Lies and Damn Lies

I'm writing this while a violent thunderstorm rages outside and while a poignant Tchaikovsky aria is being sung by a remarkable Russian basso on my XM radio.  My lovely daughter is feeling better today and feels like eating and joking.  So... I feel good too.  Ain't this a great world!

The National Geographic magazine for June 2017 is highlighting an eye-opening story with this title:  "Why We Lie."  The title page byline reads: "Honesty may be the best policy, but deception and dishonesty are part of being human."

The types of lies are highlighted:

Lying for self-aggrandizement.

Lying for fun.

Lying for personal gain.

Lying for country.

Lying to entertain.

Lying for strategic advantage.

Lying to tell stories. 

Lying for professional gain.

If you own up to telling lies... which of the categories above do your lies mainly fit into?  I like to think that at certain times my lies were made just to have fun, because of the many pranks and hoaxes I have attempted over my lifetime, for instance, here are a few:

I (almost) fooled a famous hoaxer by telling him about my famous "Concordance of X."

I did fool a skeptical analyst into believing that one of the large-scale computers at the Social Security Administration recognized him by name and conversed with him.

With the help of my great secretary, Letha, I conned a number of co-workers who happened to be 6 foot 3 or taller.

I wrote my version of the "Eliza" interactive program which appeared to carry on a reasonable conversation with  keyboard users.

And I do admit to "exaggeration for effect."  Is that "lying to tell stories?"  My problem is, as I've grown older, perhaps my memory gets mixed up.  I just took a Great Courses memory course.  I learned that when we store a memory for recall, we just store the "big stuff" and not the "run of the mill" details, otherwise, we would run out of brain space in a short period of time.

So, when we recall something, our brain feeds us the main information, and then fills in the rest of the information with common-usage stuff  that seems to fit in.  In other words, like a computer program, our brains provide us with a lot of "filler" that was not part of the original event.   I'm not good at explaining this, but trust me.... would I lie to you?


It seems that the biggest liars are teen-agers (age 13-17).

Some liars that you may have heard of:

Valerie Plame (former CIA agent..  worked undercover for over 20 years.
President Richard Nixon:  "I am not a crook."
President Bill Clinton:  "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France.
Charles Ponzi and his "scheme."
Bernie Madoff and his "scheme."
P.T. Barnum ... the first "fake news" person

I've read where the probable winner of all of the "Pants on Fire" awards in the opinion of over half of the people in the United States is President Donald J. Trump.   Why does he say such things?  Over and over.  Tweet or mouth.

As Hitler's propagandists learned, the "people" will believe any lie as long as it is big, brazen and loud.  But, history always shows how these lies were just fabrications and not worthy of contemplation by rational persons, and "big time" liars like Edie Amin and Hitler are certainly not regarded as the "nice guys" they thought that their lies would help them be.

Get a copy of the current National Geographic...  it's great! and I'm not lying to you.

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