Woohoo!
Sam Harris!
Woohoo! Sam Harris!
Hey everybody, you're here to improve your
life, tactically and philosophically, through
books with us and this week's book is:
Lying by Sam Harris.
Everyone's favorite modern philosopher wrote
this book to uphold one of our most popular
maxims, in all cases, honesty is the best
policy.
We're gonna see,
How honesty is not just good for society,
but good for us as individuals
The deeper implications of lying and honesty
on culture
And why you should tell her she Does look
bad in that dress.
So, what are three things we can use from
this book?
To lie is to intentionally mislead others
when they expect honest communication.
People lie because they want others to form
beliefs that are not true.
I might tell you that I didn't eat the last
cookie or Maddi might tell you that she is
a world-renowned physicist.
We say these things to gain some perceived
advantage or to avoid some potential disadvantage.
But Sam posits that lies inevitably always
make us worse off, and that without lies we
may have much better and at the least much
less embarrassing lives.
The obvious reason, that we hear often enough,
is that the more we lie, the more we have
to keep up with, the more we have to maintain
our more and more complicated fantasy world
for everyone else and that this fantasy world
takes a lot of mental bandwidth and eventually
crumbles due to our own limitations or to
the scrutiny of those we're trying to lie
to.
So you might say that honesty is the best
policy because it protects those around us,
because they will get, according to our perceptions,
the most factual information.
That is to say, honesty is good because we
can't create chaos in the world by having
everyone wondering and questioning who took
the cookie, when you lie that it wasn't you.
Total honesty sounds good for society because
it makes the bad guy tell us that he is bad.
But that means that the individual bad guy
is worse off then, right?
Because people now won't let him get away
with taking their cookies anymore.
He's down on dishonest cookies.
But it's also good for the bad guy because
if the bad guy is honest with himself, and
knows he will be honest with others, he will
have no choice but to improve for the sake
of his health, socially and personally.
To stop stealing cookies.
So being honest with yourself and others leads
to less chaos externally and more growth personally,
and thus, a win-win for yourself and humanity.
"Yes," says the bus driver, answering Sam's
question as he gets on the bus.
Sam nods and makes his way to an empty seat.
After two hours of what was supposed to be
a one hour trip, he begins to question the
response of the bus driver and asks other
passengers on the bus.
"Is this bus headed to Haldwani?"
"Yes," they all say and Sam Harris is assured
anew.
But by the third hour, Sam realizes he is
on the wrong bus and is now multiple hours
from his destination.
He learned later that it was considered rude
in this part of India to contradict another
person's stated beliefs.
The people on the bus didn't want to offend
him by telling him he was on the wrong bus.
In this part of India, in Japan and in many
other places, there are some cultural norms
that condone dishonesty or atleast don't expect
the truth in all situations.
But, as Sam notes, quote, "The way a culture
treats questions of honesty and dishonesty
will largely determine the psychological distance
between self and other as well as friend and
stranger," end quote.
Which is to say that without open honesty
there will always be a barrier between you
and whoever you are being false with, which
limits how close you can get with friends,
colleagues, or with the rest of the society,
not to mention the mass-propagation of false
information and expectations implicit in these
anti-candor set-ups.
If everyone is lying, people A) obviously
can't trust each other in these lie-prone
domains and B)
develop false expectations of how they are
supposed to feel or think about certain things
when everyone around them is lying about how
they feel or think about these things.
And, speaking of culture, think of how damaging
it is when you know your government or your
favorite companies to have lied.
Just as in relationships, you destroy the
trust of your citizens and your customers,
forever affecting those relationships for
the worse and applying to yourself a veneer
of disgust.
And so, we all tell lies, playing our games
of advantage that we learn from everyone around
us - the government, the culture and our social
groups, sparing us from a life of relative
ease, trust, health and a more knowledgeable
population.
But, if you are the kind of weirdo that wants
a healthier, easier and more respectable life,
and honest behavior is possible in your culture,
then honesty is the initially bumpy but inevitably
smooth path to this lifestyle.
"Honey, does this dress make me look fat?"
"It sure does."
White lies are not any better of lies.
They are not in all cases morally superior
to the other forms of lying.
Sometimes, they are the most damning.
Your friend asks you to look at their screenplay.
Its pretty bad.
If you wave them onward, trying to protect
their feelings and telling them it is good,
what you are really doing is sealing their
fate of annihilation -- or atleast embarrassment,
when they go to show it to someone who has
an actual vested interest.
"No honey, you don't look fat," as an answer,
when she does look fat, makes your partner
believe that she is looking good, ready to
meet with her friends or colleagues or speak
at the event, when really she is creating
a less-than perception of herself to the people
in her group.
Obviously you don't answer with, "sorry, did
you just moo at me?"
You have to be tactful and respectful, but
if you give an honest answer, "maybe you should
wear that other dress I like," it is enough
to leave an impression that will not only
improve her night but may influence her to
take better care of herself moving forward.
We're not good friends if we smile and wave
them onward.
We are declining to help them, denying them
useful information and setting them up for
future disappointment.
You might say for the screenplay, "I like
the storyline but the characters and their
interactions could be improved."
If the criticism is valid, it is what they
need, what we all need to help us find our
way in the world.
Not to mention that lying, even on small scales,
damages relationships and trust.
And when your friend gets denied a contract
for their screenplay they might remember that
you thought it was good, giving them the impression
that you have bad judgement.
Though on the other hand, if you criticised,
and they improve, they can trust that when
you say, "yes this is great," you really mean
it.
So... to recap!
Lying is inevitably disadvantageous and absolute
honesty is long-term good for you and everyone
around you
Cultural norms of dishonesty can hold an entire
population back, interpersonally, psychologically
and informationally, from whole swaths of
an arena down to individuals themselves.
And white lies are lies.
Anti-helpful to you or anyone else.
This was a short, little book.
And it included Sam's iconic style of mind-warping
hypotheticals and a polished vernacular, that
shines even in pitch black.
Honesty is a principle that obviously would
be a positive if everyone adopted it at once,
but having lying be so universal, makes total
honesty harder to enact.
And there are situations where, due to our
own incompetence, honesty would seem to be
only be to our detriment.
"Yes officer, I do have drugs in my bag,"
might be one example of foresight being much
more useful to us than honesty.
But who knows, being honest there might end
you up with a lighter sentence than if the
officer searched for and found the drugs himself.
It's complicated, but it seems to be that
if you want to strive for a less embarrassment-laden,
easier, better relationship filled and a more
confident lifestyle, then honesty with a little
tact and common sense can be your sustenance
in this starving world.
This, for me, was a hard one to write.
There are lots of complicated, abstract, layered
concepts to a life of total honesty, the topic
of this book, that were hard to translate
into my own words.
So...
I would like to say that this post was delayed
because of some good excuse, like my dog ate
the script, but it was a week late due to
a lot of procrastination because I was a little
nervous about how hard of a script it would
be to write.
So, sorry about that, I really do hate missing
weeks, so I hope it ended up being good enough
to be worth it.
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Thanks for watching with us and--
we'll see you next week!
Bye!
