Good faith communication is maladaptive on large scale
Imagine the war scenario. The honest, good-faith communication would be like:
If we capitulate outright, the worst thing that happens is paying taxes to somewhere else, and the set of faces on TV news will change to a different set of faces. Anyway, please go and die to prevent that from happening, while the people who have the most at stake hide in safety
It's not difficult to see why bad-faith war propaganda beats that every time
Imagine the war scenario. The honest, good-faith communication would be like: If we capitulate outright, the worst thing that happens is paying taxes to somewhere else, and the set of faces on TV news will change to a different set of faces. Anyway, please go and die to prevent that from happening, while the people who have the most at stake hide in safety
It's not difficult to see why bad-faith war propaganda beats that every time