To keep a secret properly, you have to act as if you didn’t know it. At the same time, if you see things related to the secret, you make conclusions; but then you also have to act as if you hadn’t made those conclusions. If the secret is entangled with many things in your life, you need to keep two separate realities.
Secrets that are not entangled with anything else are relatively easy to keep. You need to remember to never mention X, and that’s it. I guess it is easy to make a mistake and assume that the secret will be of this type, and that it will be easy to keep it… and it turns out the other way round, and suddenly you need to keep track of two separate realities, and it is difficult.
Even worse if you e.g. know that something bad is going to happen, but you shouldn’t try to prevent it, because in the “as if” reality, you do not have the information. Now you pay additional cost that you didn’t expect before.
Keeping a secret may require you to lie. Someone asks you “do you have any evidence of X?”, and you only keep the secret if you lie and say “no”. Again, it is possible that you didn’t realize this before; you expected that you will be required to remain silent on something, not to actively tell a lie.
Another problem is that it is difficult to keep two different realities in mind. Are you sure you can correctly simulate “what would be my conclusion from observing facts A, B, C, if I didn’t know about X?”. Like, maybe seeing just A, B, C would be enough for you to figure out X independently. Or maybe not.
Or maybe you would merely suspect X, like maybe with 30% probability. And maybe it would prompt you to look for further evidence about X. So, to properly simulate the “you, who haven’t been told X”, should you now pretend to do an investigation that is equally likely to make you update towards X or away from X? Are you sure you can actually do it? Is this even a meaningful thing to do? Whom are you trying to impress, exactly?
So, another bad consequence of being told a secret X is that it prevents you from finding out X independently and being free to talk about it openly. It even prevents you from being properly curious, because now anything you believe can be motivated. Most likely, if you conclude that you would have already figured out X independently, so you are not obliged to keep it anymore, the person who told you the secret will disagree.
To keep a secret properly, you have to act as if you didn’t know it. At the same time, if you see things related to the secret, you make conclusions; but then you also have to act as if you hadn’t made those conclusions. If the secret is entangled with many things in your life, you need to keep two separate realities.
Secrets that are not entangled with anything else are relatively easy to keep. You need to remember to never mention X, and that’s it. I guess it is easy to make a mistake and assume that the secret will be of this type, and that it will be easy to keep it… and it turns out the other way round, and suddenly you need to keep track of two separate realities, and it is difficult.
Even worse if you e.g. know that something bad is going to happen, but you shouldn’t try to prevent it, because in the “as if” reality, you do not have the information. Now you pay additional cost that you didn’t expect before.
Keeping a secret may require you to lie. Someone asks you “do you have any evidence of X?”, and you only keep the secret if you lie and say “no”. Again, it is possible that you didn’t realize this before; you expected that you will be required to remain silent on something, not to actively tell a lie.
Another problem is that it is difficult to keep two different realities in mind. Are you sure you can correctly simulate “what would be my conclusion from observing facts A, B, C, if I didn’t know about X?”. Like, maybe seeing just A, B, C would be enough for you to figure out X independently. Or maybe not.
Or maybe you would merely suspect X, like maybe with 30% probability. And maybe it would prompt you to look for further evidence about X. So, to properly simulate the “you, who haven’t been told X”, should you now pretend to do an investigation that is equally likely to make you update towards X or away from X? Are you sure you can actually do it? Is this even a meaningful thing to do? Whom are you trying to impress, exactly?
So, another bad consequence of being told a secret X is that it prevents you from finding out X independently and being free to talk about it openly. It even prevents you from being properly curious, because now anything you believe can be motivated. Most likely, if you conclude that you would have already figured out X independently, so you are not obliged to keep it anymore, the person who told you the secret will disagree.