Discussionator -

Opinion

It's hardly ever genuinely necessary to lie to anyone. People lie to make themselves look better or to hide unwanted truths, but this continual spread of misinformation is bad for us all.
– Lee J Haywood, 2010-06-25 at 07:38:05 (22 comments)

	On 2010-06-25 at 07:40:31, Lee J Haywood wrote... I stopped lying 20 years ago. Of course I still may make a mistake and later realise that something was untrue, and I might lie to a telephone salesperson once or twice a year. And obviously if I tell a story or joke it's not meant to be taken literally. The mistake people always seem to make is that telling the truth is blunt and lying is tactful. They don't see that there's a middle ground - you can be honest and tactful. They're not mutually exclusive.
	On 2010-06-25 at 11:39:37, DigitalBoss wrote... You say "this continual spread of misinformation", it sounds as though you are referring to something specific. Please elaborate.
	On 2010-06-26 at 09:29:43, Lee J Haywood wrote... The majority of people lie all the time. That's a continual spread of misinformation. Your knowledge of the (social) world around you is warped by the lies that you're being told by everyone. If you lie to yourself, you can make yourself feel better about your place in the world.
	On 2010-06-26 at 22:29:33, DigitalBoss wrote... Surely you can find the truth somewhere.
	On 2010-07-01 at 04:50:24, BorgClown wrote... We lie for a myriad of reasons: To protect our ego, to avoid needlessly long interactions, to avoid reality, to joke, etc. I don't think lying can ever be eliminated, even if I prefer to hide the truth than to openly lie. Well, it could, but we would waste too much time on things we don't want to.
	On 2010-07-04 at 12:58:30, Lee J Haywood wrote... I suspect that people mostly lie to themselves, and everyone seems to have an excuses as to why lying is necessary. It isn't. It takes some skill to lie, and it takes skill to always tell the truth. To always tell the truth is a challenge, but one which can make you feel good about yourself. Can you say that lying to others, and distorting their 'knowledge', has a significant benefit to anyone but yourself?
	On 2010-07-08 at 07:09:07, BorgClown wrote... Occasional small lies ease your daily life, mostly by not having to give explanations. If you always tell people the truth they tend to second guess your decisions, and it takes extra time to put them in their place. To be fair, I haven't lied at all in several weeks, but if I needed to use a small lie to get me through I wouldn't hesitate. Big lies, on the other hand, must have a very big reason to exist.
	On 2010-07-08 at 07:14:38, BorgClown wrote... I digressed. Regarding your question, I guess lying is all about personal benefit. Like breathing or eating. Even animals lie. Maybe lying, as a form of cheating, is a subset of parasitism. And moderate parasitism gives a strong evolutive advantage.
	On 2010-07-08 at 17:25:27, Lee J Haywood wrote... If you reflect on any given conversation, you should indeed find that you haven't had any reason to lie at all. But if you investigate the justification for each like you have told, you'll most likely find that it's very flimsy indeed. Next time you notice yourself tell a lie, let us know what it is and I'll pick it apart. ☺
	On 2010-07-16 at 03:10:55, BorgClown wrote... OK, I lied today. I arrived at work a few minutes after the tolerance because I overslept. My boss asks me why, I just told her the traffic was slow. End of story. She may even suspect it's a lie because that's my standard reply for such small and exceptional delays. Telling her the truth would have made the issue bigger than necessary, and even entailed the risk of a boring conversation or even a reprimand. Hell, maybe she asked casually and was not really interested in the answer.
	On 2010-07-17 at 20:08:12, Lee J Haywood wrote... Hmm, well I'm familiar with this excuse as I have it ready myself in case I'm ever asked why I'm slightly late (although I'm never asked, so haven't had to use it). I'd assume that it's a lie in your case because by oversleeping you've actually made it impossible to arrive on time even if the traffic hadn't been slow. In my case, I'd simply have set off later than normal but might arrive on time if the traffic were sufficiently light so I'm being factual. Anyway, the solution to avoiding this particular need to lie is a simple one. Get up on time. That's it. Predict that you'll need to lie because of your own deficiency, and avoid that same need to lie by being more punctual. It's a challenge to better yourself, but not an insurmountable one. You both learn methods to become punctual (which are helpful when you really need them), and you lie less which makes you more trustworthy. And if you still occasionally oversleep, as anyone might, it's a genuine reason you can give honestly.
	On 2010-07-23 at 03:17:48, BorgClown wrote... @Lee J Haywood: I have another, I just lied to a coworker two days ago. I was talking with the cleaning lady at work about how the soda machine gave me a warm can while I was grabbing a few ice cubes and my cup. As I was making my way out, the department gossip guy strolls in, looks at my cup with the ice cubes and says inquisitively: "Mmmh, cold water?". I just told him "Yes, sure" and walked on, not really wanting to engage in chit chat with him. I don't like that guy, even less giving him any kind of information, but I actually thought a small lie was more polite than a plain no. No need to be overly rude.
	On 2010-07-23 at 06:00:48, TheRevolutionary wrote... Do some common lies, like saying you were late because of traffic really qualify as lies? While it may be a half truth, it is a common enough excuse that no one really believes it when they hear it, but don't really care either. It doesn't literally mean "Traffic was too bad for me to arrive on time, despite leaving on time or earlier". It means "There were a lot of little things, I don't want to go into detail, lets just get to business."
	On 2010-07-23 at 07:32:13, Lee J Haywood wrote... @BorgClown: I don't understand how this is a lie - if you have ice cubes, any drink you put them in is likely to be cold (and contain at least some water, even if it isn't water)? Even the ice itself could be construed as 'cold water'.
	On 2010-07-23 at 07:32:41, Lee J Haywood wrote... @TheRevolutionary: It's an interesting viewpoint, but not one I use. Essentially you're misdirecting the other person, which is indeed very common. This is something I freely admit to doing, yet I still don't lie when doing it. If there are many reasons for being late, picking one isn't lying. Or, more generally, a half-truth is not a lie - something I struggle to explain to people clearly. If you tell a 'white lie' then it really is a lie, no matter how 'small' it may be in the mind of the person telling it. It's misinformation, and something which is just 'made up'. A half-truth contains factual information, but merely misdirects by omission. I believe that white lies are obviously worse than half-truths, although I expect others to disagree.
	On 2010-07-23 at 20:00:22, TheRevolutionary wrote... Just raising the question, not saying I entirely buy it. Everything we say has layers of meanings beneath the dictionary definitions of the strings of words we put together. There's a category of statements that are lies but everyone expects them, like "No those pants don't make your butt look big," or "Of course boss, that's a great idea sir." If you lie with full knowledge that the person you're lying to knows it's a lie, then is it still a lie?
	On 2010-07-24 at 03:04:46, BorgClown wrote... @Lee J Haywood: Now you're twisting the facts. I was going to drink an iced coke, not iced water. Saying otherwise was a comfortable little lie.
	On 2010-07-24 at 03:42:30, BorgClown wrote... @TheRevolutionary: Lies are a social lubricant. Even if people expect and suspect them, they have their place.
	On 2010-07-24 at 16:50:51, Lee J Haywood wrote... @TheRevolutionary: There's a distinction I make between lies where I guess that the other person may well know that I'm lying, and those where I'm certain of it. In the latter case, I'm okay with 'lying' because I'm not doing any harm - but in the former case I may be genuinely distorting the other person's world view if I'm mistaken and I'd argue that this is a bad thing. For example, I might say something sarcastically and so long as I'm sure that the other person has detected the sarcasm them it's (reasonably) okay to say something that is patently untrue. Your 'expected' lie of a compliment that you don't mean doesn't cut it for me - just give them a compliment that you genuinely mean, not one that gives them a false sense of self-belief.
	On 2010-07-24 at 16:53:06, Lee J Haywood wrote... @BorgClown: Yes, small lies are often used as a social lubricant but the point of my topic is to point out that people often use that excuse to tell ever bigger lies and justify them to themselves. There perhaps ought to be a cut-off between acceptable small lies and unacceptable big ones, but it's an almost impossible distinction and I simply chose to tell neither big nor small lies to the greatest extent possible.
	On 2010-08-01 at 05:39:58, BorgClown wrote... OK, basically I agree with your posture: Small and evident lies are preferably not used, but allowed; not evident lies should be avoided; big lies should be forbidden. Still, the best pranks are the big ones, but they're fun only when the fooling of the masses becomes evident. Where do we put that combo?
	On 2010-08-04 at 21:03:28, Lee J Haywood wrote... One thing I didn't mention is that the idea of doing to others as you'd have them do to you applies. In other words, I don't wish anyone to lie to me and give me false 'knowledge' so I don't lie to anyone else. I actually do expect others to return the favour, as I'd rather people be blunt than feed me misinformation. I can only expect others to be honest by setting an example myself.