Mario comments on Is Santa Real? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: thomblake 13 March 2009 08:45PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (71)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Mario 14 March 2009 12:57:08PM 7 points [-]

I stopped lying, to the best of my ability, years ago. I've found, though, that as my lying skills have degraded, I have also partially lost the ability to consider my words before I speak and I have lost the knack for social pablum (although I may never have had that to begin with; tough to say).

When someone asks me how I am, I always answer "same as always." I would like to say that I do it so that I don't need to commit to a position with which I disagree, but the truth is that the words come out before I can figure out the normal, polite response.

Overall, I think that lying is a very valuable skill. Maybe it is like self-defense; something that you hope that you don't have to use, but is always good to have available.