Didn’t you just love Cheney’s sneer?

I once dated a guy who looked me right in the eye, never blinking or wavering and lied to me about cheating on me. Had I known what she said at that time, I’d have known he was lying.

I come from an odd culture of technogeeks. Arguments weren’t supposed to be about deciding who was right, but what the facts were. The imperative over everything is always, “does it WORK?” Back in the day when HP calculators were expensive luxuries, I actually saw a couple of guys literally slap leather during an argument as they pulled their calculators out of the little belt “holsters” they carried them in. (I still have my old HP35, and it works.)

But of course engineers are human like anyone else, and will cling to an idea longer than they should, sometimes long after the data is staring them down. The worst thing a technological designer can do, and probably the most common, is to fall in love with a concept. Pretty soon they’re not fixing the flaws, but making excuses for them. A lot of businesses have foundered on this.

The human mind is quite flexible, and no one has figured out how to detect a lie when the “liar” believes it is the truth. Or what is “truth” for that matter.

Arf

It’s when people tell you things that aren’t true but they honestly believe they are.

It may be out of ignorance, suppression, denial, or many other things, but you’re still getting false information from people who aren’t really lying.