Honesty is a privilege

Thanks Alex Grin of the awesome LBRY project for prompting me to write about this.

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Preference falsification is the act of communicating a preference that differs from one's true preference, often because they believe the conveyed preference is more acceptable socially. The idea of preference falsification was put forth by the social scientist Timur Kuran in his 1995 book Private Truths, Public Lies.

Wikipedia

Don’t let the sterile academic language fool you — preference falsification means lying.

We lie about our preferences because another preference has intruded upon them — often, it’s the preference for staying fashionable and maintaining social status. (Maybe it should be renamed preference intrusion.)

This illuminates a recurring theme from a new angle:

Honesty is a privilege that can be lost. (Believe me, I’ve lost it. Story for another time.) Honesty is a display of power — a proof-of-work. Honesty is only possible for those who have been victorious over their intruding preferences.

Habitual preference falsifiers — i.e., liars — can’t be honest, not because their mouths lack the capacity to speak the words, but because their wills lack the capacity to override their intruding preferences.

Preferences falsify you.