This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I love the saying "Trump lies like a used car salesman, Democrats lie like lawyers". Did someone here come up with that? If not, where did it come from?
It perfectly encapsulates the current meta.
I said two months ago
I don't recall seeing it formulated close to that before saying that but I absolutely could have, I don't think of it as any kind of personal insight, I see it as trivially derived from other insights I took elsewhere (taking Trump seriously not literally, him talking like New Yorker, being directionally if not literally correct, etc...)
Something only just occurred to me about that. If it's a crime to make an agreement with a bank about the value of your property as collateral, how is it not a crime to straight up lie about the prospects of a startup?
Laws are specific. Laws about lying in the US have to be particularly specific, because the First Amendment protects some, but not all, lies.
There are laws which broadly criminalise lying to federally regulated banks. There are laws that broadly criminalise lying about publically-traded securities. These laws don't apply to private lenders or shares in closely-held companies, where the only lies which are criminal are ones which constitute common-law fraud. (Obviously lying about your startup can reach the level of common-law fruad, as Elizabeth Holmes learned the hard way).
More options
Context Copy link
Lying about “prospects” seems pretty hard to prove because they’re predictions. And founders definitely tend to be a little crazy.
So's estimating the value of an asset. Until you put the asset on the market and find out how much someone is willing to pay, you are only trying to predict what someone is going to be willing to pay for it.
There are certainly tools one can use to have a basis for estimating the value of their assets, but that is also the case for valuing a startup.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It interesting that although we all understand the intended meaning of this expression (and it is true when given the meaning that people expect), it is not an accurate description of how lawyers and used car salesmen lie.
Creating a false belief using a carefully-curated set of technically-true statements is no more effective in an adversarial environment like a courtroom or a negotiation than creating the same false belief using false statements. The normal technique of a lawyer representing a rich-but-obviously-guilty client is to flood the zone with shit. This works best in criminal trials, where if the jury can't understand the case they are supposed to acquit based on reasonable doubt, but it also works in civil trials if the other side can't keep up. Lying by omission is explicitly prohibited in litigation (this is why discovery exists) and in some but not all negotiations.
Used car salesmen working for commercial dealerships, on the other hand, are trying to outnegotiate unsophisticated parties, which is exactly where "lying like a lawyer" is helpful. Making a technically-false statement creates legal risk and isn't necessary if you are good at your job. The people who tell blatant lies when selling used cars are private sellers, who are effectively gone once the cheque clears. Real estate agents are in the same boat - they will tell blatant lies, but they would much rather mislead you in legally safer ways.
So who does lie like Donald Trump? In my experience, the main groups are cheating spouses, toddlers caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and actual conmen. Trump, of course, belongs to at least two of these groups.
Who does "lie like a lawyer?" Well the main group is politicians not called Donald Trump. Politically biased journalists do, as do tendentious academics. Basically, exactly the people who form the "establishment" Trumpism is against. In each case it is because it is a lot easier to work a sympathetic ref if you got caught making a true-but-misleading statement than if you told an outright lie. But working the refs in that way doesn't work on normies, and doesn't work on neutral or unsympathetic refs.
Unfortunately this means that the saying reduces to "Trump lies like Trump, the liberal elite lie like liberal elites." This is tautological, but to someone who has been paying attention it is even truthier than the original. It also avoids calumnising innocent lawyers and used car salesmen by associating them with politicians and journalists.
More options
Context Copy link
Do lawyers lie? They try to craft different narratives with the available facts at hand, sure, but I don’t see that as dishonest.
To me it’s somewhat more dishonest. A lawyer lies by recasting the facts so that they tell the story that best serves his purpose, even when the clearest telling of the facts points in the exact opposite direction. They often do so by leaving out crucial context and details that would lead a neutral observer in the opposite direction, thus making people believe something is true that isn’t.
We’ve all been talking about the Lebanon pager explosions. Some people here have speculated on how it was done and how it might be detected or hidden. And on the political side, I would find it fair to say that the comments on this site have a lean towards conservative and neo-reaction. Now if someone who frequents this site is prosecuted, any good lawyer would have painted this site as a reactionary and even fascist site where terrorism was discussed pretty openly. Ripped from context, as lawyers tend to do, the discussion of how Israel blew up pagers juxtaposed with a bit of juicy reactionary or HBD talk paints a picture of this place as a Proud Boy type site. Left out is the crucial context. It’s against the rules to recruit for any cause, liberals post here fairly often, and the discussion of pager batteries was talking about a news story and discussed by people who work n tech.
Lying by recasting the facts is worse to me because it can cover itself with the veneer of truthfulness. You can cite a fact, and people who check will see that the actual facts cited are true. But stripped of context, the facts tell a very different story than the events they’re used to describe. A lie, on the other hand, is easy enough to sus out. You look it up, and it’s not true at all. And so it doesn’t get deep enough into the culture to affect how we see the world. But tell a sort-of-truth, and your fact-checking will help the narrative stick because it’s not obviously wrong. It’s just not an accurate and honest telling of the facts and designed to elicit a belief that isn’t accurate.
More options
Context Copy link
Say there are two people. They both meet a guy who is 6’9” (2.05m) tall.
Person A says: “He’s the tallest person I’ve ever seen! Huge guy! At least 7’0” (2.13m) tall!”
Person B says: “He was probably above average height. I’ve seen taller. People before.”
Person A’s answer is a lie. The guy they saw wasn’t quite as tall as they said and it’s probable that they’ve watched a basketball game or a film and have seen a person who is taller than that before.
Person B’s answer is technically correct. They’ve probably seen basketball on TV, they’ve seen extremely tall people before. And the guy they saw was certainly taller than average.
But Person B’s answer is basically dishonest. The guy they saw was indeed extremely tall! They failed to convey that, all while being technically correct.
And Person A’s answer, while a lie, managed to be more accurate and honest assessment of the subject at hand. It was a much better answer if you wanted to know something about the subject.
Given a choice between them, I’d much rather deal with a person A, a liar who is directionally correct, than person B, a person that maybe rarely lies but also rarely conveys any useful information.
Person B’s answer is worse than useless; if taken seriously you would probably come to a conclusion further from the truth than Person A’s answer.
This is a rather simple and direct example but there’s ample situations like this on the real world. There really are a lot of Person B’s in the world, and once you see them you start seeing them everywhere.
Huh, that’s a good point. Thanks, you’ve changed my perspective on this.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, this is a good way to put it. It's in some ways even worse than that; If a person C turns up, who states that the tall guy looks REALLY tall & wants to measure him, person B has the tendency to first try to stop him, and if successful, to complain that person C makes claims "without evidence".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, lawyers lie. If you knowingly deceive your audience, you are a liar. That counts even if your words can be artfully construed to not be false.
We even created a whole new religion to deal with this hypocrisy. In the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were obsessed with following the letter of the law while neglecting its spirit. We invented the social technology to solve this problem 2000 years ago, but some people still don't get it.
The democrats also just straight up lie a lot. When Harris kept saying “Trump’s Project 2025” that isn’t “technically true but misleading.” That was straight up lying.
I’m not sure it is really fair to say Trump is unique in lying. Where he is probably unique is that when he doesn’t need to lie he exaggerates.
Yeah, they straight-up lie quite a lot actually. Worse, they repeat the same lie so many times that people start to take it for granted as baseline reality, like the “fine people” line. In the debate itself Harris only implied that Trump called neo-nazis fine people by mentioning them right before saying trump said “fine people”, which is not a lie by the barest technicality, but the message rests on ad-nauseam repetition of an actual lie.
More options
Context Copy link
My favorite was the “no US soldiers in an active war-zone” lie. Just a few weeks ago some US Soldier got shot by ISIS.
There was a viral video uploaded basically the same day of the debate that ended up getting millions of views of the debate on TV when she said that, and it pans out to like seven soldiers in a forward operating base being like “Wait… then where the fuck are we right now?”
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Can't you just say that Trump lies, the democrats deceive, if that's what you mean?
Would fit well with general rightwing memeplex of casting the democrats as the great deceiver(s). It would also be an opportunity to own the fact that Trump lies. Truth or lies isn't the primary issue, it's deception that's the issue (in politics, in news, in science, etc).
The position that you can be a habitual liar without deceiving seems like a difficult needle to thread!
There is a case to be made that few if any people treat anything Trump says as being on simulacrum level 1. This may be the typical mind fallacy, but if Trump makes noises which sound like a factual statement of the world (i.e. level 1, 'Haitians are eating our pets'), I just don't parse it that way. Likely it is not even level 2 ('I want you to believe that they are eating pets (irrespective if it is true) so that you will vote for me') because that would assume that a significant fraction of listeners will mistake it for a level 1 statement. It is either level 3 ('I am anti-immigrant. Nobody is as anti-immigrant as me!') or level 4 ('I make sounds which I think will help me get elected').
If I am running through the streets saying "The sky is green, plants are orange, Elvis is alive, I am Elvis, 4 is prime, ...", then I an telling a lot of lies, but I will not deceive anyone, because most people will conclude 'based on past statements, that person is so unreliable a source of information that I should not update on their claims'.
More options
Context Copy link
It all comes down to the expectations of both parties.
If there's a street promoter outside of a club trying to convince me to pay a cover fee and go inside he might tell me things like it's the best club, that they have the biggest crowd inside of any bar in the city, everyone's having a great time, probably ever. Yuge night! Maybe they even say that they've heard rumors that there's a movie star who was planning on coming tonight. If I go inside and find it to be not all that, was I decieved? I wouldn't say so, because I was talking to a club promoter; I know what they're like, they know I know what they're like, the expectation was that they would exaggerate everything to try to get me to go inside.
There is a distinction though if they say something like "after you pay the cover fee your first two drinks are free" and it turns out not to be true. Because I don't expect them to be allowed by the bar (to say nothing of the law) to say something like that if it isn't true.
Also, I would consider myself decieved if I (before marriage of course) got in touch with a girl on a dating app and she insisted on meeting me at a club, and I found out after getting there that she was a promoter using the app to bring in clients to the club, even if she never said anything technically untrue. This is the kind of lying I associate in politics with the activists that masquerade as unbiased subject experts.
God. I hate that. I can't function in the presence of promoters like that. I think it's fairly obvious that many people can't. If the advertiser is succeeding at getting people to go inside who otherwise wouldn't, and those people end up disappointed, then he's committing attention fraud against those people. Maybe that's fine and marginal for most people. But williams syndrome-adj ADHDs like moi don't have the spoons or filters to cope with this.
We've taken to pointing at the screen and yelling "Consume product!" every time an advertisement comes on TV in my household to counteract the damage it does to our brains. It's awful. The other scenario is no better to be clear. I have to distance myself from both of those things to function.
I'm the same as you and on dealing with bullshitting estate agents simply have to leave their presence and essentially dismiss them completely from my life.
I notice that I am also allergic to lying club-promoter type politicians and much prefer to be around lawyerly narrative constructors, which makes sense of my political preferences I guess.
More options
Context Copy link
I know this isn’t the main point of your comment, but I’d like to make a practical suggestion. If you find ads that damaging, just mute the TV during commercial breaks. I always do it on the few occasions I watch TV, and I merely find the ads obnoxious, not damaging to my ability to function.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You don't have to do that. You can say that truth isn't a good safeguard against deception, with the biggest deceivers being the ones telling you the "truth".
Lying isn't good but at the end of the day deception is worse. Its kind of like how betrayal is worse than opposition. You don't even have to play defense at all.
Your average democrat might lie less often than Donald Trump but they are much, much more dishonest in my opinion. It’s not even close.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I suppose you can claim that technically it's not a lie (knowingly putting forward a false statement), but the whole rub is that a lot of people (myself included) see "crafting narratives" as dishonest.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The best part about it is that everybody here seems to agree with it, and we're just fighting over which type of lying is better/worse.
Yes, and it also gets at a preference that is more primal than political. Would you prefer to hang out with a lawyer who selects their words carefully or a sales guy who's always bullshitting?
Seems closely related to the old finding from the okcupid blog (here's gwern quoting it, can't find archives of the original right now) that the question "Do you prefer the people in your life to be simple or complex?" is a good predictor of liberal vs. conservative US politics, with "simple" being the conservative answer.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link