"I don't know" can be a accurate. I think the advice is intended against people playing dumb, like Bill Clinton's "depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" or this witness denying knowledge of what a photocopier is. I know I've pulled this bullshit on myself at least once.
Using strategies that still work when some people act adverserial with you and try to deceive you is in line with being rational.
I think this gets close to the insight that motivated my post: a part of ourselves often tries to curl into a ball and deny reality to avoid emotional stress, interacting with that part of you is kind of adversarial.
Thank you for the comment!
No and no.
When I appear in the room I observe that I exist, but I couldn't have observed that I didn't exist, thus I don't update.
When a minute passes I observe that I survived, but I couldn't have observed that I didn't survive, thus I don't update.
This comment did not deserve the downvotes; I agree with asking for disclosure.
It does deserve criticism for tone. "Alarmist and uninformed" and "AGI death cult" are distractingly offensive.
The same argument for disclosure could could have been made by "given that LW's audience has outsized expectations of AI performance" and "it costs little, and could avoid an embarrasing misunderstanding".
To expand on 5:
I may be explaining Scrum for a job interview, and completely forget that the sprint review is a thing. Ask me about the sprint review however, and I can make a cogent case for (or against) the necessity of the dev team being involved (customer interactions are the purview of the project owner! agile methodologies emphasize cutting red tape! or something on those lines).
I use notes as reminders/pointers rather than longform descriptions (adopted from "The Bullet Journal Method", ch 2 "Events"). This helps with three things:
Some time ago I noticed this trend among people I respect on Twitter (motivating examples). It seems to me that there is a consensus view that openness has a damaging effect on discourse.
This view does not seem to stem from the problem addressed by "Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism" and "Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs" -the gradual decline of a community due to environmental exposure- but rather from the problem that you percieve: the reputational hazard of public fora.
My current stance on public discourse is that it serves as a discovery mechanism: writing and speaking in public serves to find people worth talking with in private.
I have not yet read the book, but from a recommendation I infer that Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of Writing" goes into considerable depth on the mechanics of using vagueness as a dogwhistling mechanism.
It has been pointed out to me that therapy is analogous to depositions in a way relevant to your argument: in therapy both patient and therapist are there with the stated purpose of resolving emotional tensions in the patient, but the patient can prove unhelpful or actively oppose the therapist's probes.
I think this is an example of an interaction that is collaborative in principle, but where techniques designed for adversarial interactions may do good.