Atton Rand & miscellaneous names (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
suitably_heroic) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2014-11-12 09:56 am
suitably_heroic) wrote in fandomhigh2014-11-12 09:56 am
Entry tags:
How To Get By In A Hostile World, Wednesday
"We've been talking about lying a lot," Atton said, "and yet we haven't really been talking about it. Which is a good thing, on one level, because usually the less you think about how you're lying, the more convincing you are." He shrugged. "That being said, there's different brands of the lie. They're all useful in different kinds of situations, but usually there's only a couple of them you can actually pull off. Depending on how you work."
He sat down on the desk again because, well, that was his spot.
"Let's start with one everyone's pulled off at some point. White lies," he said. "That's what you use when, for example, you want to get out of a party. 'No, I'm feeling sick, I'm staying in.' Or maybe you don't want to offend someone who's wearing a taun-taun head for a hat, so you tell 'em it looks good. Most people can pull off white lies. They're little, uh, life hacks, to make your life more comfortable. As long as you don't overindulge in those, well, no harm, no foul."
Not that he had ever particularly cared about harm or foul when he was lying, but hey. "Similar to white lies, but with a whole lot more potential impact, is the lie of omission. That's probably the most useful tool you have when you really don't want to talk about something - just don't mention it as a thing, and no one will think to ask about it. Come from a homeworld involved in a civil war you might have gotten your hands dirty on? Well, no one at Fandom knows about that world, so you either don't mention it, or mention the world's name and then move on. No one thinks to ask about your role in the war, because they don't even know there was a war."
"The good thing about lies of omission is that they keep you from getting yourself stuck in a web of increasingly more outrageous lies that make it easier and easier to figure out you're lying," he said. "Of course, on the other hand, that could be your strategy: make sure you lie so painfully obviously without giving a damn, switching from one to the other, so nobody knows what to make of you."
"There's a middle ground, of course. There's a whole range of middle ground. You can lie by exaggeration, which usually works unless there's someone else around who also witnessed what you're lying about. You can take the omission to the next level by dropping clues about yourself without saying anything outright, so people get the wrong impression. Or you can even just make promises you don't intend on keeping, but don't intend to be around not to keep."
He clapped his hands. "So. What different types of lying do you know of? What are you capable of? What's morally okay and what's not, since I hear some people care about that kind of thing?"
Joking. Sort of. Maybe?
"Talk."
He sat down on the desk again because, well, that was his spot.
"Let's start with one everyone's pulled off at some point. White lies," he said. "That's what you use when, for example, you want to get out of a party. 'No, I'm feeling sick, I'm staying in.' Or maybe you don't want to offend someone who's wearing a taun-taun head for a hat, so you tell 'em it looks good. Most people can pull off white lies. They're little, uh, life hacks, to make your life more comfortable. As long as you don't overindulge in those, well, no harm, no foul."
Not that he had ever particularly cared about harm or foul when he was lying, but hey. "Similar to white lies, but with a whole lot more potential impact, is the lie of omission. That's probably the most useful tool you have when you really don't want to talk about something - just don't mention it as a thing, and no one will think to ask about it. Come from a homeworld involved in a civil war you might have gotten your hands dirty on? Well, no one at Fandom knows about that world, so you either don't mention it, or mention the world's name and then move on. No one thinks to ask about your role in the war, because they don't even know there was a war."
"The good thing about lies of omission is that they keep you from getting yourself stuck in a web of increasingly more outrageous lies that make it easier and easier to figure out you're lying," he said. "Of course, on the other hand, that could be your strategy: make sure you lie so painfully obviously without giving a damn, switching from one to the other, so nobody knows what to make of you."
"There's a middle ground, of course. There's a whole range of middle ground. You can lie by exaggeration, which usually works unless there's someone else around who also witnessed what you're lying about. You can take the omission to the next level by dropping clues about yourself without saying anything outright, so people get the wrong impression. Or you can even just make promises you don't intend on keeping, but don't intend to be around not to keep."
He clapped his hands. "So. What different types of lying do you know of? What are you capable of? What's morally okay and what's not, since I hear some people care about that kind of thing?"
Joking. Sort of. Maybe?
"Talk."
Listen to the Lecture