Almost all interactions are a mix of cooperative and competitive pressures. When cooperating, you want to give and receive truth—make each participant have a better predictive model of the future, to better achieve your common goals. When competing, you (generally) want to deceive your counterpart, in order to gain power and help them take actions that benefit you more than them.
There’s often a long-term / short-term element to the mix of cooperation and competition. If you’re looking for longer-term, repeated interactions, you’re filtering to a relationship that emphasizes the cooperation, and therefore you prefer more truth (while probably also keeping some secrets for later, once the relationship has been established).
Great point about the long vs short-term element! I wanted to say something about that in the post but couldn’t figure out how to fit it in, but I agree.
It later occurred to me that there are multiple purposes beyond timeframes. Filtering, to select more compatible initial matches, and expectation-setting and power-jockying early in the relationship may have competing choices for how to focus your profile. These factors are likely related, of course.
Almost all interactions are a mix of cooperative and competitive pressures. When cooperating, you want to give and receive truth—make each participant have a better predictive model of the future, to better achieve your common goals. When competing, you (generally) want to deceive your counterpart, in order to gain power and help them take actions that benefit you more than them.
There’s often a long-term / short-term element to the mix of cooperation and competition. If you’re looking for longer-term, repeated interactions, you’re filtering to a relationship that emphasizes the cooperation, and therefore you prefer more truth (while probably also keeping some secrets for later, once the relationship has been established).
Great point about the long vs short-term element! I wanted to say something about that in the post but couldn’t figure out how to fit it in, but I agree.
It later occurred to me that there are multiple purposes beyond timeframes. Filtering, to select more compatible initial matches, and expectation-setting and power-jockying early in the relationship may have competing choices for how to focus your profile. These factors are likely related, of course.