A predictable response. Make it about me, not the question which you cannot answer. Not just will not answer but
cannot answer--under any circumstance. I don't know whether or not you perceive fully the situation that you are in, nonombre. The question (What is the purpose of the deception used by polygraphers if not to increase accuracy?) is a sticky tar baby and in dealing with it you have precious few options. If you just leave now--and you should have never become mixed up in this to begin with--whether announced or unannounced, that'll be a tacit acknowledgment that you can't answer the question and we'll draw our conclusions accordingly. That is, I think, the best outcome that you can hope for in this situation and the sooner you take it, the better it will be for you. On the other hand, if you make further attempts at sophistry, obfuscation, and delay you will simply become more and more ensnared, more and more stuck. There will be--and there is--only one thing that can rescue you from that mess. The truth. The truth will set you free, nonombre.
But let us set aside the wisdom of that Jewish rabbi and use a more concrete argument. You are an investigator so suppose you were a policeman investigating a murder. And when you question the prime suspect and ask where he was at the time of the murder he provides no alibi, instead simply asserting again and again that he wasn't at the murder scene and could, when needed, supply an air tight alibi. Would that or would that not make you suspect that he couldn't provide an alibi and was stalling for time, hoping that he would eventually be able to cobble some story that might pass together? Unless you are a blithering idiot, his refusal to clear himself, as he claims he can do, would raise bright red flags in your mind.
The situation here is the same. You claim to have an alibi--an explanation for the deception that doesn't involve it increasing accuracy. Why do you not provide it? We stand in readiness to receive it--try us! What? I'm not nice? I tell you the truth, I'd be a hell of a lot nicer if your livelihood didn't screw over people like me. You claim it doesn't, so just answer my question, I'll admit you're right, and I'll be much nicer to all of you and do just penance to atone for the error of my ways.
If my language seems bombastic, it is by design. I'm handing you your excuse on a silver platter. Eventually you
will claim that I am simply unreasonable, won't accept any answer whatsoever (never mind that you won't have presented a single true answer), and that nothing further can be gained by continuing the discussion. In the end, you will do that. But of course, your knowledge of my prediction introduces a new variable, one that likely invalidates my prediction of your behavior and makes new calculations much more difficult. So, perhaps you'll just decide to ignore me after all.
And the second reason for my language is that I am having an immense amount of fun. I enjoy the classics, don't you? Or have you never read
Moby-Dick?
All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.
The white whale took Ahab's leg; your kind has taken something equally valuable from me. Maybe not you personally, but you'll do for a start. You see, I hate you very, very deeply. Yes, hate--it is not too strong a term for that which I feel towards you and your kind. You have chosen to be that which you are, to remain such, and to pretend that you are otherwise. Just admit it. Just say
"Yeah, Lethe, you did get screwed unfairly. People who know how the polygraph works are indeed at a serious disadvantage when taking it and when you came to us with those concerns before hand we were forced to dismiss them and pretend that they were baseless. I'm sorry, but the polygraph demands that certain people be sacrificed so that other advantages can be obtained, there is no way out of it. I think, on balance, the cost-benefits analysis comes out in favor of using the polygraph and I hope that eventually some lie-detector can be found that won't screw over smart people like yourself.
If you could do that, you would atone for all the sins of your profession, from Adam on down. Maybe you really do feel bad for those who must be sacrificed; maybe a part of you even wants to apologize. But here's the real crime of the polygraph: you can't. You are not your own master, you are a slave to the polygraph. Nonombre, those who would detect liars should look to it they themselves do not become liars. You have gazed long into the abyss, and the abyss has gazed also into you.
We all have limitations placed upon us; here, you are a bigger slave than I, thus my allusion to our National Anthem's
third verse. And your chains severely constrict your freedom of action. I've dealt with many like you before, nonombre, and I have a pretty good idea how you'll probably respond to this. I'll not say what my prediction is, since that'd invalidate it, but I'll tell you afterwards if I was right. Of course, you'll have to take my word for it.
Now, I will try to be nice. Let me start by apologizing for my hatred. It goes against my most important moral principles to hate you; I should love even my enemies and do good to those who hurt me, groups into which you most certainly fall. But I am weak and fall far short of that ideal and having that pointed out by the situation which you put me in, oddly, makes me hate you even more. And you know, I trust, how
Moby-Dick ends. I am sorry that I have discomforted you with my strong language. And that I am not the person that I wish I were. And I will say no more on that at this place.
Nonombre, I would indeed be more appreciative if, in your expertise, you could enlighten us on a very, very important matter. If the deception used in PLCQ exams is not used to increase the accuracy of the exam, what then is its purpose? Can you answer that for us? Please. I would be most appreciative of either an answer, or a specific statement that the polygraph's workings do not permit you to give one.