I'm not entirely convinced that the relationship between crafting a rational argument and crafting a persuasive argument is nearly as inverse-correlational as implied. On average, lies have a higher manufacturing cost (because you have to tread carefully and be more creative), a greater risk (since getting caught will lower your overall persuasiveness), and a smaller qualitative gain (while lies probably persuade more people, I suspect that they persuade less rationalists than civil debate and are therefore less qualitative overall). There are other means of persuading people without making deliberately irrational arguments. If sound reasoning alone isn't tasteful enough for you, why not season your truth with charm instead of coating it in... (read more)
I'm not entirely convinced that the relationship between crafting a rational argument and crafting a persuasive argument is nearly as inverse-correlational as implied. On average, lies have a higher manufacturing cost (because you have to tread carefully and be more creative), a greater risk (since getting caught will lower your overall persuasiveness), and a smaller qualitative gain (while lies probably persuade more people, I suspect that they persuade less rationalists than civil debate and are therefore less qualitative overall). There are other means of persuading people without making deliberately irrational arguments. If sound reasoning alone isn't tasteful enough for you, why not season your truth with charm instead of coating it in... (read more)