Does anyone have any significant examples of the Dark Arts being harmful independent of what they’re being used to convince people of?
Dark Arts have externalities. Once you become known as a skilled manipulator fewer people are going to trust you and fewer people you can influence in the long run. Using Dart Arks is a Prisoner’s dilemma defection with all associated problems—a world full of Dark Artists is worse than a world full of honest truth sayers, ceteris paribus. Heavy use of Dark Arts may be risky for the performer himself and compromise his own rationality, as it is much easier to use a manipulative technique persuasively if one believes no deception is happening.
These aren’t actually examples, but it’s hard to come up with a specific example under “independent of what they’re being used to” clause.
Once you become known as a skilled manipulator fewer people are going to trust you and fewer people you can influence in the long run.
The very long run, perhaps.
In the shorter run of, say, 10-100 years, it isn’t in the least clear to me that the advantage of being considered (accurately or not) a skilled manipulator, in terms of the willingness of powerful agents to ally with me, is fully offset (let alone overpowered) by the disadvantage of it, in terms of people being less influenceable by me. Add to that the advantages of actually being a skilled manipulator, and that’s even less clear.
Admittedly, if I anticipate having a significantly longer effective lifespan than that, I may prefer not to risk it.
Once you become known as a skilled manipulator fewer people are going to trust you and fewer people you can influence in the long run.
But it seems that people who use the Dark Arts profit from it. If the Dark Arts were self-defeating as you suggest, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Using Dart Arks is a Prisoner’s dilemma defection with all associated problems—a world full of Dark Artists is worse than a world full of honest truth sayers, ceteris paribus.
Continuing to cooperate in a world where most players defect is a poor strategy. I also doubt that it strongly influences the defectors to stop defecting.
Dark Arts have externalities. Once you become known as a skilled manipulator fewer people are going to trust you and fewer people you can influence in the long run. Using Dart Arks is a Prisoner’s dilemma defection with all associated problems—a world full of Dark Artists is worse than a world full of honest truth sayers, ceteris paribus. Heavy use of Dark Arts may be risky for the performer himself and compromise his own rationality, as it is much easier to use a manipulative technique persuasively if one believes no deception is happening.
These aren’t actually examples, but it’s hard to come up with a specific example under “independent of what they’re being used to” clause.
This is not what I have observed in practice.
The very long run, perhaps.
In the shorter run of, say, 10-100 years, it isn’t in the least clear to me that the advantage of being considered (accurately or not) a skilled manipulator, in terms of the willingness of powerful agents to ally with me, is fully offset (let alone overpowered) by the disadvantage of it, in terms of people being less influenceable by me. Add to that the advantages of actually being a skilled manipulator, and that’s even less clear.
Admittedly, if I anticipate having a significantly longer effective lifespan than that, I may prefer not to risk it.
But it seems that people who use the Dark Arts profit from it. If the Dark Arts were self-defeating as you suggest, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Continuing to cooperate in a world where most players defect is a poor strategy. I also doubt that it strongly influences the defectors to stop defecting.