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stevegrossi

deception

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Deception is speech with the intent to create a false belief in the hearer. There are, alas, many common varieties:

Lying by commission: telling outright lies

An example is hardly needed, but say you took someone’s book but tell them “I did not take your book.”

Lying by omission: not telling the whole truth when asked

For example, if your partner, concerned about you cheating on them again, asks where you went one afternoon and you reply “I went to the store” but leave out that after the store you went and cheated on them.

Paltering: lying by telling the truth

Related to lying by omission, paltering means using statements that are technically true to give a false impression. An example is when oil companies claim to be working toward climate solutions because they divert a tiny fraction of their profits toward climate tech, all the while continuing to invest the vast majority of their efforts in activities making climate change much worse. This is a common practice, when those who cause or benefit from a problem spend token resources on fixing it and claim to be part of the solution.

While one might get the impression that paltering is more defensible than outright lying because the deceiver is technically telling the truth, it is in fact more harmful because, like bullshitting, it undermines the norms of relevance, coherence, and consistency that make truth-telling possible in the first place.