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Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

scientificamerican.com

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#21
This seems like a junk experiment. They asked people to perform a task that would be easier if you had some information. Then they started showing them videos. The subjects stopped watching when they had enough inspiration for their story. That's it.

It's as if the authors of the study think the subjects have ESP and know that evidence contrary to their goal is coming up, and therefore decide to stop watching.

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#22
Bernard L. Madoff

From Wikipeda

"In his plea allocution, Madoff stated he began his Ponzi scheme in 1991. He admitted he had never made any legitimate investments with his clients' money during this time. Instead, he said, he simply deposited the money into his personal business account at Chase Manhattan Bank. When his customers asked for withdrawals, he paid them out of the Chase account — a classic "robbing Peter to pay Paul" scenario. Chase and its successor, JPMorgan Chase, may have earned as much as $483 million from his bank account.[107][108] He was committed to satisfying his clients' expectations of high returns, despite an economic recession. He admitted to false trading activities masked by foreign transfers and false SEC filings. He stated that he always intended to resume legitimate trading activity, but it proved "difficult, and ultimately impossible" to reconcile his client accounts. In the end, Madoff said, he realized that his scam would eventually be exposed.[75][109]

let me emphasize from above:

"He stated that he always intended to resume legitimate trading activity, but it proved "difficult, and ultimately impossible" to reconcile his client accounts"

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#23
Telling the truth can be costly. Overwhelmingly we massage the facts to get the point across without causing too much damage. Textbook simplify a complicated facts for students, that is not lying. Commercials aren't lying because they aren't saying anything with a basis in fact.

While the majority of statements are neither true nor false, maybe we can quantify if a statement is closer to one or the other.

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#24
The one I can totally understand is

Contending that his statement that "there's nothing going on between us" had been truthful because he had no ongoing relationship with Lewinsky at the time he was questioned, Clinton said, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

Words matter in a useless way for my math mind.

Especially the words "maybe" or "might have" - both are correct in almost any instance, question or situation.

So clinton's "is" is his way to lie but not lie. Maybe.

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#25
post #2

Sure. How else one could get married?

As someone who is married, I truly do not understand your comment. The exact opposite seems true to me. Honesty and integrity are paramount (at least to me). Find somebody you respect. Find somebody who is compatible with you. Hope you find someone who thinks and feels the same as you do. If I struggled on my journey, it was to find a woman who did not want to dominate me or be dominated who was worthy of my respect.…

Congrats you hit the jackpot. Many people are not so lucky, well at least half or more* (depending on the percentage of marriages are actually happy).

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is married, I truly do not understand your comment. The exact opposite seems true to me. Honesty and integrity are paramount (at least to me). Find somebody you respect. Find somebody who is compatible with you. Hope you find someone who thinks and feels the same as you do. If I struggled on my journey, it was to find a woman who did not want to dominate me or be dominated who was worthy of my respect.…

Congrats you hit the jackpot. Many people are not so lucky, well at least half or more* (depending on the percentage of marriages are actually happy).

If you are college educated divorce rates plummets. Same for marrying later in life. +the 50% stat is quite weighted by people with multiple divorces. The average HN reader probably has an 80% shot at lifelong marriage.

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#28
post #19
post #3

I always knew that lying to oneself is a good planned strategy for lying. But never thought that our natural tendency to deceive ourselves might have the ultimate purpose of helping us deceive others. This is why I love hacker news. I get a different perspective every day that (whether it's right or wrong) forces me to re-consider my mental models of the world.

> This is why I love hacker news. I get a different perspective every day that (whether it's right or wrong) forces me to re-consider my mental models of the world. I almost believed you there. Don't lie to yourself, we like Hacker News for its entertainment value. :P

I'm just here for the pictures.

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#29
post #18

There was an NPR story about how our current president listened to a lot "Power of Positive Thinking" lectures/sermons early in his life. He really embraced those ideas. Seems he's almost always trying to convince the world that a certain narrative about himself, the voters, and reality in general is true. But this research adds an interesting wrinkle to that story. By making so many questionable statements publicly,…

I also find anecdotally that people like that only surround themselves with people who repeat (or at least don't challenge) the lie. If you throw in some reality that is at odds with their belief then you don't get a seat at the table any more.

Have you ever read discussions on HN about climate change?

Re: Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others

#30
post #28
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why I love hacker news. I get a different perspective every day that (whether it's right or wrong) forces me to re-consider my mental models of the world. I almost believed you there. Don't lie to yourself, we like Hacker News for its entertainment value. :P

I'm just here for the pictures.

There are pictures? I think I've been using this wrong
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