Lies and Free Speech

 I once told someone that honesty was always the best policy, unless you're guilty, then lie like hell!!! This was intended as a joke, but these days some seem to take it as a normal and acceptable strategy, but it isn't.

Lying is the act of speaking or promoting something that you know to be untrue. It is not the same as saying something you believe to be true, but is wrong. That is an error, that should be corrected and an apology made if discovered. But a lie is deceiving, consciously using a false hood to gain some advantage over another, and is a common tactic by many humans, because in the short term it unfortunately gets results, hence my joke having an unsettling ring of truth about it. However, in the long term it will back fire on you and make any situation worse, including your reputation. 

I agree that the truth is sometimes hard to take, but in the long run, avoiding the truth gets you into further trouble, so even a little white lie is unacceptable. A true friend will break the truth gently. “Tanks for the cake, it was so good of you to think of us and spend the time making it, but did you realise you used salt instead of sugar?” is much better than "Thanks for the cake it was lovely" after you have thrown it in the bin. If you also gave a sample and the maker was confronted with reality, you could then have a good laugh about it. A white lie may had made the situation easy for you, as you wouldn't have had to skillfully used some tact and would have avoided the risk of mental discomfort and possibly losing a friend, but lying is a form laziness and cowardice, a sign that you, and that you think your generous friend, cannot face reality. 

Except in extreme circumstances (see below) there is never an excuse for lying. It may be initially easier for you and hard if it takes time for people to adjust to the truth, but avoiding the truth will back fire on you in the long run. ie you will be getting those uneatable cakes forever and you will be wasting a lot of the makers time and money. When you are discovered lying your status in the eyes of the discover will drop dramatically and they will start to doubt what you have said in the past and what you will say in the future. People don't forget liers.

When thinking about lies, it is is important to recognise if the context concerns the long or short term. Short term lies are common, hence politicians are prone to lying to get you to vote for them on election day, unscrupulous sales men lie just to get the sale, and cheats lie in order to get a tax return passed. In these situations there is judged to be no long term so anything goes. But there is always a long term, and when lies are discovered, voters turn away, sales fall and tax men look closer. Lying can work in the short term , which is why it is common,  but totally unnecessary and a sign of a weak character that lacks honesty and integrity.

There is a lot of talk at the moment about freedom of speech especially on social media. However, as I have written before, freedom of speech is not freedom to lie. Lying undermines trust, which leads to a disfunctional society.Trust ensures that when you hear or read something you can accept it as true straightaway, and don't have to find further information to double check, or even triple check. Like corruption, lying makes the smooth running of a society much harder which makes everything more expensive, time consuming and wasteful. Unrestricted lying on social media, will lead to nobody being able to believe anything that is posted, which will devalue those social media brands permitting it as people switch to more trustworthy brands, so permitting lying will back fire on those allowing it. Would you buy a newspaper in which half of articles were true and half not? A brand is a symbol of quality, and owners of those brands will lose business and profits if the brand image is seen as low quality.  I suggest that those promoting absolute free speech, probably want to lie to you.

The exception to the never lie rule is in the extreme circumstance when faced with evil. If someone asks you where a person they intend to murder is hiding, you should lie, in order to protect the potential victim. But this is an extreme case, as few of us will ever have to face evil.

Humans prefer fantasy over reality

 Given a choice, do you watch drama or documentaries? Do you read fiction or non fiction? Would you prefer a film based on real life or one that tells a great story created in the writers imagination. Judging by viewing numbers, book sales and box office receipts, most prefer to spend time in the world of fantasy rather than reality.

Conspiracy theories are common on social media, and despite the attempts to control are impossible to stop. Posts telling us that Organisations and Governments have long running programmes to control us, Aliens have been visiting us for years, climate change is made up by scientists to get more research funds etc etc are frequent and unavoidable.  Why are these expressions of “free speech” so common and popular. Well, I think it’s because they are so much more interesting and easy to understand  than boring old reality, about which you have limited data and so little understanding. It sounds feasible and attractive that Governments are not made up of well meaning incompetent people struggling to improve  the world for the better, but cynical master planners, who in their secret elite privileged world control everything so you are enslaved to do what they want with out you even noticing. It's a fantastic story, but I don't think our leaders are that clever. And in posting this “truth“ the status of poster goes up, makes the reader feel very important (so important that the Government needs to control you) and the reader also gets a juicy story to pass on to others.

However, when it comes to making decisions, such as at elections, when we need to decide who is best to improve the reality of the world, the fact that the boring far from simple reality of the world is not promoted to anything like the same degree as the  fantasy, means many base their decisions on the fantasy and the biggest fantasist gets elected. Who will vote for someone who says "elect me, I will try something different than the last guy, but who knows if it will work?" which is what they should truthfully be saying.

“I can stop the war in 24 hours, I can solve the immigration problem, I can make every one rich, I can make your country great again, climate change is nothing to worry about, I can restore the Empire, We can create the socialist utopia” cry our fantasists and many are unthinkingly attracted.

If only it were true.

The reason for war isn’t that simple that it can be solved in a day, cutting immigration will not improve your life, everyone cannot be rich, no single person can make a country great or turn back the clock to a world that no longer exists, or make a dream of utopia a reality.

The reality that we don’t want to  face up to is that the world is harsh, boring, requires unbiased analysis and most problems cannot be solved, only managed. And keeping up with constant change is damn hard work. If you ignore reality, you might be alright for a while, but eventually, the divergence of your fantasy from the real world gets bigger and bigger, until the inevitable happens and reality comes crashing down upon you and leaves you with no other option than to accept your world view was wrong all along (or continue looking increasingly foolish)..

So my advice for a successful life is to base your decisions (as best as you are able) on reality. If you do you will have a great advantage over the fantasists. And don't listen to people who say the world is complex. It only appears complex when you do not understand or lack information that brings the understanding. If you understand a problem, the solution is obvious.

Generosity and Greed

It’s a new year and everyone looks forward to, and hopes for, a better year than the previous.

The trouble is, these days more and more think  “better“ means “better” just for themselves or their social group, and not better for everyone. The result is that the world gets worse, as people vote in their own self interest; leaders order others into battle and grab more power; court judges don’t stand up to the powerful; people chase more status. and we continue to wreck the planet with ever increasing CO2 emissions as we selfishly pursue “better“.

Greed is a word you don’t hear often these days. Calling people greedy won’t win any votes, so no politician will ever use it, but as all the religions of the world remind us, it is a common human trait, but bad for us. Humans are never content, if they have something they value, they will always want more.

 I’ve just read a book about the Bedu of the Arabian deserts before the coming of western influences like education, cars and oil revenues. They were nomadic experts of the desert and despite being poor in a monetary sense where exceedingly generous with what they did possess.. No matter who arrived in their desert camps, the visitors would always be asked for the “Good News” (ie interesting news)  and be fed with the best the host could offer,  even if that meant the host would have no food tomorrow, This unselfish generosity came from the fact that to appear mean would result in a permanent loss of reputation, and reputation was highly valued along with their camels and spiritual faith. Of course the Bedu had their faults,( they had long running blood feuds and some would murder any Christian on sight)  but the books' author, W Thesiger, saw these “poor” desert people as far nobler,  honourable and richer than any westerners. including himself.

I’ve also read that the richer people become the less generous and more greedy they are. Poor people, who have very little to share, are more generous as they know that in the near future, they are most  likely to need someone to be generous to them. On the other hand, Rich people think they don’t need other people, and so give less, help less and so communities suffer as a consequence.

Is that what’s happening today? As the world gets richer, people get more greedy and in doing so forget what made us better off in the first place? International cooperation and trade is under threat and regression to our nation tribes pointing spears at each other looks more likely. This is an intinctive approach but it not new or better. Perhaps in order to make the world a better place, ie long term peace and prosperity, we need to be more aware of greed. We should demand less and give more, even if it is the last of  what we have to give..