Honesty versus Conflict:

Robin Hanson about the book "Principles" from Ray Dalio:

"Dalio also seems to equate conflict and negative opinions with honesty. That is, he seeks a culture where people can say things that others would rather not hear, but doesn’t seem to consider that such negative opinions need not be “honest” opinions. The book makes hundreds of claims, but doesn’t cite outside sources, nor compare itself to other writings on the subject. Dalio doesn’t point to particular evidence in support of particular claims, nor give them any differing degrees of confidence, nor credit particular people as the source of particular claims. It is all just stuff he’s all sure of, that he endorses, all supported by the evidence of his firm’s success.

I can believe that the firm Bridgewater is full of open conflict, with negative opinions being frequently and directly expressed. And it would be interesting to study social behavior in such a context. I accept that this firm functions doing things this way. But I can’t tell if it succeeds because of or in spite of this open conflict. Yes this firm succeeds, but then so do many others with very different cultures. The fact that the top guy seems pretty self-absorbed and not very aware of the questions others are likely to ask of his book is not a good sign.

But if its a bad sign its not much of one; plenty of self-absorbed people have built many wonderful things. What he has helped to build might in fact be wonderful. Its just too bad that we can’t tell much about that from his book."