I agree with Steve's initial reaction to the OP and sympathize with the OP and the basic sentiment behind his position. Of interest to the OP might be Professor Healy's discussion of telescopic evolution and conclusion from the movie Waking Life: https://vimeo.com/26319794chewybrian wrote: ↑December 1st, 2018, 5:46 amI appreciate and agree with what you say in a sense, and I hope you are right. But, history is against it. You could make a similar case against crime. People should realize it rarely benefits them in them end, and technology should make it increasingly difficult. Yet, criminals turn that technology into a tool for crime, and crime continues. Technology can be a powerful tool for lying as well.TryingMyBest wrote: ↑November 29th, 2018, 5:00 pm Thank you for your time.
I have convinced myself that the end of human lying is inevitable for the following reasons. (Please correct me if I am missing something.)
Lies can never be proven true and truth is an ever-expanding juggernaut.
Lies promote false beliefs while truth is defendable.
It will be considered nonsensical to lie because lies promote false beliefs and false beliefs have no value.
Some people lie to "save their own skin" but pleading-the-fifth is always a better option.
Some people lie because they have been deceived into thinking that lying will benefit them. This is the great deceit: that lying will benefit you. Deceit is a lie, by definition. The end of deceit will coincide with the end of lying. Universal realization that, by definition, "deceit is a lie" will cause the end of the deception that lies are useful because humans naturally want to be undeceived. Therefore, lies will eventually cease to exist. As long as society continues to value and expand truth, the end of deceit (and the end of human lying) is inevitable.
I will close with a few truisms about truth. True progress is the progression of truth. True love is the love of truth. True power is the power of truth.
In the long run, I think the trend you predict depends on the political system. In many parts of the world, the truth is a deadly secret that can not even be spoken. As long as we allow these corrupt systems to continue, they will use technology to make their lies more powerful. 1984 is here already. Hopefully, free societies can survive the greed and stupidity of their own people; this seems to be in doubt. If not, we might enter a new Dark Ages, and truth could be as endangered across the world as it is in North Korea.
I'm not making any prediction, and I am not against your sentiments. I am only saying that 'inevitable' seems overly optimistic.
That being said, I agree with Chewy for the following reasons:
-- It's not guaranteed that the continued development and vindication of advanced technological tools and methods for revealing deceit is guaranteed. Firstly because as our truth-detection tools improve, so do our lie-creation tools -- see recent articles about deep fake technology, some discussion elsewhere on this forum is here: https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... =6&t=15875. Secondly, I'm reminded of the anecdotal conversation with Einstein:
Our species unfortunately faces very real challenges that threaten our current methods of existence, and whether we overcome those challenges is far from certain in my view.Professor Albert Einstein was asked by friends at a recent dinner party what new weapons might be employed in World War III. Appalled at the implications, he shook his head.
After several minutes of meditation, he said. “I don’t know what weapons might be used in World War III. But there isn’t any doubt what weapons will be used in World War IV.”
“And what are those?” a guest asked.
“Stone spears,” said Einstein.
-- Next, the proposition that lies have no value is difficult to defend from a pragmatic perspective. Even if I agree with you that in the long run, we all pay the price for our lies -- which I do -- in the short term lying can have very concrete effects. Most apparent examples in recent history would be in American political discourse with Trump's regular stream of falsifiable claims, as validated by sites like Politifact, Snopes and Factcheck.org. The lies he tells help obfuscate opposing fact-based positions, help him rally his base, and assists in his progress towards his political aims. Even if in the long run, they may have a negative outcome -- e.g. an investigation into obstruction of justice -- to say that there is no short term value would require a potentially awkward conversation about what value means. Lies only have no value if in every case you are caught AND punished.
-- In agreement with Chewy, the fact of the matter is -- even if we were to educate every individual of the uselessness of lying and how "deceit is a lie", some people just gotta learn things the hard way. Children typically begin lying between two and four years of age, and some simply never grow out of it.