this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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[–] HeHoXa@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

That's a very good angle, honing in on exactly the problem of lying.

"Intent" could get just as tricky. With all the various forms of psychosis, delusion, etc. it'd be tough to say whether someone "meant" to do something. (It's trickier than we'd usually like to admit even for a typical person.)

The same kind of problems exist around whether the speaker "knows" something to be false.

Then there's the problem of fiction. Bedtime stories, campfire stories...

And not exactly a technical problem, but what about a doctor who knowingly oversimplifies or otherwise intentionally twists his words in an attempt to get the patient to manage their condition optimally? Parents who lie about how something works to help their kids understand something or behave safely? Teachers who oversimplify physics lessons to present it in a way their students can grasp for now. Not exactly a technical problem maybe, but would we want "noble lies" to affect the counter? This is a little off track, just occurred to me and felt like writing it out 🤷‍♂️

This one doesn't pose a direct problem really but maybe helps me get to my point: what if people who rode a train moving at relativistic speeds when lightning struck both ends talk with someone who was watching from outside about when the lightning struck? Truth is tricky...

But making it, "how often did they attempt to intentionally deceive" as you suggested is a great approach imho. Maybe almost realistic. There's probably some biological indicators of that right? ... for non-psychopaths