[extropy-chat] Enhancing Our Truth Orientation

[Robin Hanson]

A draft of this new paper is available.  Comments welcome.
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http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf
To appear in How Can Human Nature be Ethically Improved?,
ed. Julian Savulescu, Oxford University Press, 2005.

                    Enhancing Our Truth Orientation
                     by Robin Hanson, November 2004


Humans lie to others and to themselves, and often choose beliefs for reasons
other than how closely those beliefs approximate truth.  This epistemic vice
may well be reduced in the future.  Increased documentation and surveillance
should make it harder to lie and self-deceive about the patterns of our
lives.  Speculative markets can create a relatively unbiased consensus on
most debated topics in science, business, and policy.  Eventually, brain
modifications may even make minds more transparent, so that lies and
self-deception become harder to hide.
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Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323