Of Lies and Black Swan Blowups

post by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Eliezer_Yudkowsky) · 2009-04-07T18:26:41.675Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 8 comments

Judge Marcus Einfeld, age 70, Queen’s Counsel since 1977, Australian Living Treasure 1997, United Nations Peace Award 2002, founding president of Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, retired a few years back but routinely brought back to judge important cases . . .

. . . went to jail for two years over a series of perjuries and lies that started with a $77, 6-mph-over speeding ticket.

That whole suspiciously virtuous-sounding theory about honest people not being good at lying, and entangled traces being left somewhere, and the entire thing blowing up in a Black Swan epic fail, actually does have a certain number of exemplars in real life, though obvious selective reporting is at work in our hearing about this one.

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comment by MrHen · 2009-04-07T18:49:24.984Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That whole suspiciously virtuous-sounding theory about honest people not being good at lying [...]

This is a little off-topic, but wouldn't that theory work better the other way?

People not good at lying are honest

It's not like lying is working out for them.

Replies from: Jake_NB
↑ comment by Jake_NB · 2021-05-30T07:29:51.294Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That would seem to make sense, but in practice you don't see too many people who set out to be liars and it didn't pan out. Unless we count criminals who received harsh punishment, but there's a whole other story there, one thing bring that they often end up imprisoned again. Overall, the percentage of ex-convicts among honest folk doesn't seem to be that high.

I think honest people usually start out as honest, since it's a culturally valued quality, and thereby don't get much experience at lying. People who lie regularly usually get more skilled (or constantly caught) at more benign lies, and don't raise the stakes to prison-order right off the bat.

comment by handoflixue · 2011-06-03T01:18:22.332Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It is very confusing seeing an article about an Australian receiving a 36 pound fine, given that Australia does not use the pound anymore. On checking Wikipedia, it appears the likely explanation is simply that the BBC simply converted the original $77 AUS to pounds for their story.

comment by Paul Crowley (ciphergoth) · 2009-04-07T19:27:34.868Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

For at least two years, according to the linked article.

For this UK-dweller, it's all very reminiscent of Jonathan Aitken, who swore "to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play", and whose story got twistier and twistier until it collapsed with a final damning piece of evidence, after which he served seven months in jail for perjury.

Replies from: Eliezer_Yudkowsky, Peterdjones
↑ comment by Peterdjones · 2011-06-03T11:13:19.780Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Or C E M Joad

Replies from: ciphergoth
↑ comment by Paul Crowley (ciphergoth) · 2011-06-03T12:51:33.187Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Not seeing it. Joad committed a crime, got caught, and lost everything, but I don't see anything to indicate that he perjured himself, or indeed told any lies to anyone; if he'd perjured himself he would have got worse than a £2 fine.

comment by Chriswaterguy · 2015-11-20T07:12:24.726Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I found the last paragraph-sentence impossible to understand. I may just be not thinking straight, but it could be made clearer, and I'm posting about my confusion because I'm sure there'll be others who are also confused.

"actually does have a certain number of exemplars in real life" refers to the "honest people not being good at lying" theory, plus the risk of huge blow-ups from end of lies.

"though obvious selective reporting is at work in our hearing about this one" clearly refers to this sensational case of someone who was mostly good at lying, but left an entangled trace... Einfeld turned out to be a dishonest person (who was remarkably successful at lying, for a long time), so I'm not sure how that relates. The use of "though" was the first thing that confused me, but then I realised that the whole paragraph confuses me.