-For context on why I have no sense of humor about this, on Earth (which _actually exists_, unlike dath ilan), when someone says "it's not lying, because no one _expected_ me to tell the truth in that situation", what's usually going on (as Zvi Mowshowitz explains: <https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/07/02/everybody-knows/>) is that is that conspirators benefit from deceiving outsiders, and the claim that "everyone knows" is them lying to _themselves_ about the fact that they're lying.
+From the moral perspective of an _Overcoming Bias_ reader in 2008 "on Earth" (_i.e._, in real life) who places value on authenticity and truth in human affairs, this is unsettling and immoral, for the same reason [the Emperor Norton Conspiracy was immoral](/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions/#emperor-norton). Merrin is living a lie, and everyone she trusts is in on it!
+
+The deception by the people in Merrin's life is especially galling in light of the fact that the situation that Merrin needs to be protected from is one of their own making. EMTs can't become famous on accident. If Merrin doesn't like attention, she should not have a TV show with a million viewers! (We can assume that most unusually skilled workers aren't celebrities in dath ilan, as in real life, not because their work is particularly secret, but because recording and editing it for public consumption is a cost that no one has particular reason to pay.) One almost wonders whether the deception is the point—that people in dath ilan enjoy "coordinating to pretend around" someone, and Merrin's psychological hangup presented them with a golden opportunity to put someone in a [_The Truman Show_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show)-like psuedo-reality.
+
+["For No Laid Course Prepare"](https://glowfic.com/posts/6263), the story about how Merrin came to the attention of dath ilan's bureau of Exception Handling, shows us more examples of dath ilani conspiracy culture. In the story, Merrin is dressed up as a member of a fictional alien species, the Sparashki, due to having been summoned to the hospital from a fan convention with no time to change outfits. Merrin's coworkers falsely maintain to outsiders that Merrin always cosplays as a Sparashki while on duty. ["This is not considered a lie, in that it would be universally understood and expected that no one in this social circumstance would tell the truth,"](https://www.glowfic.com/replies/1857346#reply-1857346) the narrator tells us. The language used here is strikingly similar to that of one of the corrupt executives in [_Moral Mazes_](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/05/30/quotes-from-moral-mazes/): "We lie all the time, but if everyone knows that we're lying, is a lie really a lie?"
+
+But if [everyone really knew](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/07/02/everybody-knows/), what would be function of saying the false thing? On dath ilan (if not in real-world boardrooms), one supposes the answer is "Because it's fun"? But that just prompts the followup question: but what is the function of the brain giving out a "fun" reward in this context? It seems like at some point, there has to be the expectation of some cognitive system (although possibly not an entire "person") taking the signals literally.
+
+Indeed, in the described circumstances, it's hard to see how receivers of the Merrin-always-cosplays falsehood are supposed to figure out that the claim is not true. If it's universally understood and expected that no dath ilani would pass up a good trolling opportunity, it does not therefore follow that the people being trolled know it. (That's exactly what makes a good troll!)
+
+It's tempting to speculate that the eliezera are high in an "enjoying social deception" trait. Not-actually-plausible conspiracies that most people are in on are a [superstimulus](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Jq73GozjsuhdwMLEG/superstimuli-and-the-collapse-of-western-civilization) like zero-calorie sweetener: engineered to let everyone enjoy the thrill of lying, without doing serious damage to shared maps.
+
+An agent from Exception Handling [tells Merrin that the bureau's Fake Conspiracy section is running an operation to plant evidence that Sparashki are real](https://glowfic.com/replies/1860952#reply-1860952), and asks Merrin not to contradict this.
+
+One immediately wonders: why does Exception Handling have a Fake Conspiracies department? Why is it okay for a government agency to be pulling hoaxes on its own citizens, any more than it would have been if FTX or Enron in real life had a Fake Accounting department?
+
+Is it okay because dath ilan are the [designated good guys](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DesignatedHero)? Well, [so was FTX](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sdjcH7KAxgB328RAb/ftx-ea-fellowships).