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Comment by rt4mn | Hacker News Reader

> That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole

The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no viable ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.

There is literally no other option that I have been able to find that both protects your privacy and also does not require you to sequester yourself from humanity entirely.

Pure anonymity bars you from the following activities: joining a social group, signing up for some longish term business relationship (hiring a contracter, signing up for a service), engaging in the political process, holding a job, and probably more that I cant think of. You simply wont be able to do any of those things if you tried to give your name as "chaboud" or "rt4mn".

The best option if you care about your privacy, in those scenarios, is to use a nickname/alias/persona, and be honest and say "no its not" in the vanishingly rare case where you are asked directly whether or not that's the same name you have your birth certificate.

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> The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no viable ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.

There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions. Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable.

It is also a signalling issue. There is a universal social contract not to lie. If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy, because there is no reason to assume they would not lie or hold other social contracts in more serious cases when it does not suit them.

I don't agree that your RL identity is a "minor" thing. It's right up among the most important things.

That entirely depends on who you’re interacting with and the context of that interaction.

Your best friend? I would hope you feel comfortable enough sharing your RL identity or deeper secrets.

A random company you interact with? Why would it matter, let alone be one of the most important things?

The fact that the first person you mention is "your best friend" is an indication of the importance you're placing on it. Nobody is using a nom de plume for their electric bill, you're being deliberately obtuse.

I mentioned two extremes.

A best friend, by definition, is one of the people you choose to trust the most. If you want to replace it with someone else significant in your life, by all means, it doesn’t change the point in any way shape or form.

A random company is the other end of the extreme, it’s an example of a very limited relationship.

The point is that the bigger your relationship, the more you’d entrust them with secrets. Secrets like your real identity. It’s a pretty basic and obvious concept.

If and only if the anonymous individual is untrustworthy.

Oh really? You’re gonna have a hard time with the monsters in WITSEC then.

> If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy

What’s the backing for this? If a stranger asks me what my favorite color is, I don’t feel any particular obligation to give them a truthful answer. But at least in my experience, that hasn’t manifested as a willingness to lie or deceive in cases where it matters. I think it’s possible that your personal social contract is not as universal as you think.

> What’s the backing for this?

I guess that for truthful people, lying is something that they do not even consider as an option. They could be pressed to it if situation is dire. But if someone consider lying as an option in a banal case, then they could consider it in any case. There are obviously other reasons why not to lie or deceive in particular issues, so 'totally untrustworthy' is likely too strong.

> If a stranger asks me what my favorite color is, I don’t feel any particular obligation to give them a truthful answer.

I do not feel particular obligation to give them answer altogether, but if i decide to do, i would feel obligation it to be truthful.

I think you may want to revisit whether your guess is actually accurate. As others have pointed out, "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society.

To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good", even if it's not.

> "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society.

And many consider them bad and cowardly.

> To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good"

That is not really white lie, more a phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol.

I'm glad you're around to arbitrate what's a cowardly white lie and what's a societally normal false phrase.

You're welcome to find lying reprehensible in all cases. But "there is a universal social contract not to lie" seems clearly false.

Nonchalantly redefining lying just because everyone is vaguely aware the lie exists is silly.

You do realize you can just adjust your original absolutist position on lying = indicator of future trustworthiness by just recognizing the nuance of human communication, correct?

It's not a redefinition. Lying requires the purpose of deception. When you ask me how I'm doing as part of a greeting ritual and I say "good" as a response neither of us actually believes we're communicating anything meaningful about our states. In that circumstance it's understood and even expected that the response will be superficial. Indeed, malicious honesty could be entirely impolite. For example if you say "how are you?" and I say "well I was doing really poorly, but then I took a giant crap in the office restroom and now I feel better" and then continue with full and excruciating honesty to describe all the gory details you might not appreciate that oversharing.

Hard to draw the line though?

Situation 1: Daughter of 5 years was drawing a house and a dog. Looks terrible. Asks me how I find it. It reply "good job! what a nice house and dog!" It's a blatent lie. But obviously she'd been crushed had I replied otherwise and never drawn anything else.

Situation 2: Random acquaintance got a new hair cut. Looks terrible, asks how she looks. I reply "fits your face!" Not true, but any real criticism would have been inappropriate. We are not that close.

Situation 3: Colleague asks me casually in a team lunch setting about my favorite color. It's brown, but I don't want to say since 10 min ago the topic of nazis came up, turns out they are jewish and lost all their grandparents in concentration camps. So I reply "depends on the day". Clear lie about "something as mundane as their favourite color".

Which of these situations was an unacceptable lie and which was a "phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol."

I lied the last time in September 2014. I exaggerated a man’s height. And yes, I tell everybody if it’s not going well. I don’t need to be awkward like in “The Big Bang Theory” or something either. I can be nice in every single situation without lying. Empathy and trust help a lot.

Just because something is prevalent, it doesn’t make it good, or necessary.

Telling you a fake location would likely be an indication of a lack of trust, in you.

Have you never told a lie? Should I trust the answer if it is “no?”

> There is a universal social contract not to lie.

The entire concept of “white lies” existing would indicate that it’s not nearly that universal.

There is emphatically no "universal social contract not to lie," nor should there be, because what this leads to is "invisible obligations to parties more powerful than you, since you're expected to tell the truth to whoever asks it." -- but right to truth ought to be earned.

It is true that it most cases it's not favorable, but the way you're putting it is the stuff of repression.

Self defense, it's good to misinform bad actors, Santa Claus, surprise parties,etc.

> There is emphatically no "universal social contract not to lie," nor should there be, because what this leads to is "invisible obligations to parties more powerful than you, since you're expected to tell the truth to whoever asks it."

That implication does not hold. Even if i accept 'universal social contract not to lie' for voluntary conversations, then i am not expected tell the truth, just not to lie, therefore there is no implicit obligation to answer such questions. One could avoid the question, reject the question explicitly, or leave the conversation.

> There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions.

That's not always possible.

> Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable.

In what case?

If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by an ex who is a cop required to be honest about their identities? Are reporters investigating sex trafficking required to be honest about their identities?

In a more broad sense, there are many corporations and governments out there who follow no ethical rules whatsoever and are sucking up as much information on everyone as they can. These people don't have any sort of right to that information, and don't have a right to my honesty. If anything, I think the moral thing to do, if any, is to hamper these people's efforts by feeding them as much incorrect information as much as possible.

> It is also a signalling issue.

Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics, and therefore can't be trusted in nuanced situations. If you wouldn't lie to the police to protect a pot smoker, or lie to an advertiser to protect my privacy, you aren't an ethical person by my standards. I do believe you have good intentions, but intentions that don't translate into the correct actions don't mean much.

> There is a universal social contract not to lie.

This is what I mean about not-very-nuanced opinions.

> If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy, because there is no reason to assume they would not lie or hold other social contracts in more serious cases when it does not suit them.

1. What issues are you considering minor? You seem extraordinarily willing to generalize some specific-but-not-described situation you're imagining to all of reality.

2. There are lots of reasons to assume that someone who lies to cops won't lie to me, for example.

> That's not always possible.

In most cases it is. And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona.

> In what case?

In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying.

> Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics

Or perhaps you just ignore the context of the article to strawman my position.

> What issues are you considering minor?

Where the cost of not telling a lie is just some social cost unrelated to personal security, employment or other similarly important needs.

> In most cases it is.

If you protect your anonymity in 999,999 cases out of 1,000,000, your anonymity is blown. "Most cases" isn't enough.

> And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona.

Yes. Because lying ex-post-facto after people have already started trying to figure out who you are doesn't work.

> In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying.

The article doesn't say anything about it being "to avoid awkward social interactions". On the contrary, the reason given for doing so is as a further protection of one's anonymity.

And to be clear, there are many cases where any reasonable person would agree it's ethical to lie to protect one's anonymity, some of which I've described in my previous post.

> > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable.

> In what case?

> If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by [...]

You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.

I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.

But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.

Please don't do this, it makes the discussion less interesting for everybody.

> You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.

I'm insinuating that they argue for _always_ because they are being extremely vague about what "this case" is. If they aren't arguing for _always_, they can answer the question.

Notably, they responded to my post with an explanation of what they think "this case" is, and it's... a straw man that the original article wasn't talking about.

> I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.

I'd be happy to have such a discussion with you if you can illuminate what "such cases" are.

To be clear, the original article wasn't discussing lying "just to avoid awkward social interactions". That's a straw man.

> But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.

Agreed!

My preference is simply down to he act of lying increasing my cognitive load to engage with others. If I choose not to tell someone something, that's relatively easy. If I tell them something artificial, I have to maintain and harmonize that falsehood for the duration of the interaction.

Yes, I have a Blind account. In that context, I have a handle, but I resolutely refuse to knowingly say anything untrue. It's just too much work to be bothered.

I'm not sure that there is a universal social contract in place. There are many situations where a lie is acceptable or even expected.

In business dealings it's acceptable to lie about the price you are willing to pay (or receive) for a service. It is however completely unacceptable to lie about business finances when communicating with investors or the tax office.

Even in personal matters, if someone told you information to keep in confidence, and then someone else asked if you know anything about it, it is acceptable (even honorable) to lie to maintain the trust with the first person. However, there are also situations where revealing the information to the second person is the more honorable action.

> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options

You’re presenting this as if it’s a fact, but it doesn’t seem like it is. If for no other reason that it relies on a shared understanding of what’s “best” and what makes options “bad”.

You could justify some pretty horrible decisions if you’re holding that as an axiom.

“The road to hell is (often?) paved with good intentions.”

Of course you can. But you can justify horrible decisions with any axiom. It’s not like this is a worse approach than others.

Is there some rule set you’re aware of that if you follow, horrible decisions cannot be justified?

I tend to just not invent "rules" out of thin air.

In absence of this supposed "rule", where "Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options", you'd need to actually consider whether a decision is immoral. The rule shortcuts that and lets you say "well, there's no other option, so I must be in the clear morally here", which would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.

How is "do the best you can possibly do" not (a) a rule and (b) not moral?

That's not a quote that appears anywhere prior to this in the thread, from what I can see. You seem to have made it up from scratch here.

The rule given above is "Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options". In the context of the thread, it's being used to justify creating a fake persona and providing false details about yourself as part of a strategy of maintaining anonymity. And already the cracks start to show: the other option, "just don't respond" is classified as bad, and thus doesn't count as a viable option. So what you're left with is "lie about yourself", which the rule holds up as being definitely moral because it's the "best" option. But "just don't respond" is only described as bad because it doesn't give you maximum anonymity.

If I'm broke, and I need some money for lunch, "steal from my richest friend" could be reasonably argued to be the "best" of "bad options". I need to eat, it'll hurt them the least, so lets crack open their wallet. Because I get to arbitrate the option pool and the definition of "bad" and "best", I've got a neat package that lets me absolve myself of all tricky moral quandries.

I don’t think you can argue that steal from friend is the best in that situation. If truly the options are steal from friend or starve to death right now, then perhaps but that’s not realistic.

I’m not sure what you think someone should do rather than make the best decision given all options.

There are many ways to absolve yourself of tricky moral quandaries. But I don’t think using a fake name on a web form is a mora quandary.

If we’re in a world where the only options are that one can’t lie about themself online or not participate then that’s a bad world.

I think it depends on the intent of the lie in that lying to get out of advertising seems ok, but lying to trick someone into a date seems bad.

Of course it’s hard to truly know, so people have to fall back do what they think is best and rely on the guidance of trusted friends.

This is how morality in general works, I think. And we just have societal morals that are widely accepted. I think advertising is immoral and unethical, but that’s not a belief commonly held by enough to make it into culture and laws.

Your entire comment here seems to agree with mine. There are no quick and easy rules for morality, it’s complex and case-by-case.

> Pure anonymity bars you from the following activities: joining a social group, signing up for some longish term business relationship (hiring a contracter, signing up for a service), engaging in the political process, holding a job, and probably more that I cant think of.

Why do you believe that’s your right? You have the right to be left alone, but in all the examples you offer you are explicitly not minding your own business.

Rather there should be an expectation of reciprocity with respect to identity.

Do you have that reciprocity with every corporation you engage with?

I bet not. They all hide behind personas.

> hiring a contracter, ..., engaging in the political process, holding a job

These are all situations where the desire for anonymity is outweighed by the requirement for accountability.

You're aware that 'hiring a contractor' requires entering into a contract right? And so does being employed.

Entering into a contract without establishing your identity implies a desire not to be bound by the terms of that contract. Is that your intent?

As for 'engaging in the political process', I have never heard anyone argue that the problem with politics is that people are too honest and open. Do we need more anonymous political party donors?

> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options

Woo, big claim. You're basically saying "best" can be determined entirely in terms of utility with no consideration for morality. A utilitarian world view, which not everybody shares.

> A utilitarian world view, which not everybody shares.

you make it sound like it's not a complete or consistent system, but it's just a worldview where only some people have the attribute of being in the right, unfortunately an attribute not everybody shares.

I don't think its not complete, it just doesn't always apply to every situation. Thats why there are other belief systems like Deontology[1] which I tend to gravitate towards the most. Utilitarianism has plenty of issues. Doing whats right for everyone, doesn't always yield the best results for society. Sometimes you need to do whats right for the few because the masses doesn't always understand the long ranging ramifications of decisions based off this belief.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology)

I don’t think OP made that claim. “Bad” can be determined holistically with morals and utility and other factors.

For example, I think it’s moral to portray a false persona to avoid invasion of privacy.

Not to mention that most people project some level of falseness just in day to day operations. For example replying “I’m fine, how are you?” Whenever asked.

> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.

Let's substitute some of the bits with variables...

"Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exist in the world and X, the only real option is to Y."

...and see how this holds up...

X="be rich"; Y="kill your neighbor"

Now, you might object "that's absurdly extreme!". True, I have chosen an extreme example, but only because it makes the fallacy conspicuous. Ethical principles don't have loopholes or dispensations. It's not as if big lies are bad because they're big and small lies are okay because they're small. They're both bad because they're both lies. An evil effect of one's actions may be tolerable under specific circumstances, but a means that is inherently evil doesn't cease to be evil because you have no other option to attain the desired good. Ends don't justify means.

In this case, a pseudonym is not a lie when a) the intent is not to deceive but to conceal, and b) there is no normative expectation that the name given is real and thus when you do not owe others your real name. On social media, while we know many might conclude that a pseudonym is real, generally speaking, I would say that error is a tolerable side effect (it depends on the particular social medium; LinkedIn is different than Twitter, for example). However, IMO, things start to become more dicey with active fabrication. There is a fine but definite line between lying and mental reservation. There is a difference between speaking ambiguously or evasively on the one hand and lying on the other. This places rather severe limits on what you can licitly say or express. Constructing a persona means you must actively engage in creating a fictional character that you intend people to believe is real as a means of concealing you identity. This is by definition a lie and different from allowing people to falsely infer a persona based on what is ambiguous information that is intended to conceal truths others have no right to.

"Create and post a back-story to answer (instead of avoid) the frequently asked questions."

The article's author's advice is effectively precisely because it involves lying. Lying works exactly because the default expectation based on the essential function of speech is to communicate the truth.

By the way, and this is abnormal:

My name is Matt Chaboud. My username is my last name, and I'm easy to find. I try to behave online in a way that doesn't rely on anonymity (though I recognize that that carries some risk).

But I think your point is understood. However, a handle, to me, by virtue of convention, leaves little room for confusion as to whether it is a real or artificial/partial identity (generally).

Thats fair enough. Googling for my username takes you pretty quickly to my name as well.

I don't think I did a good enough job in my initial reply emphasizing that from my perspective a nickname that you only used in certian social contexts is functionally a persona. If your wife calls you Jason but all your drinking buddies call you Jack because of a hilarious collage hijink (or something), a random passer by at the bar would have no clue that the name on your birth certificate (the one that can be used to impersonate you) is actually Jason.

Thats really what I am talking about. As long as you dont lie about the fact that "Jack" is a nickname when asked, your not being unethical, in my view.

No, that's not how ethics works. Sometimes you're just in a no win situation and there is nothing moral other than self sacrifice.

You can definitely participate in political discourse under a pseudonym. The anonymous Twitter account "Catturd" is one currently famous example.

ethics are for suckers. source : observe the world in 2023.

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