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  • I don't remember the last time I lied.

    I do a lot of changing the subject or give obtuse answers to avoid lying. If something isn't great, I will focus on the good parts. Like if some food had a bad texture but the taste was good I will mention only the taste instead of just saying it was good or that I enjoyed it, which would be lies.

    • Do you feel that the omissions are lies?

      • Sometimes; it depends on intention - if you want the other person to reach the wrong conclusion due to your omission, then you're lying.

        However nobody knows someone else's intentions, so knowing when someone else's omission is a lie or not is impossible.

      • Not saying everything on my mind isn't lying, and leaving something out or talking about something else when the social expectation is that I would give a 'little white lie' is not lying.

        If I did something bad and avoided admitting to it that would be lying by omission. Doesn't come up as I admit it when something like that happens.

  • As a person with terrible memory I find that telling the truth requires less work than lying.

    If there's no work involved in keeping the lie then sure, I'll lie.

  • What is truth.

    Intentionally lie? - never.

    I wouldn't call anyone in an anonymous place a valid primary source. So maybe I view all of this as a lie?

    I think the very concept of truth should be questioned. Human memory is not truthful or accurate in nature. The very act of remembering has been shown to alter one's recollection.

    Science is about consensus, collaboration, and time. There are few binary truths and everything is subject to new evidence and revision based on observation.

    I view truth like all oversimplifications. It is useful in a fake idealized world, within a lie - if you will, but absolutes are a fallacy in the real world.

    • I enjoy your overthinking.

      • If a truth is given as an answer such as a favorite color or song, while lying to one's true self about one's underlying complexity, is the answer a truth or a lie?

        Green. Why? Because when I asked someone special why she said green, she had the prettiest smile when she said, "It's the color of life."

        "Green" is truthful to who I am by a concept with deep meaning; a truth to your intentions and expectations in asking the question; but a lie in saying I have any color preferences for some narrow frequency band in a spectrum.

        Did I tell the truth?

    • I don't think that truth itself is an oversimplification. 2+2=4 | {2, 4} ∈ ℤ remains true regardless of observer or their acknowledgement of that truth. This shows that at least some things are true, and available for knowledge.

      However, we humans (plus any other potentially intelligent being) do not have a complete knowledge of truth. It's impossible. And conflating "what I know from the truth" with the truth itself is what I believe to be the oversimplification. (More specifically, conflating subjective and objective matters.)

      I would not call anyone in an anonymous place a valid primary source either. However, that does not mean that all descriptive statements coming from those people (us) are lies; it's simply that I don't know if it's true or false, let alone if the person believes on it (false, but not a lie) or not (a lie).

      Regarding science, truth could be seen as a "goal" for science; consensus, collaboration and time as the means to reach that goal. (...or at least that's what positivists would say, I think. Popper would instead say that the goal is not to reach the truth, but to get rid of false claims. And Feyerabend would probably agree with you and not me.)

      • (also @Crackhappy@lemmy.world)

        The older I get, the more I think that people primarily lie to themselves, and then tell others that "truth" that they have internalized.

        Part of this is that people think in a sloppy manner, but if they were to acknowledge that (to themselves) then it would cause emotional distress. So they... don't. To clarify: I don't even say that fully as a value judgement so much as an observation of human psychology i.e. an instance of the natural world. And yes I include myself in this as well:-).

        This paradox means then that these "truth-tellers" are fully literally incapable of telling you the objective Truth, b/c they do not know it themselves - and even if they are aware that they do not know, that part they will not admit for fear of being perceived as weak. (Edit: obviously there is a spectrum here, and different people operate in different modes at different times, e.g. an actor who knows a lot about conveying emotions with their facial expressions might not know anything about physics and vice versa, but neither of them knowing anything about pediatric care, and so on - so even someone who is capable of telling the truth in their chosen area of expertise might not be capable of doing so outside of that sphere, especially if they drink their own cool-aid and allow themselves to forget where the proper demarcating line is - which seems to me to be roughly 100% of all people who ever lived... though I might not be fully capable of telling the truth there?:-P)

        Another part is the lies that get passed back and forth so often that they begin to take on a ring of truthiness - this seems to just be an extension of the above, using an external second party rather than happening solely inside of one brain. (This one I do levy a value judgement at: just b/c all your "friends" think that a vaccine does not work, does not outweigh the opinions of actual medical professionals - nor do such people even truly believe in this manner themselves, b/c whenever they get sick do they turn to their "friends" or do they suddenly cry out for help from an actual doctor? this is just hypocrisy plain & simple: "hanging out" and "playing around with", like a kid in a playground, is not the same thing as "believing" in the adult world, and when shit finally gets real these people suddenly start adulting, so why not do the adulting at all times, especially when e.g. voting on things that affect millions of other humans?)

        This second group could tell the objective Truth - b/c they suddenly do it themselves when they have a personal stake in the matter - but for whatever reason they choose not to, I guess for fear of losing friends.

        Either way, it seems unreasonable to expect the truth from someone who does not value that concept themselves - either in their own minds or in their discourse with others. The same with compassion, and patience, and every other aspect of life that can variously be either a virtue or a deficit depending on how much someone has or lacks of it.

        You cannot extract blood from a stone.

  • When I was 19 I decided that I was going to be honest about everything. I don't know why - I guess it just seemed like the "right" thing to do? I'd literally just say anything that came to mind, unfiltered. I lost several good friends and hurt my family members because of it. After that I realized that you just have to lie about some things, or at least keep silent about how you really feel.

  • I consciously try not to, but still have those stupid random moments where I realize I just pretended to have already understood or known something. It doesn't happen often, but it creeps in here and there. Why do we do that? Is it just some human insecurity thing?

  • I have self-reflected on this a few times. They "say" (I say that in quotes because it's one of those "human nature" generalizations) that the average person lies approximately a hundred times a day but doesn't notice. I was confident I don't fit the mold but took a closer look at that just to make sure. If we're talking about things that are strictly lies, none under average circumstances (on the average day, I don't even speak thirty sentences), but many people have had a thing or two to say about me and semantic liberties (could use the golden compass right about now). My lack of a strong social life (not by choice, I'm not good at formulating my end of a chat) or any wealthy, famous, or powerful position probably saves me from lying anywhere near the amount of times the average person lies.

    • I would dare say that the vast majority of the people on Lemmy are by no means "average". Not necessarily better or worse, but we do have biases: we seem to trend towards older IT professionals who will put up with all the website glitches, as compared to e.g. a normal tween that would not.

      Example "average" lie (in my own addled mind): "Gurl puh-lease, you lookin' MIGHTY fine right about now!" (translation: bish please, you look like a dumpster fire wrapped in bacon, insteada puttin on makeup and pounds, you need to be going to the GYM!:-P) Or at least this is my impression based on Twitter and YouTube, though tbf I don't really look at either of them and what posts do make their way onto Lemmy (or Reddit before the collapse) may have been... slightly skewed? :-D

  • If you count obviously untrue statements for humor purposes, quite a lot actually. If you don't, never really, though I admit to the occasional creative diplomatic truth.

  • Probably a few times a day, depending on what I'm doing.

    I work in a small office, and answer the phones. Most of the time the call needs to be transferred on. Standard operating procedure if someone can't take the call is to say they're "unavailable, can I get them to call you back?" and, if pressed, "on another call at the moment". This is usually untrue - we don't get many calls, so 99% of the time it'll either mean they're in the bathroom, having lunch or just don't want to talk to an overly needy client who keeps calling at the moment.

    I'll often also lie about my position if a client questions why I can't handle their call. It's easier to say I'm just the receptionist or something isn't my department, than explain why this either needs to be handled by someone else or would be far cleaner that way.

    Oh, and I lie about why I'm putting people on hold all the time. I'm often not bringing up your file or whatever - I did that while we were talking.

  • It is omitting a truth a lie?

    • That is context dependent on whether society considers you obligsted to tell the truth.

      When you break something and asked if you broke it, but deflect to avoid telling the truth, then omitting the truth is a lie. Changing the subject when someone asks about the terrible food they made and the social expectation is that you avoid telling the truth by saying a 'little white lie', then it isn't.

      Being silent when questioned the police isn't, becsuse of the expectation of a right to silence. Being silent when asked asked something under oath is, because of the expectation that you tell the truth under oath when asked questions. But if something isn't brought up while under oath, then it isn't because you are not supposed to volunteer things you aren't asked about.

    • No.

  • I lie a ton, but it's dependent on the audience. There are a lot of people (largely work related) I don't feel like sharing details of my life with so I omit them or simplify them to the point of inaccuracy.

    With people I actually know and like I lie very little if at all. It's mostly for convenience and ease.

  • Of course it is. It's a need to belong, to fit in, to feel a part of the group. It's written into your genes.

  • Oh man, I never thought there was another person who would never lie about anything, ever, about anything. Especially on the Internet.

    • I think you have 2 replies here that went to the wrong place - instead of to the person you likely aimed them at, they are to yourself. I just thought that you might like to know!:-)

100 comments