+> When you're doubting one of your most cherished beliefs, close your eyes, empty your mind, grit your teeth, and **deliberately think about whatever hurts the most**. Don't rehearse standard objections whose standard counters would make you feel better. Ask yourself what _smart_ people who disagree would say to your first reply, and your second reply. Whenever you catch yourself flinching away from an objection you fleetingly thought of, drag it out into the forefront of your mind. **Punch yourself in the solar plexus. Stick a knife in your heart, and wiggle to widen the hole.** In the face of the pain, rehearse only this:
+>
+> What is true is already so.
+> Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.
+> Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.
+> And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived.
+> People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
+
+Meanwhile, the dath ilan mythos portrays a world steered by a secretive order of [Keepers of Highly Unpleasant Things it is Sometimes Necessary to Know](https://www.glowfic.com/replies/1612937#reply-1612937). (Ordinary dath ilani do receive rationality training, but it's implied to be deliberately crippled, featuring ["signposts around the first steps [towards becoming a Keeper], placed to warn dath ilani off starting down that path unless they mean it."](https://www.glowfic.com/replies/1799590#reply-1799590)) The maxim that "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be" is described as being ["remembered as much for how it's false, as for how it's true, because among the things that truths can destroy is people."](https://www.glowfic.com/replies/1687922#reply-1687922)
+
+Clearly, this is not a culture that cares about ordinary people being well-informed. Apparently, they believe that owning up to it _does_ make it worse, that the untrue _is_ there to be lived (for non-Keepers).
+
+As a result, the algorithm that designed dath ilan's Civilization can be seen as systematically preferring deception. When I speak of an algorithm preferring deception, [what I mean is](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fmA2GJwZzYtkrAKYJ/algorithms-of-deception) that given a social problem, candidate solutions that involve deceiving the populace seem to be higher in dath ilani Civilization's implicit search ordering than solutions that involve informing the populace. Solutions that work by means of telling the truth will be implemented only when solutions that work by means of deception are seen to fail.
+
+Crucially, these are functionalist criteria of "preference" and "deception". It's about how Civilization is structured in a way that systematically encourages divergences between popular belief and reality.
+
+I'm _not_ positing that Civilization's Keepers and Legislators and Chief Executive are laughing maniacally and consciously telling each other, "As an individual, I love it when non-Keepers have false beliefs; we need to do as much of that as possible—as a terminal value!"
+
+Rather, I'm positing that they don't give a shit about non-Keepers having false beliefs. (They may give a shit about [not technically lying](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PrXR66hQcaJXsgWsa/not-technically-lying), but that [turns out to be a weak constraint](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MN4NRkMw7ggt9587K/firming-up-not-lying-around-its-edge-cases-is-less-broadly).)
+
+If you're in the business of coming up with clever plans to solve problems, and you don't give a shit about people having false beliefs, you mostly end up with clever plans that work by means of giving people false beliefs that trick them into doing what you want them to do (perhaps without technically lying).
+
+Why wouldn't you? There are more false maps than true maps; if you don't specifically give a shit about affirmatively telling the truth, you mostly end up supplying false maps. Instrumental convergence is a harsh mistress.
+
+### Interlude: "I Can't Argue With Authorial Fiat"
+
+### History Screening
+
+### The Merrin Show
+
+### Keltham and S/M
+
+### Kitchen Knives
+
+### Conclusion
+
+
+-------