In recent years I have read many books which I would classify as "ego killers". That is, they discuss topics whose conclusions threaten ideas that people hold sacred (although not necessarily in the religious sense). Just as Copernicus showed that we're not at the center of the universe, and Darwin explained the process by which we descended from apes, and Freud showed that we are not aware of a lot of what happens in our own minds, countless other discoveries have been made in recent decades that undermine the concepts of identity, self, freedom, and autonomy. Books about such revelations are almost invariably prefaced by a claim that such discoveries should be welcomed, not feared. One example is from Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained: “As some people regard the demystification of consciousness as sacrilege, they will presumably interpret my thoughts as intellectual vandalism, an attack on the last refuge of humanity. But if anything should be lost, there will be abundant compensation in the insights – both scientific and social, both theoretical and moral – that a good theory of consciousness will provide.” I suspect that in most cases, the purpose of such allaying of fears is increased book sales and/or more successful meme transmission. (I singled out Dennett not because I consider him an especially egregious offender (I don't), but because of the eloquence with which he makes his case for truth.) I wonder how many such authors genuinely believe that all such advances in knowledge are beneficial. I've never seen any book say, "Here comes an ego killer. This is information that you don't want to know, and your life will probably be worse for having known it. But I'm going to tell you anyway, because I don't believe in 'noble lies', I value truth above all else, and I don't care if it hurts my book sales or my reputation." Personally, I'm still on the fence, and so (for now) although I'll always tell the truth and nothing but the truth, I may not tell the whole truth, if I don't think the world is ready for it.