Sorry. I wasn’t asking whether we lie or not. Or even whether it eases some social situations. I was asking for a theory of why lying greases social situations. Why is the NET effect of small lies positive? I can think of some reasons. Like chimpanzees, we live in a fision-fusion situation. The size of the lie that one can “honestly” tell probably depends in many cases on the frequency with which one sees the person one is lying to. And then there is the distinction between speech as stroking and speech as conveying of information. I get that wrong, a lot.
I am having a hard time thinking how this is related to my original question about whether there should be a law against using public data to track individual behavior. I know that I opened up the subthread about shame and guilt, so I stipulate that it is my fault that we are talking about it. And I actually think it is related. I just can’t state the relation. I am thinking we might be moving toward a belief that truth is like arousal … life goes best when one has a moderate level of it. There was a wonderful study done some years ago about he relation between truth and the best marriages. Married folk were asked to play The Dating Game together …. i.e., guess what spouses answers to personal questions would be, preferences, what have you. Three categories of respondents were identified: spouse pairs that had an unrealistical enhanced view of one another, spouse pairs that had an unrealistically jaundiced view of one another, and spouse pairs that had a realistic view of one another. As you might expect, the first group maintained the most enduring marriages.
But this just brings me back to the need for a theory of why a society is better is there is just a bit less truth in it. A pragmatic notion, but not, I fear, a Pragmatic one.
Nick
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Parks, Raymond
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 11:19 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: Privacy vs Open Public Data
I prefer embarrassed to shamed - perhaps there's a spectrum from proud to embarrassed to shamed to guilty.
Perhaps white lies do not grease your part of the wheels of society - but I'm reasonably sure, based on my experience, that they are in use in many societies including ours. There's the blatant pretense of privacy that Marcus mentioned exists in Japan. There's the "white" lies mentioned in books of etiquette. There's the common jokes about answering one's SO's question of whether they look good (in particular clothing or after getting their hair styled or ….). These are all proof that we lie frequently in order to grease the wheels of society.
Ray Parks
Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager
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On Jan 16, 2013, at 3:01 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Raymond,
I guess I am a behaviorist about shame. If my behavior makes me blush than it was shameful. Guilt, on the other hand is something the law determines. Just my way of talking, I guess.
But why do petty lies grease the wheels of society. What lies behind that confident assertion?
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