

The truth about lying: who does it, and why - bootload
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/08/truth-about-lying

======
dkarl
I lie all the time to people who do their best to stop me from telling the
truth. When people relentlessly and shamelessly manipulate situations to deter
me from telling them something, and I can afford to wait, I'll wait for an
opening. It's like dealing with a military adversary who interprets truth as
aggression. You don't strike when they're posturing right off your coast. You
wait until their navy is in port and their planes are on the ground, and you
hope they won't go to the trouble of punishing you, or that they calm down
before they manage to muster a retaliatory strike. I don't feel guilty about
lying under such circumstances. They're demanding to be lied to, and I'm
telling them the truth against their will. Whether I'm doing them a favor by
ultimately telling the truth or just telling the truth for my own selfish
reasons, I figure they share responsibility for the lies I tell in the
meantime.

------
christofd
Hmm... the real circumstances of social experiments are tough to evaluate. I'd
have to be there to believe it.

I'm skeptical... people might just have thought: hey cool, a social
experiment, let's play with the situation and enjoy myself. In real life
telling somebody, that might know your friends or classmates, you play in a
popular band will not do good for your reputation. I don't think people
outright lie... they omit, expand, exaggerate, twist, etc., but not outright
lie.

There's probably a socially accepted ratio of how much you're allowed to bend
it, with 1.0 being totally honest and 0.0 outright lying. I'd say you can get
away with 0.5 often (try at your own risk). Bell curve?

