Re: why bad arguments survive

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:55:09 -0500, Damaeus wrote:

Reading from news:talk.origins,
Shane <remarcsd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:03:18 -0500, Damaeus wrote:

Reading from news:talk.origins,
"J.J. O'Shea" <try.not.to@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:42:54 -0400, Damaeus wrote
(in article <id57u4pf56jnn3h506gnf1fvj1cg4d98s9@xxxxxxx>):

No wonder I have such a hard time being honest.

You're in the 90%, alright.

Do you lie?

How does my claim to be truthful put me into the pack of 90% of the people
who you think are liars?

That you could be lying about being truthful is one explanation for his
doing so.

Yeah, I read a little about liars on the internet after participating in
this part of the thread. I found that people who think others are liars
are usually liars, themselves.

How did you read their thoughts? or did you mean most people that accuse
other people of being liars are liars themselves? And how did you
establish the truthfulness or otherwise of the people involved?

It's interesting. I've taken some of those personality tests during
employment application processes, and I've been told by someone who knows
how the tests are graded how I should answer the questions. Specifically
this one:

Most people steal.

A. True
B. False

My inclination is to answer false. But my friend told me I should answer
"yes" because the test graders believe that if you think other people
steal, then you're going to be more likely to report people who steal from
the company. But I have never thought that most people were thieves.

So what did you answer? Perhaps your friend was testing your to see if
you would accept a lie and act accordingly.

I
had never seen anyone steal anything except when I was 16 and working at
Safeway. I saw a young woman put a bottle of pills in her coat just as I
walked around the corner, but I was in my street clothes. I was shocked!
I had never seen anyone steal anything before. I wondered how she coudl
do such a thing, but even at that age, I knew about money. I assumed she
might not have had the money and needed it for her kids, so I didn't
report her. I just let her go.

I suppose in one way, that is a lie. But I want her sick kids to not be
sick. If I had turned her in, I would have been lying about wanting her
kids to be well. Then I would have had to stand before her and be the
prick supporting an unfair system of earning money that prevented her from
making enough to meet her needs and the needs of her kids.

That's quite a leap there, even for a 16 year old to go from a possible
justification for the theft, to twisting it the way you have.

Very few liars go about admitting they are such, and most, in my
experience, suggest they are telling the truth even when they obviously
are not.

Not much about someone's personal life can be obvious through a computer
screen full of text. Sure, inferences are made from my posts and I've
described some instances of what some would call hallucinations, but I've
done this with the multipoint perspective of psychiatry (knowledge of
hallucinations being the result of brain misfirings), spirituality
(understanding that God his miracle power, and we are supposed to get it
one day, too), and being aware of the delicacies of trying to describe
these topics in a way that at least makes sense in English.

At times I have intentionally written ambiguously, not to deceive or trick
anyone, but because my ideas are so sound within my own mind, that if I
can get someone to respond to an ambiguous post, I can more easily find
connections to build bridges into other peoples' minds instead of feeling
totally shut out.


Ambiguity leads to misunderstanding. An old Army maxim comes to mind:
*If an order can be misunderstood, it has been misunderstood.* Clarity
is always to be preferred in a forum which relies only on the written
word for communication.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: why bad arguments survive
    ... How does my claim to be truthful put me into the pack of 90% of the people ... who you think are liars? ... that is a lie. ... But I want her sick kids to not be ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: why bad arguments survive
    ... someone who thinks half the people in the world are liars. ... Do you lie? ... How does my claim to be truthful put me into the pack of 90% of the people ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: {OT} Obama and Acorn
    ... Of course he will keep on repeating the same lie, ... They hate America, and don't belong here. ... SMS had the balls to call you, me, Scott and the rest pathological LIARS ...
    (alt.autos.toyota)
  • Re: {OT} Obama and Acorn
    ... Of course he will keep on repeating the same lie, ... They hate America, and don't belong here. ... SMS had the balls to call you, me, Scott and the rest pathological LIARS ...
    (alt.autos.toyota)
  • Re: why bad arguments survive
    ... who you think are liars? ... But my friend told me I should answer ... But I want her sick kids to not be ... Ambiguity leads to misunderstanding. ...
    (talk.origins)
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