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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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An Attempt at Following Up on the User Viewpoint Focus Series

Thanks to @hydroacetylene for 1) the nomination and 2) reminding me to get on it. I followed his excellent template here.


Self-description in Motte Terms

I'm a classical liberal with a keen awareness that the American dream was made for me. In my personal life, I'm a well-paid Texan engineer with an appreciation for firearms. I love America and the American ideal even though I feel it's currently struggling with (what I see as) a particular failure mode of populism.

We enjoy unparalleled material prosperity thanks to strong societal values combined with good initial conditions. That carried us through two centuries of struggle to the top of the world, and now it gives us opportunities to shape the future of mankind. It also reminds us of an obligation not merely to perpetuate the system which got us here, but to spread the benefits to others who are less fortunate.

Yes, this almost certainly makes me one of the most progressive posters still on the site.

I absolutely despise the fascism of pure aesthetics which is so adaptive on social media. Contrarian countersignaling that you'll make the world a worse place because bad things are good, actually. "Tear it all down," "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"... That's the lowest form of demagoguery.

My girlfriend, whom I love and trust more than anyone, once asked "why do you hang out with these people?" Why am I spending my time on this Earth arguing with people who hate my guts and sneer at the things I value? It's because I believe in the project. I believe that when classical liberalism gets to compete with the fascists and the communards, it comes out looking great. I believe that our model of debate club is a valiant attempt at implementing the liberal ethos of free exchange of ideas. I believe I can win friends and influence people via the political equivalent of betting them that nothing ever happens.

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

Recommended Reading

I'm not going to give a list of published books. Y'all probably know what goes in the classic Western philosophical canon. Plus, and I might not be supposed to mention this, but the vast majority of my model overlaps with what they teach to reasonably smart high schoolers. Perks of subscribing to what's basically our civic religion.

Allow me instead to share a few standout motte posts.

I still think about this post by, I believe, @AshLael. The idea that certain flavors of argument are advantaged against others helps to explain large swathes of the political landscape. It's also part of the reason I'm so invested in maintaining a Debate-heavy space like this one.

Here's a classic bit of Hlynka for those who missed it. While I deeply, deeply disagree with him on lots of things, he was grasping at something that most other users don't quite get.

But I've always had a special place for the strange and wonderful digressions of the Motte. /u/mcjunker's stories, @Dean's policy analysis, all sorts of stuff. One of the best examples has to be this monstrous essay on the aesthetics of jazz. Amazing stuff.

If you have any affinity whatsoever for text-heavy, mechanics-light video games, you should play Disco Elysium. Its Moralintern is a bizarre but excellent commentary on our rules-based international order. Also, it's generally hilarious and poignant.

While I am tempted to namedrop countless other works of fiction, it'd probably be more of a distraction. Ask me on a Friday thread.

Brief Manifesto

Assume your model is not going to work.

Doesn't matter if you're theorizing about politics or international relations or the state of the youth. The very fact that you've taken the time to present it in a forum post is a comorbidity for any number of critical flaws. Maybe it's wildly overcomplicated; maybe it overlooks some basic fact of human psychology. As soon as you introduce your theory, the fine commentariat of the Motte will show up and explain how it's actually stupid.

This is a good thing, because picking holes in ideas is how you get better ideas. (Okay, yes, it's also quality entertainment.) But it might not be fun, and there will be some psychological pressure to insist that nothing is wrong. No. The critics are right, and your grand psychoanalysis is probably bunk. So why not try to get ahead of the curve and figure out what went wrong? What's the first objection someone is going to make when you hit "post"?

This is the difference between arguing to understand vs. arguing to win.

If you want to have a constructive discussion, the single most useful thing you can do is to think about how you might be wrong. It's not easy, I sure don't live up to it as much as I ought to, but I promise. It's worth it.

Ping Me On...

Voting systems. Electoral reform along the lines of single transferable vote is literally my single issue, because I think it's actually a credible path to a more functional government. Seriously, if you know about a way I can act against FPTP, let me know.

Science fiction. Fantasy. Weird hybrids that defy or define genres. I'd like to say I'm pretty well-read in this sense. I certainly enjoy the subject.

Historical trivia of all sorts. Perhaps it's stereotypical for a board like this, but yes, that includes military history and hardware. And while my own collection is still amateurish, I'm always happy to talk about firearms as a hobby, too.

Posts I'm Proud Of

I don't generate a lot of AAQCs, and when I do, I tend to look back with a little embarassment. Something of a tendency towards melodrama. Still, I'm convinced that I was on to something here.

I also feel strongly about my comments on the state of fiction. Media is the first thing to get the 'ol "back in my day" treatment, and especially with modern storage methods, it's so easy to put on rose-tinted glasses. But all sorts of bizarre fiction is out there. Perks of a bigger, faster, more interconnected world. I encourage everyone who thinks modern media sucks and/or is captured by their ideological enemies to go out and find stuff that's just too weird to capture.


This was easier to write and harder to do than I expected.

I'll nominate @Rov_Scam for the next entry.

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

I like the ideal of this, but in practice, sometimes the myth is more important than the truth. Humans are story-tellers by nature. It's in our blood. Telling stories is the great cultural commonality that links every society throughout human history. The Aztecs were telling stories about Cihuatecayotl God of the West Wind at the same time that Spaniards were telling stories about Clavijo at the same time the English were telling stories about King Arthur at the same time the Byzantines were telling stories about being Rhōmaîoi at the same time the Russians were telling stories about Koschei the Deathless at the same time the Chinese were telling stories about the Yellow Emperor. These stories, some of which were pure myth some of which were myth based on fact, provided a common basis of understanding for their culture. England is not England without the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Spain is not Spain without the myth of the Battle of Clavijo or Santiago Matamoros (Saint James Moorslayer). The Byzantine Empire only existed, only had legitimacy, because of their claim of being the Heirs of Rome, being Rhōmaîoi, Roman citizens.

When you shine the light of truth on King Arthur, you find a squalid little Welshman who may or may not have been a Roman Centurion, who probably fought a few battles and died in a meaningless cattle raid more likely than not. When you shine the light of truth on the Battle of Clavijo, you find nothing to support it. When you shine the light of truth on the Byzantine claims, you find something there, but come on, they're all Greeks, speaking Greek, worshiping the Christian god, with an Emperor-in-name as opposed to the Roman Emperor-in-all-but-name. Truth eviscerates these foundational, common myths. It destroys them utterly. But should it? Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore? Where there is no common understanding that they are English, and that they have a common mythos that binds them together more firmly than something as pedestrian as the right to vote for some wanker in Parliament? Is Spain a better place when there is no longer that same pride in the Reconquest, that same understanding that their ancestors were chosen by God and Saint James to bring the light of Christendom to the Iberian Peninsula, and drive out the infidel who conquered the home of their fathers?

Myth and legend serve a purpose. Seeking truth is a noble goal, but it must be tempered with the understanding that sometimes there are things more important than the truth.

I do not understand why rationalist love this sentence as it obviously goes against their main moral philosophy of utilitarianism. Most people - even rationalists - are not against what they consider white lies either individually (e.g. lying to Kant's axe murderer asking where your wife is) or society wide myths (e.g. everybody is equal before law, every vote counts etc). The actual sentence should therefore be something like

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be, except if destroying it would have huge cost in terms of negative utils

Which is basically in line with other moral philosophies as well - most of them like the truth unless it goes against other key values in that system.

I do not understand why rationalist love this sentence as it obviously goes against their main moral philosophy of utilitarianism.

If you are the Czar and you're the only one who needs to be a utilitarian, sure. If you need there to be lots of utilitarians, then assuming some commonality of interests lies are terrible because they cause people to calculate utility incorrectly. All moral systems are somewhat sensitive to false information, of course, but utilitarianism is particularly and notoriously so.

If you need there to be lots of utilitarians, then assuming some commonality of interests lies are terrible because they cause people to calculate utility incorrectly

Or lies can cause people to calculate utility correctly, especially if they have some sort of bias. Is it not the whole point of rationalist thinking - Overcomening Bias? If a white lie can do that, then it will increase utility and general good.

Truth and utility are different concepts that are independent of each other - rationalist could say that they if they are not exactly orthogonal, they are at least at some steep angle to each other. I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument - are they not supposed to be impersonal calculators? If Yudkowsky calculated that spewing lie after lie for the rest of his life will enable humanity to align the AI, he would 100% do it to usher his utopia. Would he not?

Or lies can cause people to calculate utility correctly, especially if they have some sort of bias.

I mean, this is basically just saying "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth". And, okay, this is not actually impossible, but it's not very likely, especially in the long run. COVID is the obvious recent example of people trying this shit and it blowing up in their faces.

More generally, you say "I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument". Notice that if you're not sure why somebody doesn't accept something, one of the possible answers is in fact "they understand it just fine, but there's a counterargument that they understand and you don't".

Spoiler alert: there's literally a Yudkowsky article from 2008 about this. And another. Probably others I haven't read or can't recall offhand!

I mean, this is basically just saying "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth".

No. It says that lies can increase utils. Truth and utility are independent concepts, why do you have it confused?

More generally, you say "I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument". Notice that if you're not sure why somebody doesn't accept something, one of the possible answers is in fact "they understand it just fine, but there's a counterargument that they understand and you don't".

Then demonstrate it. The very first sentence of your reply shows that I was right.

why do you have it confused?

I don't.

You said "calculate utility correctly". To calculate utility correctly requires knowing the truth. Different worldstates result in different expected utilities for the same course of action, so a utilitarian with a bad understanding of reality will act suboptimally according to his own utility metric - often wildly so. The obvious example is that genocide looks utile if you think the relevant demographic are all evil.

Hence, "lies can cause people to calculate utility correctly" = "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth".

This is distinct from "lies can be utile", which is broader and covers things like people having different utility metrics and/or people not actually being utilitarians and/or direct, non-choice-based belief effects (e.g. stress). That condition of "if you need there to be lots of utilitarians" is actually relevant to my point, y'know.

So we are back to square one. It seems to me that you are truthitarian and not a utilitarian, which is fair game. Let's investigate it on my previous example of Kant's axe murderer asking for you wife. Since she can be destroyed by [you telling] the truth about her whereabouts, then she should be destroyed, right? Because telling a lie can hamper yours and murderer's ability to correctly calculate the utility in the future with immense impacts. Or you should tell a lie, because death of you wife would be more negative utility compared to whatever impact on correct calculation of utility is there from telling a lie. What is your answer to the axe murderer? Is the truth the ultimate value that should destroy all and everything in its path? Or is it subordinate to other values such as your best estimation of utility in a given moment?

This is distinct from "lies can be utile", which is broader and covers things like people having different utility metrics and/or people not actually being utilitarians and/or direct, non-choice-based belief effects (e.g. stress). That condition of "if you need there to be lots of utilitarians" is actually relevant to my point, y'know.

That is why amended Sagan's mantra:

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be - except if it clashes with some other higher value (e.g. causing negative utility), in that case you should not destroy that thing by the truth.

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be, except if destroying it would have huge cost it terms of negative utils

This seems functionally identical to "I will exercise complete arbitrary freedom to pick and choose to destroy something that a truth would destroy while also feeling morally virtuous along the way." Human bias being what it is, if you dislike any outcome for any reason, any good-faith honest calculation of utils of that outcome will certainly come out negative, and sufficiently so to meet whatever bar it needs to to justify not getting that outcome.

The shorter quotation is going to be wrong sometimes, but that's expected of any simplistic pithy line that tries to describe huge, overarching principles in ethics. I think it's more useful than this longer one which makes no concessions or commitments at all to any principles beyond one's own whims and preferences.

Human bias being what it is, if you dislike any outcome for any reason, any good-faith honest calculation of utils of that outcome will certainly come out negative, and sufficiently so to meet whatever bar it needs to to justify not getting that outcome.

Exactly, I could have not said it better. Despite their posturing, they weaponize their dogmas - such as this Sagan's quip - to destroy what they do not like, while selectively not applying it to things they like such as polyamory.

I think it's more useful than this longer one which makes no concessions or commitments at all to any principles beyond one's own whims and preferences.

Yeah, it may be a useful white lie. Which again paradoxically is the exact thing that the sentence rails against.

Exactly, I could have not said it better. Despite their posturing, they weaponize their dogmas - such as this Sagan's quip - to destroy what they do not like, while selectively not applying it to things they like such as polyamory.

Right, and the point of a pithy, simplistic mantra like "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be" is to explicitly condemn such behavior of selectively applying and not applying principles based on whims and preferred outcomes. Which makes it every different from a line that adds something like "except if destroying it would have huge cost in terms of negative utils," which doesn't condemn such behavior and, in fact, is openly supportive of selectively applying principles based on whims and preferred outcomes. That's what makes the shorter line actually different and better.

Yeah, it may be a useful white lie. Which again paradoxically is the exact thing that the sentence rails against.

Statements of "should" and "ought" like this - which lack anything that can be measured to determine the effects of the behaviors that people "should" do - are subjective judgment calls that don't really fit into a "lie," useful, white, or otherwise. Possibly "misguided" or "wrong." But if it is indeed true that this statement is useful, then it certainly doesn't seem like truth would destroy the statement. Why would it?

Right, and the point of a pithy, simplistic mantra like "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be" is to explicitly condemn such behavior of selectively applying and not applying principles based on whims and preferred outcome

But the point is that it is exactly what is expected - utilitarians ought to apply the mantra selectively.

But if it is indeed true that this statement is useful, then it certainly doesn't seem like truth would destroy the statement. Why would it?

Because the sentence is false and thus should be destroyed by its own prescription. Unless you selectively apply it based on your whims and preferences. Exactly what you condemned in paragraph before.

Because the sentence is false and thus should be destroyed by its own prescription. Unless you selectively apply it based on your whims and preferences. Exactly what you condemned in paragraph before.

But it isn't false. Again, you can consider a judgment call like this "wrong" or "misguided," but that's, just, like your opinion, man. If the truth is that people listening to this phrase is useful, then why would the truth destroy it? Why would we want to destroy something that's truthfully useful?

Here's Yudkovsky saying exactly that (but worse and with more words, as is his style). A common rationalist stance is that utilitarianism is what's correct, but deontology is what works for humans.

The irony inherent in that decision tickles me something fierce.

Utilitarianism holds that what is best for the largest group of people is correct (summarizing). What is best for the largest group of people is apparently, deontology. Thus utilitarianism can be explained as the belief that deontology is correct.

Well, Yudkovsky's interested in moral theories for nonhumans as well.

And, once you get detached enough, or more realistically, when deontology doesn't give a clear enough answer, you do get to do some utility calculation anyway. Effective altruists may have their 10% charity rule, but they use utility calculations to decide on the charity. Which can lead to both Givewll $/life saved and shrimp welfare, so not exactly perfectly reliable either, but nothing is.

Sure, I agree. Which is exactly my point. Rationalists are deontological cult of reason with a lot of let's say idiosyncracies. I just noted that they love this Sagan's quip and cite it quite often as some kind of mantra. I do not deny its utility for their ideology, but it is still a little bit cringey in many contexts. It is equivalent to some religious believer just writing that Jesus the way, the truth, and the life randomly in the middle of some argument about healthcare or whatnot - exactly like the OP of this thread felt the need to write the sentence as part of his argument.

Actually I think it is even worse for rationalists. The religious believers are mostly self aware to the extent, that they do understand that it is a religious statement and that nonbelievers or Muslims etc. will disagree. Rationalists can sometimes forget that it is just a mantra with symbolic meaning, and they may take it too literally - as if it is actually a good argument to present in a debate.

If your point was that rationalists are deontoligical in practice, why did your first post in this thread express confusion as to why rationalists like the pithy phrase expressing this rule, not a useless utilitarian tautology? 07mk gave the rationalist answer to why prefer the shorter version. I do agree that you shouldn't mistake a moral rule for an argument, though. But it's going to be a popular rule in rationalist and ex-rationalist communities, as they do select for people who highly value epistemic rationality.

If your point was that rationalists are deontological in practice, why did your first post in this thread express confusion as to why rationalists like the pithy phrase expressing this rule, not a useless utilitarian tautology?

Because they pretend to be utilitarian, but are in practice quite dogmatic. This Sagan's quip is actually a good example of that, because it is self-defeating paradox. If taken literally, it should destroy itself. It is a very poor choice for some deontological rule for a wannabe utilitarian. There are much better rules - e.g. give 10% of your income to charity.

07mk gave the rationalist answer to why prefer the shorter version.

I think 07mk did a pretty good job for why rationalist should ditch the whole sentence. He pretends, that the shortened version is somehow better, because it gives less space for individual whims and preferences. But he also basically admits, that it should not be applied all the time - of course subject to individual whims and preferences. How is that better? I focused more on the paradox side, but it does not mean that 07mk's explanation is satisfying in any way.

We need phrases like that because the last years have shown that if you leave people any wiggle room, they will lie every chance they get. I hear ‘it’s just a white lie’ all the time now, and there are no limits and no brakes on its runaway use. The thing I found most shocking about the woke establishment is not that they would lie (about corona, discrimination, race), but that they would casually justify it if caught. And maga/trump casually lie even more, and then deny, so there’s not even the attempt at coherence left.

I at least hope that you appreciate the paradox here - that the sentence itself is a white lie or a myth if you will. But it has utility as a mantra preventing people from lying too much either to others or to themselves.

I hear ‘it’s just a white lie’ all the time now, and there are no limits and no brakes on its runaway use.

Exactly. Like some autistic rationalist "telling the truth" about some weapon of mass destruction - if humanity can be destroyed by the truth, then it should be. Right?

People jump on slogans, they want the ten commandments version, not the 2000 page discourse. Under those constraints, they should err on the side of telling the truth no matter what, instead of 'white lies' and 'necessary myths'. I don't think giving them the cliff's notes version counts as a lie. They're welcome to explore the topic in depth if they have the time.

everybody is equal before law, every vote counts

Those aren't lies. First one is an aspiration : "Everyone should be treated as if they are equal before the law" - it just means there are no special categories of people, like aristocrats, as far as the law is concerned. Second one, well, every vote is literally counted.

lying to Kant's axe murderer asking where your wife is

Obviously that is justified, but I don't consider that a white lie

(wiki definition: A white lie is a harmless or trivial lie, especially one told in order to be polite or to avoid hurting someone's feelings or stopping them from being upset by the truth. A white lie also is considered a lie to be used for greater good (pro-social behavior))

It's not trivial nor polite, nor do I justify it on simplistic utilitarian grounds ("I just lied because my wife shouldn't die/the greater good." That's too weak a justification imo.) Essentially, a state of war or permanent defection exists between this evildoer and you, and acts which would be immoral normally, like murder and lying, are permitted or required in this case.

Like some autistic rationalist "telling the truth" about some weapon of mass destruction

I think some exceptions can be made in the face of nuclear armaggeddon, at the margins of neurotypical society.

By contrast, our personal lives and our politics are saturated with unnecessary, harmful lies.

The trouble with untruth is that it is hard in advantage to know when it will be harmless and when it will lead to disaster.

Myths work okayish even if most people do not believe that they are literally true. Most people who partake in the Star Wars subculture do not believe that there was a historical person named Luke Skywalker in a galaxy far away. They still can dress up as wookies and go to conventions or debate minor points of Jedi philosophy online, but they are much less likely to engage in harmful actions than a subculture which believes their myths are literally true.

The trouble with untruth is that it is hard in advantage to know when it will be harmless and when it will lead to disaster.

The same can be said about the truth. In a sense the sentence itself is highly paradoxical, as it by itself is also not true and just a rationalist myth - vast majority of them would prefer lies if it increased utils, as they are utilitarians. This can be even trivially demonstrated by people who refuse to tell white lies and make their lives unnecessarily harder and miserable for other people as well. I am sure that even rationalists can be employed let's say in sales or service sector and pretend that they are thrilled to serve their customers instead of telling the "truth". The only thing that the truth destroys in that case is their job prospects with no upside.

I think that the sentence is generally more understood to express a preference for true beliefs for oneself and in cooperative settings. "Of course I told the Gestapo where the Jews were hiding, and destroyed them with the truth" is very much not a standard interpretation. Nor is there an imperative to destroy any respect your coworker might have for you by blurting "whenever I see you I fantasize about your tits". Same for consumer service.

Nor is it imperative to rub the truth into the face of an unappreciative audience. A religious person is very likely already aware of the fact that agnostic atheism is a thing. Telling them they are wrong once a day is not helpful.

A better example of a seemingly benign untruth might be homeopathy. Obviously it is bollocks. But the placebo effect is real, and larger if the patient is not aware of the fact that they are getting a placebo. So from a utilitarian perspective, it might seem beneficial to let your community believe some horseshite if it improves their health outcomes, and as long as you consider only direct effects, this might even be true (if you outlaw homeopathic "cures" for cancer and the like).

But the indirect epistemic consequences are devastating. "You know that orthodox medicine is wrong to deny homeopathy, why should you believe them if they claim that vaccines do not cause autism? Or why should you believe some adjacent ivory tower autofellating scientists that climate change is a thing?"

But the indirect epistemic consequences are devastating

The consequences are devastating for what? Some cosmic sense of justice and rightness? As long as consequences are beneficial for utility, then lies are absolutely okay for utilitarians. Are they not? Of course you may argue that a specific lie is detrimental to utility, but then it is not my argument. Go and find some utility improving lie as an example, and defend destroying that one from utilitarian standpoint.

Act utilitarianism is not the only kind of utilitarianism there is. There is also rule utilitarianism and Two-level utilitarianism. Utilitarians can be against believing false things in the same way that they can be against child rape: while it is certainly possible to conjure hypothetical scenarios where the thing they are against has the better outcome, in practice these situations do not seem to appear.

Go and find some utility improving lie as an example

Hey, I am not the one who claims that there is such a thing as a false belief which improves utility. You seem to claim that such things exist, so you should come up with examples.

One example comes from Pratchett:

"For example, there was the Raddles' privy. Miss Level had explained carefully to Mr. and Mrs. Raddle several times that it was far too close to the well, and so the drinking water was full of tiny, tiny creatures that were making their children sick. They'd listen very carefully, every time they heard the lecture, and still they'd never move the privy. But Mistress Weatherwax told them it was caused by goblins who were attracted to the smell, and by the time they left that cottage, Mr. Raddle and three of his friends were already digging a new well at the other end of the garden."

There are several defenses of Granny Weatherwaxes behavior possible: 0. Operating on simulacrum level 2 is fine, truth does not matter. Obviously I reject this.

  1. It could be argued that she wanted to transport the true belief that the distance between well and privy was to small (but I do not find that very convincing).
  2. It could be argued that this was the closest thing to the truth the Raddles could grasp. Consider:

Medieval peasant: "Where do you come from?"
Literally-truthtelling alien: "To understand the answer to that question, you first have to understand that your cosmology is all wrong. While you believe that your world is planar, it is actually a sphere, strike that, a roughly sphere-shaped body. You do not fall off from that sphere because there is a force called gravity which pulls you towards the center of that body, even though calling it a force is an oversimplification as in reality it is more accurately described as bent space-time. Gravity is also causing your world to rotate around ..."
Conceptionally-truthtelling alien: "We come from the stars."
Literally-truthelling alien: "We most certainly do not. The surface temperature of stellar bodies is much too high to support life." I would be rather sympathetic to the second alien here, because while he lies in a very technical sense, he is trying to answer in the most truthful way the peasant will understand.

  1. One might argue that both the Raddles and my peasant are not so much suffering from a false belief, but trapped in a whole world-view full of falsehoods. Where normally spreading false beliefs is like salting the fertile earth, replacing one falsehood with another one in an endless sea of falsehoods is like dumping salt into the ocean, so the lie is not morally wrong.

However, none of these arguments apply to believing falsehoods yourself or your epistemic peer community. The peasant who tries to understand general relativity, fails and ends up believing that in a vague way, the aliens come from the stars, but not exactly is more virtuous than the peasant who just goes "sure, you come from the stars. whatever."

Act utilitarianism is not the only kind of utilitarianism there is. There is also rule utilitarianism and Two-level utilitarianism. Utilitarians can be against believing false things in the same way that they can be against child rape: while it is certainly possible to conjure hypothetical scenarios where the thing they are against has the better outcome, in practice these situations do not seem to appear.

Of course, but in the end they still want to increase utils - be it by acts, rules etc. This does not weaken my arguments - whatever way you calculate utils, the sentence is stupid if destroying a lie decreases utils by that metric.

Hey, I am not the one who claims that there is such a thing as a false belief which improves utility. You seem to claim that such things exist, so you should come up with examples.

Sure, I can use a hypothetical. If utilitarian of any sort - act, rule or two-level - made a calculation and found out that let's say believing in Christianity increases utils, then he would be obliged not to destroy it even if he thought Christian belief was based on a lie. Is it not true statement?

My criticism of your "homeopathy" example was that you actually think that homeopathy decreases utility. Which is not an argument for anything, you just affirm that saying what you think is true increases utility. Which does not tackle my argument at all.

EDIT: you lost me with Pratchett, aliens and peasants. Was is supposed to be some longwinded explanation for why you hold truth as an ultimate good instead of utils?

Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore?

Better? I don't know about that. But worse? Almost certainly not.

If the very idea of "King Arthur" somehow fell out of the collective consciousness, then as far as I can tell, nobody would really notice or care. Maybe we might see an improvement in GDP figures when fewer awful movies come out every few years and then bomb at the box office.

Now, the current state of England, or the UK as a whole, leaves much to be desired, but I can recall no point in history, even at its absolute prime, when success or governmental continuity was load-bearing on watery tarts handing out swords. And even back then, people treated it as a nice story, rather than historical fact or the basis for their identity. England was conquered by the Danes and the Saxons after all, well after the knights of the not-square table were done gallivanting about.

On a more general level, I fail to see your case, or at least I don't think there's a reason to choose false stories or myths over ideas that are true, or at least not accurately described as either.

The French made liberty, equality and fraternity their rallying cry to great effect. I do not think any 3 of those concepts are falsifiable, but they still accurately capture values and goals.

Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore?

From "That Hideous Strength":

“It all began,” he said, “when we discovered that the Arthurian story is mostly true history. There was a moment in the Sixth Century when something that is always trying to break through into this country nearly succeeded. Logres was our name for it — it will do as well as another. And then gradually we began to see all English history in a new way. We discovered the haunting.”

“What haunting?” asked Camilla.

“How something we may call Britain is always haunted by something we may call Logres. Haven’t you noticed that we are two countries? After every Arthur, a Mordred; behind every Milton, a Cromwell: a nation of poets, a nation of shopkeepers: the home of Sidney — and of Cecil Rhodes. Is it any wonder they call us hypocrites?

But what they mistake for hypocrisy is really the struggle between Logres and Britain.”

…“So that, meanwhile, is England,” said Mother Dimble. “Just this swaying to and fro between Logres and Britain?”

Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore? Where there is no common understanding that they are English, and that they have a common mythos that binds them together more firmly than something as pedestrian as the right to vote for some wanker in Parliament? Is Spain a better place when there is no longer that same pride in the Reconquest, that same understanding that their ancestors were chosen by God and Saint James to bring the light of Christendom to the Iberian Peninsula, and drive out the infidel who conquered the home of their fathers?

These are not counterfactuals. Perhaps it is better to phrase it as ‘would Spain be better if the Spaniards believed, to this day, that God and St James chose them to militarily reconquer thé land for Christendom? Would England be a better place if the inhabitants believed they had a special place in the world?’. America still has a founding myth; and this is a major culture war flashpoint.

would Spain be better if the Spaniards believed, to this day, that God and St James chose them to militarily reconquer thé land for Christendom?

Yes, it would be much better.

England would be better if the English believed, to this day, that God chose them to build a global empire to spread Christian civilization and Protestant values to the world.