6 ms·

It pays to be seen as honest, not actually honest.

by Cursuviam 8y ago

dfilppi 8y ago
Bingo. This is the final optimization.
- chongli 8y ago
  It's much easier to be actually honest. When you lie you have to keep track of your lies, otherwise you might slip up and get caught. It can become a huge mental burden if you're lying all the time and juggling many different stories with different people. When you're honest, on the other hand, it's easy most of the time because you just tell people what you know to be true.
  - Avshalom 8y ago
    I mean I suppose if you're maintaining like wildly different identities. In general though it's not any different than remembering which stories and anecdotes you've already told people, besides which most people just don't really care to delve into inconsistencies in each other chalking it up to fallible memory on one or the other parties.
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    > you have to keep track of your lies, otherwise you might slip up and get caught I wish that were the case, but it isn't. There are many other strategies for avoiding the negative consequences of lying that scale better. Society is really, really bad at holding liars accountable. Just look at President Trump -- or a couple of rungs up your corporate hierarchy.
    - chongli 8y ago
      It's different for Trump. He's clearly got a personality disorder within the dark triad. He doesn't seem to care how many times he gets caught lying. I'm talking about generally honest, regular people occasionally lying for the sake of convenience or discomfort. Telling lies to get out of an invitation to visit with a relative you don't like, for example. Say your annoying uncle invites you for dinner and you tell him you're sick, then later he catches you at the driving range. Basically the sorts of things you see on Curb [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_Your_Enthusiasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_Your_Enthusiasm
- duedl0r 8y ago
  a lier has the same arguments, he also believes noone will catch him in his lies...
duedl0r 8y ago
IMO this is equally short-sighted as not being honest at all.

It pays to be seen as honest, not actually honest.

dfilppi 8y ago

Bingo. This is the final optimization.

chongli 8y ago
It's much easier to be actually honest. When you lie you have to keep track of your lies, otherwise you might slip up and get caught. It can become a huge mental burden if you're lying all the time and juggling many different stories with different people. When you're honest, on the other hand, it's easy most of the time because you just tell people what you know to be true.
- Avshalom 8y ago
  I mean I suppose if you're maintaining like wildly different identities. In general though it's not any different than remembering which stories and anecdotes you've already told people, besides which most people just don't really care to delve into inconsistencies in each other chalking it up to fallible memory on one or the other parties.
- jjoonathan 8y ago
  > you have to keep track of your lies, otherwise you might slip up and get caught I wish that were the case, but it isn't. There are many other strategies for avoiding the negative consequences of lying that scale better. Society is really, really bad at holding liars accountable. Just look at President Trump -- or a couple of rungs up your corporate hierarchy.
  - chongli 8y ago
    It's different for Trump. He's clearly got a personality disorder within the dark triad. He doesn't seem to care how many times he gets caught lying. I'm talking about generally honest, regular people occasionally lying for the sake of convenience or discomfort. Telling lies to get out of an invitation to visit with a relative you don't like, for example. Say your annoying uncle invites you for dinner and you tell him you're sick, then later he catches you at the driving range. Basically the sorts of things you see on Curb [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_Your_Enthusiasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_Your_Enthusiasm
duedl0r 8y ago
a lier has the same arguments, he also believes noone will catch him in his lies...

duedl0r 8y ago

IMO this is equally short-sighted as not being honest at all.