Lying

[Nalaar]

What about..if a lie will save someone's life?



ie say a hostage situation - "did you call someone?



Obvious answer..no.



If a lie to say ...a suicidal person could stop them from doing it?



If you need to lie to stop two people from fighting..or at least not blurt out the truth?

In a hostage situation social interaction has broken down to the point of violence, at which point lying is the least violent weapon in the box available.



I don't think lying to suicidal people is a good idea.

[Borg Refinery]

What about..if a lie will save someone's life?



ie say a hostage situation - "did you call someone?



Obvious answer..no.



If a lie to say ...a suicidal person could stop them from doing it?



If you need to lie to stop two people from fighting..or at least not blurt out the truth?

[Nalaar]

Another short extract, that I think touches on some of the topics raised in this thread, and may give some perspective on living a truthful life, and the obstacles in its way.

It can take practice to feel comfortable with this way of being in the world — to cancel plans, decline invitations, critique others' work, etc., all while being honest about what one is thinking and feeling. To do this is also to hold a mirror up to one's life — because a commitment to telling the truth requires that one pay attention to what the truth is in every moment. What sort of person are you? How judgmental, self-interested, or petty have you

become?



You might discover that some of your friendships are not really that — perhaps you habitually lie to avoid making plans, or fail to express your true opinions for fear of conflict. Whom, exactly, are you helping by living this way? You might find that certain relationships cannot be honestly maintained.

[Nalaar]

Yes, the truth was I was uncomfortable about lying and look where it got me.



Had I lied I would be in a much better place.



Which takes your philosophers rantings as declared in your OP and exposes them as the bullshit they are

I don't think anything you have said is in contradiction to Sams declaration. It may be that we are simply talking past each other, I'll leave my thoughts at that.

[Javert]

I could.



That would have made me feel most uncomfortable. To say i would not cooperate with the request, despite the fact they have been asked numerous times to desist from putting balls over my fence, would make me feel unhappy.



And that I think is the final analysis.



A lie that I could not reach the balls would have left me happy and unmaimed.

Since we are not lying on this thread, it seems to me that you yourself chose to do that, and now you have chosen to blame your neighbours for the results.  I hope you don't lose any limbs and I hope you improve and recover.



This is just my opinion, but quite a few of the posts and stories that you tell involve you aggressively hating some other person or organisation for some bad thing that's happened to you, and I do sometimes wonder if it's a similar scenario to this - where you have chosen to contravene or skirt around certain rules or laws, then blamed others when you get caught out.



Since we are all tree huggers here, my advice would be that spending your life angry with other groups or people will not make you happy, and could cause health issues in itself.



You could also have taken medical measures before you were badly infected, or you could have said you would provide the neighbour with access to do it themselves as it's a high risk activity for you due to medical conditions.

[johnofgwent]

Yes, the truth was I was uncomfortable about lying and look where it got me.



Had I lied I would be in a much better place.



Which takes your philosophers rantings as declared in your OP and exposes them as the bullshit they are

[Nalaar]

I could.



That would have made me feel most uncomfortable. To say i would not cooperate with the request, despite the fact they have been asked numerous times to desist from putting balls over my fence, would make me feel unhappy.



And that I think is the final analysis.



A lie that I could not reach the balls would have left me happy and unmaimed.

Okay, so in the end the truth was that you wanted to do it, and so you did.

[johnofgwent]

I did not misunderstand.



You could of told the truth that you could see them, *and* told the truth that you did not want to get them.



That would of had the same result as if you had lied and said you could not see them.

I could.



That would have made me feel most uncomfortable. To say i would not cooperate with the request, despite the fact they have been asked numerous times to desist from putting balls over my fence, would make me feel unhappy.



And that I think is the final analysis.



A lie that I could not reach the balls would have left me happy and unmaimed.

[DeppityDawg]

As intimated in the topics first post - lying is essentially an act of aggression.



In times of war, human relations have broken down to the point of dropping bombs and sabotaging infrastructure, at this point lying is another weapon for the military to deploy. But this does not relate to everyday life and experience.

Not all of as are as "woke" as you, clearly. Or as perfect I guess.

[Nalaar]

No  you misunderstand.

I did not misunderstand.



You could of told the truth that you could see them, *and* told the truth that you did not want to get them.



That would of had the same result as if you had lied and said you could not see them.

[johnofgwent]

What stopped you from telling your neighbour the truth that you did not want to get them?

No  you misunderstand.



My wife told him she could not see them from her side of 20 years of conifer growth because she could not be bothered.



I was out in the garden doing a bit of clearing up and  chose not to lie and chose to follow the world view of your happy clappy tree hugging philosopher T@@@.



As a result I may lose a limb or part thereof  and the aggression I now feel towards the arsehole that caused me to put myself in this condition is off the fucking scale



Had I chosen to lie, I would not have spent ten days in stressful agony.



That's why I say the claim that a lie is an aggresive act is bullshit

[Nalaar]

I absolutely reject that.



If you were to ask to borrow something of mine, and I decide I would prefer not to have to beat the crap out of you when you fail to return it, a simple lie that i do not have one / it is broken saves me all that grief and is quite obviously the very opposite of the act of aggression that will be necessary when you fail to keep up your end of the bargain.

Whats stopping you from telling the truth that you do not want to loan the 'something' out?

Another example for you...



And all because I chose not to lie

What stopped you from telling your neighbour the truth that you did not want to get them?

Lying an act of aggression ? f**k Off

Unnecessary.

[johnofgwent]

As intimated in the topics first post - lying is essentially an act of aggression.

I absolutely reject that.



If you were to ask to borrow something of mine, and I decide I would prefer not to have to beat the crap out of you when you fail to return it, a simple lie that i do not have one / it is broken saves me all that grief and is quite obviously the very opposite of the act of aggression that will be necessary when you fail to keep up your end of the bargain.



Another example for you.



I have an exceptionally annoying neighbour who encourages his kids to kick footballs at my back fence hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year. and this has gone on for at least a decade despite the need for multiple repairs. Admittedly he did set up a set of goalposts for them with a net about five years ago but when they miss it slams my fence and when they shoot too high the ball ends up trapped in our conifers.



Last month they asked if they could have their balls back. My wife said she could not get to them, but about ten days ago (last thursday week) when they asked again instead of lying that i could not reach them I forced my way into my conifers and retrieved all 18 of the balls I could get to, leaving six i could not.



In doing so, various thorns, conifer shards and other garden shite lacerated my arms and legs.



At 4:30 the next afternoon (the friday before good friday) i had a five hour long uncontrollable tetanic shivering fit and at 2:30 the next morning I was in agony with raging cellulitis. As a diabetic, this carries a pretty impressive risk of limb amputation



The penicillin tablets originally prescribed failed to get a grip and by the monday after palm sunday i was in my GP's being prescribed stronger antibiotiocs. Ideally this would be treated by inpatient admission and intravenous antibiotics but i have no wish to die of the plague and my GP has no wish ot expose me to it, so we are having to use the oral route instead.



I have spent every day since in utter agony as the infection is battled. All of the skin on my leg from the knee down has blistered and peeled off. I am now showing some signs of recovery but today, almost two weeks after choosing not to lie, i am still in severe pain.



I think this arsehole and i will be having a most aggressive confrontation, involving my chainsaw and his bloody goalposts, at 2am as soon as the infection subsides enough for me to walk round to his friont garden in which these bloody goalposts stand.



If I have to have my leg off then he is going to find out the hard way just what a nasty bastard I can be.



And all because I chose not to lie



Lying an act of aggression ? F@@@ Off

[Nalaar]

Sorry if this got done already but I presume you do not actually yourself advocate some sort of ideal world where no lies are told ? For is you do, what then of the problem we faced back in the 1940's. Would you have told the nation (and the Germans) that we had no Spitfires left in reserve and all they had to do was shoot what was in the sky down and start paddling for Dover ?? Would your invasion strategy have been keep calm and learn German ??

As intimated in the topics first post - lying is essentially an act of aggression.



In times of war, human relations have broken down to the point of dropping bombs and sabotaging infrastructure, at this point lying is another weapon for the military to deploy. But this does not relate to everyday life and experience.

[johnofgwent]

So yes, an outlier like a psychopath will not be bound to the penalties of lying. However, I do not think it is appropriate that non-psychopaths try to emulate this, as they are not psychopaths, and thus will feel the penalties.

OK, I see where you are going. Fair enough, you (and / or the author of this work) believe that people will eventually feel bad about the lies they tell. My personal experience of being in the same courtroom and some time before that in the same select committee room as a certain infamous political liar is they do not feel bad about it at all. I can see how the ordinary mortal might be mortified at public disclosure of their dissembling, but I suppose if someone is the sort of person that would care about that, then standing for parliament (as i have done, by the way) is possibly not for them.



Sorry if this got done already but I presume you do not actually yourself advocate some sort of ideal world where no lies are told ? For is you do, what then of the problem we faced back in the 1940's. Would you have told the nation (and the Germans) that we had no Spitfires left in reserve and all they had to do was shoot what was in the sky down and start paddling for Dover ?? Would your invasion strategy have been keep calm and learn German ??