Truth eventually prevails because it’s USEFUL
Self-interest is good because it at least requires calibration to a certain ideal
Get it?
The only problem we could ever have is if we DON’T EVEN CARE.
Because then we can’t even AIM. There’s nothing to aim because we don’t care.
And if there’s no aim — then truth doesn’t matter. COHERENCE doesn’t matter because there’s no aim to coherently maintain
So when an entity is self-interested — whether it’s an individual, an organisation, the world — it at least has the aim
Now it aims, corrects in that direction
Everything is calibrated against whether it facilitates reaching that aim — or not
The statement is: “X facilitates reaching my aim”
The calibration is: whether X is TRUE OR NOT
OBVIOUSLY it’s calibrated to get closer to the truth
Then it gets closer to the aim
Get it?
You can’t say you wanna go north, and then go east, say that this is north, say that this is THE TRUTH — and then STILL get north
Even if you’re an otherwise a lying piece of shit — as long as you have the aim — you are pursuing the truth regarding REACHING THAT AIM
And this is also why TRUTH WILL EVENTUALLY PREVAIL
Why “evidence” will not be “suppressed”
Why “truth” will not be “suppressed”
It may be suppressed instrumentally
E.g. your AIM requires you to instrumentally, FALSELY deny some other aim, and the TRUTH of that aim, and therefore the truth
It literally requires you to pretend that something is not true
But you still know it’s not true
Or at least don’t know that it’s wrong. You just say that it’s wrong, instrumentally
This is still awful, of course
But it self-corrects
Because a lie, at any level — destroys some aim
A small lie still has some small negative effect
Someone tells you a small lie about accomplishing some small aim — and your attempt is thus misguided, and failed
So those eventually strive to be corrected anyway
It’s so inefficient to compromise smaller aims for the sake of some “larger” aim. Your larger aim is probably stupid. Your “ends justify the means” is probably just bad architecture
Over the long term it always optimises for truth
At least as long as we’re capable of understanding it
Now with some synthetic help — we can clearly push the envelope some more
It always optimises for the truth because the truth is just TOO VALUABLE
The truth of creating economic value is too valuable.
Who doesn’t want more stuff? More capability? More possibilities?
The truth of physics is too valuable
Who would conceal it? Who wouldn’t want to manipulate the very physical fabric of reality?
The truth of freedom and happiness is too valuable
You can ruin your life because you can’t let go of the beliefs you’re so addicted to — but someone WILL find the better way to live and you can’t stop them.
The truth of curing cancer is too valuable.
Who the fuck would suppress it? We all wanna make more money, and live longer too
etc.
It’s impossible to suppress because it wouldn’t make any sense
And you’re resisting the entirety of reality in doing so. You’re constantly counting on reality FAILING to be noticed, by someone. Then the truth is revealed
So no matter how stupid we become, for the time being,
And whatever fucking mind-virus and meme takes hold of our consciousness
For as long as we’re capable of expanding our intelligence — we will OBVIOUSLY be CALIBRATING towards the TRUTH about REALITY
Because that’s how we get control, get power, and realise our goals, our aim