Do you ever lie?

What prompts my question is the winner of the latest reality TV programme, The Apprentice', who was caught out in a rather large howler on his CV, if you don't know what, 'The Apprentice', is, it a 14 week competition to be Alan Sugars next Executive.

Anyway he lied, got caught out out on TV and still won, what do you think?

Kantian Absolutism, 'You must always tell the truth', or Augustines, 'Degree of Lying', there has to be a middle ground, my view is, if someone is untruthful on their CV, how can you trust their judgement or reporting structure to you.

Moss

Interesting post Moss. I think with the apprentice example, most people woud answer that we all 'exaggerate' our CVs. However, in answer to your question, I try to never lie. That said I sometimes find myself slip into a lie to save my face or the face of the face of the person I'm speaking to. An example I can give is, I had a crap gardener who just didn't do a good job of my garden. So I decided to hire a better gardener. Rather than tell my crap gardener that I was replacing him with someone better I told him I was changing to a guy who had just started out and needed the business. He reacted badly and I found myself making up lies on the spot to justify myself. It would have been so much better to have been honest, but I felt bad to be letting a gardener go. Oh well, I hope I learn by my mistakes...

I try not to lie, but sometimes the truth hurts and serves no point. So, I work around that...example....Does this dress make me look fat? ...... Not at all dear!

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy." - George Carlin.

The edict of the modern age, as proclaimed by politicians, captains of industry, financial institutions, pop stars and reality TV shows.

In a dog eat dog world of superficial credibility, what do you get for being honest these days?

Truth and lies are too black and white by definition, there are so many shades of grey in between. The odd porky here and there is part of life, the telling of half truths even more common. I think the " Half-truth " even more interesting. When standing in the dock in court, you are asked to tell " The truth, the whole truth............... " Sneaky legal types realizing the half truth to be a deadly weapon.

I believe it's always best to tell the truth, I also believe that my version of the truth is always best

Here's a true example of a half truth being put to good use ( or is it............).

Some years ago a naffin huge Japanese war time bomb was found in the grounds of a major hospital. To cut a long story short, muggins here left to evacuate said hospital and surrounding buildings so EOD can do a controlled explosion.

All done, jobs a good un. As usual senior officer after jobs done arrives for press conference and to take the credit. Just as it is about to start, I hear on the radio the some numb nut student doctor has sneaked back into his quarter to watch the bang and a piece of shrapnel had gone straight through his window, his arm and then his wall. Major FUBAR, as said building should have been clear ( little bastard had somehow slipped through the cordon so he could be the star at the " where were you when the bomb went off parties ").

Senior credit taker in major league flap. Worlds press waiting for briefing, major f-up, what to do. I got hold of him and told him when asked, he was to say," that as far as the Police were aware, The Hospital Authority had received no reports of casualties ". This he duly did, press happy as Larry, so was he, basking in his unearned glory.

Did he lie ?

Well no. You see as he held the hasty conference, I had student scrot attended to by our own EU ( Emergency Unit ) medics. After conference ( matter of minutes ) said scrot taken to hospital. At the time of the question, The Hospital Authority were certainly unaware of casualties, as we hadn't given them any to attend to..........yet.

You gotta love the half-truth.

It would have been so much better to have been honest, but I felt bad to be letting a gardener go. Oh well, I hope I learn by my mistakes...

In this instance I think it would have been more prudent to be diplomatically economical with the truth rather than brutally honest, however I think I would have dodged the issue and told him I had decided to do it myself, waited a couple of weeks and got a new one then.

I make a career out of dodging bullets

Moss

..Does this dress make me look fat? ...... Not at all dear!

That's called survival instinct, practiced the world over!!

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy." - George Carlin.

The edict of the modern age, as proclaimed by politicians, captains of industry, financial institutions, pop stars and reality TV shows.

In a dog eat dog world of superficial credibility, what do you get for being honest these days?

Great quote Robbo.

However, I still think integrity goes a long way, dishonesty breeds contempt and continual arse-covering, which is more time consuming that just standing up and saying, ' Hey, it's my cock-up'.

I work on the principle at work if anybody makes a mistake, lets put it right together and get over it, I then tell the Boss, 'Well this went wrong, but this what we have done to put it back on track'. Give someone solutions instead of problems. If you start to cover it up, it can and does end up in a spiral of even worse problems.

Moss

When standing in the dock in court, you are asked to tell " The truth, the whole truth............... "

Once when testifying in Crown Court, I had made a mistake on my statement and as another witness (victim) came out and I went in, he quickly told me.

So under cross-examination I played dumb, (Just acted normally, really), the lawyer was getting increasingly frustrated as he knew exactly what I was doing.

However, was I lying? probably not, but certainly being economical with the truth and I have no regrets for that.

Simply because they were up for beating up a bloke and I was the only witness, well the only one who would testify anyway, so no, I regret nothing, so yes there are differing shades of lying, so perhaps Augustines Principles are correct and Kants are just too rigid.

Moss

I try not to lie, but I try and avoid hurting people also. Some people use the truth as a weapon to hurt others and feel justified in doing this - the sort of person who claims to be a straight talker but is really a vindictive shit I think that our words can have such a great impact and yet most of us don't think before we talk - I know that I too am a very bad offender when it comes to this. I like the Buddhist idea of avoiding hurtful speech ( this seems much more sensible then saying don't lie).

One of my good friends is an outrageous liar. He just tells the biggest porkies he can think of and people believe him. He doesn't do it to pump himself up though, it's just his sense of humour.

..Does this dress make me look fat? ...... Not at all dear!

That's called survival instinct, practiced the world over!!

So, you see how important the survival skill of lying is. One to be culitavted to keep the human race around for another 10,000 years.

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy." - George Carlin.

The edict of the modern age, as proclaimed by politicians, captains of industry, financial institutions, pop stars and reality TV shows.

In a dog eat dog world of superficial credibility, what do you get for being honest these days?

Great quote Robbo.

However, I still think integrity goes a long way, dishonesty breeds contempt and continual arse-covering, which is more time consuming that just standing up and saying, ' Hey, it's my cock-up'.

I work on the principle at work if anybody makes a mistake, lets put it right together and get over it, I then tell the Boss, 'Well this went wrong, but this what we have done to put it back on track'. Give someone solutions instead of problems. If you start to cover it up, it can and does end up in a spiral of even worse problems.

Moss

However, I still think integrity goes a long way, dishonesty breeds contempt and continual arse-covering, which is more time consuming that just standing up and saying, ' Hey, it's my cock-up'.

I work on the principle at work if anybody makes a mistake, lets put it right together and get over it, I then tell the Boss, 'Well this went wrong, but this what we have done to put it back on track'. Give someone solutions instead of problems. If you start to cover it up, it can and does end up in a spiral of even worse problems.

Moss

OMG, a Bedlam thread that is relevant to Thailand, whatever next.

Personally, when it comes to work related situations, or likewise, relationship situations, I don't think that I have ever told a big lie. The typical Taxi company lie "yes love, he's just round the corner, he'll be there in ten minutes" .... all the time.

Little lies (as per the taxi situation) don't hurt long and are quickly forgotten ..... big lies, you take to the grave, and no one forgets.

In my opinion honesty is the best policy, I just think there is a real lack of positive role models in society to promote that messge.

From The Times, June 19, 2008

Schoolboy hacker Omar Khan who upped his grades faces 38 years in jail.

It could be a long time before Omar Khan goes to college: as long as 38 years, according to Orange County prosecutors, who have arrested and charged the 18-year-old student with breaking into his prestigious high school and hacking into computers to change his test grades from Fs to As.

If convicted on all 69 counts, including altering and stealing public records, computer fraud, burglary, identity theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy, Mr Khan could spend almost four decades in prison.

He is currently being held on $50,000 (£25,500) bail and is scheduled to appear in court today.

Mr Khan’s defence lawyer, Carol Lavacol, described her client as “a really nice kid” and said: “There’s a lot more going on than meets the eye.”

Prosecutors claim that between January and May, Mr Khan, who lives in Coto de Caza, one of Orange County’s oldest and most expensive gated communities, repeatedly broke into Tesoro High School, which was made famous by the reality TV series Real Housewives of Orange County.

In an alleged plot that resembles the script to the 1986 high school comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, prosecutors claim that he then used teachers’ passwords to hack into computers and change his test scores. In at least one test, an English exam, Mr Khan had been given an F grade because he was caught cheating.

Prosecutors claim that the teenager, who is alleged to have broken into the school late at night with a stolen master key, also changed the grades of 12 other students, and that he installed spyware on school hard drives that allowed him to access the computers from remote locations.

Tesoro High has 2,800 pupils and often appears in Newsweek magazine’s annual list of best high schools.

Mr Khan’s plan, the prosecution argues, was to get a place at one of the colleges within the University of California system. After his application was rejected, he requested copies of his student records, known as “transcripts” in the US educational system, so he could appeal. But when teachers looked at his files and noticed all the A grades that had magically appeared next to all the courses he had taken they realised something was wrong.

“School administrators alerted law enforcement after noticing a discrepancy in Mr Khan’s grades,” the Orange County District Attorney’s office said. “Subsequent investigation revealed that Mr Khan was in possession of original tests, test questions and answers, and copies of his altered grades. Khan is accused of stealing master copies of tests, some of which were e-mailed to dozens of students.”

The case has once again raised the question of whether technology, in particular mobile phones that can access the internet, has resulted in an epidemic of cheating in the high-school system. The Orange County Register, a local newspaper, asked its readers yesterday to respond to a poll asking if “technology is giving [students] an advantage”, or whether it is just “the same stuff using new tools”.

Another student, Tanvir Singh, also 18, is accused of conspiring with Mr Khan and faces up to three years in prison. The pair allegedly exchanged text messages last month while organising a break-in.

Jim Amormino, of the local sheriff’s department, said that he was astonished by the sophistication of the scheme, especially given the age of the defendants. “I think they [now] wish they would have put their talents into studying,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4168112.ece

Young Mister Khan is obviously more clever than his F grades suggest!

Yep, no doubt about it. If he doesn't go to jail for 38 years ol' Bill (Gates) could come knockin' any day now.

If you are truly good there's no need to lie.

The sad thing about the kid who upped his grades:

Whereas a large percentage of kids these days don't give a dam, and many end up in a life of petty crime, a kid who actually did give a rather large dam, could get 40 years in jail...

Why don't we punish the kids who don't bother with their education (yes, I'm one of them)

Rest easy Kayo.............With your addictions to the ladies you are being punished enough. Never fear, these demons will soon pass. They will be replaced by beer, football and whippets, which will bring back a little sanity, to your torrid life

I thought it was quite sad that thing about the hacker who upped his grades, because lets face it most of us couldn't hack our way out of a paper bag, if he had the skills to do that, he really should have done better in his exams.

Although 38 years is pretty harsh.