Ideas from Detroit x Neil Tambe

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The Honesty Paradox

I find this paradox related to honesty to be interesting.

If I am honest with myself, I admit that I am very susceptible to lying to myself. However, if I admit that I am very susceptible to lying to myself then I have even more reason to think I am an honest person (because I have truthfully admitted my own fallibility).

It's a paradox. How it works for liars is a bit different.

If I lie to myself, I believe that I am very likely to be honest with myself. That belief however, makes it easier and easier to lie to myself because I apply less scrutiny to what I say (because I believe myself to be an honest person).

That's very much not a paradox. That's a feedback loop which almost certainly leads to one outcome - lies.