Public figures are judged on outlier statements rather than average statements. They also lack control over the context in which the public learns about them. A If 80% of statements from Alice on team A look good in hindsight, and 20% look bad:
1. Team B will distribute an attention-span-length list of bad things said by Alice. 2. Team A will distribute an attention-span-length list of good things said by Alice. 3. Viewers will set bad priors based on this biased sampling, and they’re not going to listen to Alice enough to overcome this prior. 4. Team A must expend some energy to fix these priors or reduce association with Alice.
Still, I agree that there is something like a moral responsibility to self-immolate in a blinding flash of honesty. This selects for amoral people in public positions, but we do often see people with resources to spare spend some of those resources on speaking their mind.
Public figures are judged on outlier statements rather than average statements. They also lack control over the context in which the public learns about them. A If 80% of statements from Alice on team A look good in hindsight, and 20% look bad:
1. Team B will distribute an attention-span-length list of bad things said by Alice.
2. Team A will distribute an attention-span-length list of good things said by Alice.
3. Viewers will set bad priors based on this biased sampling, and they’re not going to listen to Alice enough to overcome this prior.
4. Team A must expend some energy to fix these priors or reduce association with Alice.
Still, I agree that there is something like a moral responsibility to self-immolate in a blinding flash of honesty. This selects for amoral people in public positions, but we do often see people with resources to spare spend some of those resources on speaking their mind.