the last update, not the original. Is this not correct?

Re: Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)

#7

Post by nostrademons »

Interesting that this quote was initially about stock options at tech companies. It turned out that stock options did become nearly universal in tech compensation, and companies that granted them outcompeted companies that did not. So the management that was ostensibly “doing a massive blag at the expense of shareholders” wasn’t really, time vindicated their practices and things like option backdating and not treating them as an expense weren’t even really necessary, but it took a few years. It wasn’t obvious in 2002 that this is how it would play out.

And relevant to the title quote: maybe it should be amended to “good ideas do not need a lot of lies to gain public acceptance eventually”. The dynamic here is that a significant part of public opinion is simply “well, this is how things work now, and it seems to be working”, and any new and innovative idea by definition is not going to be how things work now. The lies are needed to spur action and disturb the equilibrium of today. But if you’re still telling lies a few years in, you’ve failed and it’s a bad idea to begin with.

Re: Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)

#8

Post by peacebeard »

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Interesting that this quote was initially about stock options at tech companies. It turned out that stock options did become nearly universal in tech compensation, and companies that granted them outcompeted companies that did not. So the management that was ostensibly “doing a massive blag at the expense of shareholders” wasn’t really, time vindicated their practices and things like option backdating and not treatin…

So in your view, even a useful innovative idea cannot gain traction without being overhyped?

Re: Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)

#9

Post by sublinear »

> My reasoning was that Powell, Bush, Straw, etc, were clearly making false claims and therefore ought to be discounted completely, and that there were actually very few people who knew a bit about Iraq but were not fatally compromised in this manner who were making the WMD claim

At the risk of missing the point, I have to say that knowing what we know now, this is a very poor heuristic. Predicting a lack of WMD was not only correct by mere coincidence, but also irrelevant to the decisions made about the war in Iraq.

What is this blog post even saying? When you can't distinguish a lie, trust the room vibes? Seeking comfort won't give you any answers or get you closer to the truth.

Not enough people ask "why". They instead argue about effectiveness or correctness. At some point you have to determine whether you're chasing the truth to make a decision or just for its own sake. In the vast majority of cases what you want is a decision that will produce the desired results. That's the real reason why lies happen and why merely knowing the truth doesn't get you anywhere and often nobody cares.

EDIT: for the sanity of any late replies. My bad. I replaced the part about AI with something I thought was more interesting.

Re: Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)

#10

Post by indymike »

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Interesting that this quote was initially about stock options at tech companies. It turned out that stock options did become nearly universal in tech compensation, and companies that granted them outcompeted companies that did not. So the management that was ostensibly “doing a massive blag at the expense of shareholders” wasn’t really, time vindicated their practices and things like option backdating and not treatin…

There was a body of evidence far before 2002 that dealing employees in was a good move.
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