Reminder: a “self-harming question” is one that could lead to adverse consequences for you, for some set of answers you could provide that reflect a possible truth. Simple examples:
- Have you ever attempted suicide, or have any mental disorder?
- Have you ever witnessed or committed any crime, or known anyone who has?
In the era of persistent mass surveillance, one must fear both what others currently judge as unacceptable by others, and what people in the future might judge as unacceptable. Consider some of the changes in this regard:
- It used to be you would be shunned if you had any personal regard for people with dark skin and coiled hair, including love. Nowadays, if you don’t say that you love people with different skin and hair types, you will be shunned, and/or fired from your job.
- It used to be (and in some parts of the world still is) that you would marry young, especially as a female; late teens might even be considered late. Now, in the Western world, if you marry a female of that age, you will be thrown in prison for statutory rape. There have been special changes to laws (for example in New York State) that explicitly remove the statute of limitations for youth sex crimes. At the same time, you see that in some cultures, honor killings and compensation for young premarital sex remains the norm, while in others there are no penalties. So you can see the confusing cross-matrix: if you have sex with a teenage female, there could be no punishment if you are young, older/able to support/compensate (dowry), if you marry, or if you don’t marry – in other words, there is no category in which you could fit in which you could feel confident that you would not be punished. That punishment could change decades later and you won’t be able to avoid it because it was legal at the time.
- You could be forced to work in the military and then put on trial for war crimes for what you were forced to do, or what the men under your command did without your approval or knowledge.
- It used to be that seeking out standardized testing and metrics in education was the anti-racist measure, and that you openly could state those as the reason for your proposed reforms. Now, you will be fired from your job if you even state the existence of any racially or sexually based differences in testing results.
- Homosexuality and transgender expression used to be criminal, and now we see people being fired, companies boycotting, etc. for not embracing whatever version of sex/gender affirmation happens to prevail at the moment.
- You used to go big game hunting, but now even if you obey the rules and customs of the country in killing Cecil the lion, you get cancelled/fired when you come home.
- And as always, you can always be fired for whistleblowing (when you tell the truth) and expressing unpopular opinions.
Hence it is a practical reality that anything you say or do can have adverse consequences for you. Any knowledge someone has about you (like having intellectual ties, even wearing glasses (the informal summary of the Khmer Rouge purge policy)) could at some future point become the rule for selective punishment. But we also recognize that matching problems, such as finding employment, and the normal administration of an economy, require the disclosure of significant amounts of personal information.
Hence the questions we must answer when we make a determination about whether to answer a question are:
- Is it necessary for the effective functioning of the economy, or society generally?
- To the point that we want people to like us (e.g. making friends) or generally to get by, does providing all accurate answers to this question help or hurt us, in identifying and establishing the right relationships?
No answer to a personal question or historical inquiry ever impacts the functioning of the economy. Consider the case of a convicted child rapist: it is the future behavior that impacts and not the past. If you had available means to prevent reoffense (e.g. lobotomy, maiming) and you had taken those steps, you would not immediately care (with the caveat of noninferior opportunities for those who have not committed crimes) that this person previously did horrible things and had served substantial prison time. Of course you would not trust this person to answer this question honestly, either – hence in a well-functioning system, posing the question does not change an employment decision in any case. But consider that you could rely on the answer: in this case, you also could then ask “will you reoffend” and if the person therefore answers honestly and conscientiously “no”, you would not need to worry. So, the assumption that you could rely on the answer eliminates the need to care about the history.
Further to underscore the case of lying about your personal conduct in reference to the economy: you’re going to do whatever racist, perverted, etc. thing you already were doing. Unless someone personally investigates you – following you around, cell tower dumps, etc. – they would be clueless about your behavior, and the economy would continue its current function. Only in the case where you say something that is perceived negatively, will they take adverse action against you, and lower the economic output. If by contrast, your deviant behavior were causing obvious problems in the economy or society, people already would be investigating the matter, and in the course of that investigation they would happen upon your nonconforming conduct. Clearly, your accurate statements about yourself are not determining the effective function of the world.
To the point of wanting people to like us and get by: only positive answers help in the aggregate – that is, when you don’t know your audience, which is the typical case in which you are asked such questions. That’s because only a small minority of people want to associate with losers.
Hence to affirm negative items in a normal interaction just makes life harder. As the magnitude of the questions grows greater (promiscuous sexual history, suicide attempts, mental instability, association with unpopular members of society) these questions cross the threshold of discomfort, inconvenience and social impediment, and become instances of potential self harm.
In conclusion: there’s no obvious, generally applicable benefit to any answer to any question that isn’t positive/reflects well on you as a person. Accurate reporting/status of issues should of course be performed – but you never should answer personal questions in a way that reflects poorly on you.