Friday, August 28, 2020

On Medium: Craving Authenticity in a Flood of Lies

Read on if you're looking for hints of the sublime in the torrent of lies on social media and in popular culture.

3 comments:

  1. ''The fallacy here is just the confusion between honesty and having a lack of mental filters. Trump may not think before he speaks, but that doesn’t mean he’s being honest. On the contrary, if he’s lied with such abandon that he no longer cares about or understands the difference between fact and fantasy, the fact that he says whatever’s on his mind regardless of the circumstances would hardly mean he respects the listener enough to refrain from attempting to defraud her.''

    Right!

    Honesty=/=sincerity

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    Replies
    1. Hmm, that's tricky, since "sincere" can mean "not hypocritical or deceitful; open; genuine," or "free of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness; earnest." So there's some overlap with honesty.

      I think the lack of mental filters is more like a kind of naivety or recklessness, almost like the stereotype of Tourette syndrome. Just because someone says whatever's on his mind, because he has no poker face, doesn't mean that what's on his mind is ever the truth or the facts.

      It's the difference between being a good and a terrible liar. Trump lies constantly, but by now at least he's an ineffective liar because we're on to his shtick. We know his "tells," like in poker, meaning we know he's lying because his mouth is moving--and because he's always boasting in the childlike Queens manner, calling everything he approves of the best, the biggest in history, the strongest, and so forth.

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    2. Sincerity is an only-verbal action while honesty can be a nonverbal action and seems more related to it. Yes, it's indeniable that they overlap but it's important avoid believe words matter more than their meanings. When two or more words are vaguely similar it's tend to cause more confusion than enlightenment. Specially today with many sincere populists becoming/dangerously visible, many people ultralap both characteristics.


      ''I think the lack of mental filters is more like a kind of naivety or recklessness, almost like the stereotype of Tourette syndrome. Just because someone says whatever's on his mind, because he has no poker face, doesn't mean that what's on his mind is ever the truth or the facts.''

      Exactly!

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