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lies.

Started by billy rubin, January 26, 2021, 11:15:37 PM

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xSilverPhinx

It is said people lie on average 3 to 5 times an hour.  :shifty:  That probably isn't entirely true, but I am sceptical when someone tells me they don't lie, ever. I don't think it's psychologically possible. 

Maybe not intentionally but as the great Dr. House once said, "everybody lies".
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Davin on January 27, 2021, 01:49:39 PM
So I walk into a store and a worker says, "hi, how are you doing today?"

I lie and say, "just fine."

I do not think they are subordinate to me, I do not think they don't deserve the truth. But I do think that taking the time to explain the truth about how I'm doing is worse than saying two words so we can both go about our day. I don't see how anyone is harmed in this common scenario, but I do see how all parties involved benefit from my lie.

With every action, it's not necessarily the action itself that is harmful, it is what happens from it. Punching in the air is fine, punching a sparing partner is good, but punching a random person on the street is bad. Context matters far more than the action.

I have a co-worker who works in a different department who lies all the time to make him not look like the terrible applications developer he is, and I often get hurt by the results and have to do far more work defending my work than is reasonable. His lies on this matter harms others in order to help himself. Context is what makes the difference when determining if something is harmful or not. Even lies.

You've articulated it better than I have. I agree with :this:
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


xSilverPhinx

Quote from: billy rubin on January 27, 2021, 01:38:50 AM
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on January 27, 2021, 12:34:10 AM

If you don't mind me asking, what were the two lies you told? Did they shape your belief that all lies dehumanise their victims or did you already hold that conviction?

i lied to IBM about an employee who was dying of cancer and couldn't afford to buy both the antidote to the chemo and food at the same time. even though he could no longer work, i signed his time sheet every week so he could get paid. eventually i went to the IBM contact and explained what i was doing. he told me, keep the man on the payroll whether he works or not.

the second time i was workign wellhead on a frac job. we were lubricating a well head valve and in a moment of confusion i pulled the wrong valve and  cut the wire holding up the guns down hole, it cost the usual three million dollars or so to go in and grind the guns up to clear the hole.

at first i didn't want to admit that it had been me that had cut the wireline, and to be honest, i wasn;'t sure it had been me in the dark and the confusion. but after a few days of going over it, i decided that it had to be me who had done it, and so i went to my supervisors and took responsibility. i was firesd, but other people who were in line to be blamed were able to keep their jobs. over time, i have decided for sure that it was me that cut the wireline.

i my opinion, there is no lie that is excuseable. all lies require that you make a decision that someone else does not deserve to know the truth-- that they are somehow subordinate to the liar. to lie to someone, especially the traditional  white lie, is to relegate them to an inferior position, subordinate to  one which the liar reserves to himeself alone. the only other lies are the ones where someone lies to take advantage of someone else. but those generally do not engender controversey.

there is an extremely difficult special case to all of this, which is the situation of the jew in the closet. my views of how to manage this dilemma have changed over time, and i'm frankly not sure how i look at it now.

"leaving the truth unsaid" is different from lying, unless the intention is to convey a false impression of the truth. there are lots of things that i simply don't tell people, because i don't regard telling the truth and answering all questions to be the same thing. but if silence misrepresents somethjing i know to be true, i cnsider myself obligated to speak up and correct the misapprehension.

the mantra i use is

do not lie.

do not misrepresent.

do not decieve by silence.

Ok, thanks for satiating my curiosity.  ;D

In both of those cases when you lied, there were victims. That makes it easier to see those lies as 'wrong'. 
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Davin

Quote from: billy rubin on January 28, 2021, 09:29:15 PMi don't lie, but i pick my battles when i live in a world that values deceit over honesty, appeasement over confrontation, and social facilitation over integrity. in that respect, i agree with your author that i save my honesty for those people who appreciate truth.
This seems to be a few bridges too far. I don't think that society as a whole (or even a significant part), values deceit over honesty. Or social facility over integrity. One could see how this looks like an attempt to insult and shame people into agreeing with you. But it's clearly a misrepresentation of society as a whole and tries to boil complex social interactions down into faulty dichotomies.

Quote from: billy rubin
but unlike the author, i haven't concluded that lie are necessary to live.  i don't sugarcoat truth, and i don't look for easy ways out of situations where the truth is dificult. sometimes i choose not to participate in a conversation where the truth is awkward and i have no dog in the fight. but if i am asked for my view oe decide to give it, then that is what they get. this causes me problems with some people, but they are problems that i am perfectly willing to have.
I do sugarcoat truth at times, depending on the context of the situation it helps more than harms, even in the long term. I do take easy ways out of many situations, it's often bad to waste the time and energy of all parties involved when there's an easy and harmless way to avoid it.

I don't have problems with people being brutally honest with me, but that is not why I would choose to lie or choose to tell the brutal truth (or any variation in between), the choice to lie most often does not benefit myself. In a lot of situations, with a lot of people, being brutally honest does nothing to help anyone but myself and my own feelings of wanting to express the truth. I don't think this is much different for other people who decide on a lie instead of brutal honesty, it's often about choosing a path that does the least amount of harm and/or the most amount of good. Even if that ends up not being the result.

And when someone asks for my brutally honest opinion on something, I tend to almost always hold back. Because I'm a human and my reasoning is prone to flaw and my perspective can easily be biased by what I can see vs. what reality is. So I always err on the side of least harm and let them know why I'm leaning towards a certain conclusion. I don't tell them what I'm really thinking, because in my experience, no one benefits from it, it takes a long time, and no one likes it. So I pick and choose what I think will be the most use to them. And I don't think I'm in the minority here.

Quote from: billy rubin
in my opinion, truth is a necessary f5oundation of every worthwhile human experience and human relationship.
I don't think it's the foundation, but if you want a good relationship, honesty is important. Though that doesn't sway me at all from my stance that telling harmless lies is usually OK to your side of never lying.

Quote from: billy rubin
if you don't treat yourself or someone else with honesty, you do noot have a real life or a real relationship with other people. to the extent that that is important, one must make decisions. in my own case, i pick and choose who i want to have a relationship with, and some people don't qualify. but i don't lie to those folks.i just ignore them, as someone with with whom a meaningful relationship isn't possible. and i don't lie to myself.

maybe this is a cold view, but its the only valid way i see to live
Oh, another attempt to shame people that disagree with you. Even with that though, given what you said, you must agree that I can have an honest "real" relationship with my GF, family, and friends, which I do, and still tell harmless lies to other people. Which is effectively the same thing you're doing, except I don't ignore people. I suppose that will be the difference between us, not whether you or I has real relationships or not, nor that I value deceit over honesty or social facilitation over integrity, but that I think few small, harmless lies to navigate through strangers makes things work better for everyone involved and you think it's better to ignore people than to tell them white lies.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

xSilverPhinx

A quick question, billy rubin: how do you think society as a whole would benefit if everybody only told the truth
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


No one

Of course, life would be a dream. Gumdrops and rainbows.

billy rubin

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on January 29, 2021, 03:38:16 PM
/quote]

Ok, thanks for satiating my curiosity.  ;D

In both of those cases when you lied, there were victims. That makes it easier to see those lies as 'wrong'.

well, see, in my opinion the liars themselves are victims, because they are sacrificing their integrity.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

billy rubin

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on January 29, 2021, 03:44:57 PM
A quick question, billy rubin: how do you think society as a whole would benefit if everybody only told the truth?

excellent queztion.

i think it would benefit in the same way az if any other harm were excised-- murder, war, theft, abuse of any general nature.

the roman catholics tell me that war can be just, even though innocents are always killed. so i think the world would be better off without it.

i dont see any advantages of lying that outweigh the harm done by the betrayal.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

billy rubin

Quote from: No one on January 29, 2021, 04:30:54 PM
Of course, life would be a dream. Gumdrops and rainbows.

i think a lot of people would find that actually being what they claimed to be was quite difficult.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

No one

Would they prefer sugar and spice and everything nice?

Davin

Quote from: billy rubin on January 29, 2021, 07:11:48 PM
i dont see any advantages of lying that outweigh the harm done by the betrayal.
Given my walking into a store example, what harm is caused? It's not even a betrayal.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

billy rubin

Quote from: No one on January 29, 2021, 08:17:01 PM
Would they prefer sugar and spice and everything nice?

beats me. i cant help how other people see life. i can only speak for yself.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Bad Penny II

A desire for simplicity is understandable.
Lying bad: don't lie.

That's easy, reality isn't.
There are legal principles, "don't kill" easy, simple.
Then there are all the necessary qualifications

Spare us the tyranny of the simplistic.

Take my advice, don't listen to me.

billy rubin

there's a difference between simple and simplistic.

for people who believe in right and wrong, it is simple to distinghuish between them. what is not easy is deciding which of several wrong choices is the choice one prefers.

if one takes the position that a nominally wrong choice is actually the right choice, then one's definanition of right and wrong needs some work.

if that's simplistic, i'll take the hit.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

LifeisSweet

I have never told a lie.

(Except for that one)
"When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not." Epicurus