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Comment by stared | Hacker News Reader

As an Aspie, (almost) every neurotypical person seems to be a pathological liar, not able to make a small talk without committing a few lies.

Examples: "I am fine, thanks", "You look great!", "It is a wonderful idea!", "You are our best client", "For our company privacy is a priority", etc, etc.

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> As an Aspie, (almost) every neurotypical person seems to be a patological liar, not able to make a small talk without committing a few lies.

Having a degree both in mathematics and computer science makes me have an often unerring eye for both potential hidden bugs in code and lies that people tell all the time. So, I can share your sentiment.

I often think: How can people become good at math and/or programming, where they have to learn to become very precise and truthful, if they are surrounded by (also "white") lies all the time. Yes, I particularly have all those politicians in mind who, on one hand, claim how important STEM skills are, and, on the other hand, lie all the time.

> How can people become good at math and/or programming, where they have to learn to become very precise and truthful, if they are surrounded by (also "white") lies all the time.

It takes more precision to lie and memorize who you lied to and about what and to not make conflicting statements around people whom you have told opposing versions of the truth than it does to tell the truth.

Your first few examples aren't lies, they're just expressions of the undocumented wide definition of "fine," "great," and "wonderful" in natural English language. "Fine" means "not dead or suffering from fatal problems," and "great" and "wonderful" both mean "anything better than average or my expectations." Your last two are closer to lies, though.

Society trains you right from the cradle to become a pathological liar.

I think this is dramatic. Society trains you that there is a lie/consequence spectrum.

What? Every language/society has its own version of social cues, conversational filler phrases, and general etiquette for various situations. People can argue its pointless or whatever, but it definitely has established roles in business, networking, or even just making basic conversation with strangers.

Nobody reads the dictionary, they get the definitions of words by copying other people. If a child hears "I'm fine," from someone with a headache, they will say "I'm fine" when they have a headache, truthfully communicating that they feel the same as the last person they heard say "I'm fine."

I struggled with this for a long time, for example if someone asked what time it was instead of saying "it's 4pm" I'd say, "It's 3:57... no wait now it's 3:58" because I felt like saying 4:00 would be not exactly true. Similarly my answers to other things could become so convoluted with included details that ironically people would assume I was lying (snowing them)!

What allowed me to adapt my brain to the imprecision people expect was to realize that anything you say necessarily leaves out more details than it includes. You can't get all of your mental state or the state of the world into words even your listener had the patience.

Well, "fine" is unlikely to cause harm. Even if it is not true, the intention is not to take advantage of someone.

Tricking your client that you care about privacy when you don't give a damn, is.

What's worse, it is pretty much normalized that in business, dating, politics etc people lie. Even if they are caught red-handed, it is considered a minor thing.

Reminds me how it took me a pretty long time to understand that there are things people know to be true, but kind of wink-nudge pretend is otherwise.

For example gambling is illegal here in Japan. Yet there are pachinko games, where you get prizes, which you can later exchange for money. Everyone knows this is gambling, yet everyone pretends that it is not.

Now I wonder what else everyone knows to be true that I still haven't realized.

Ha,this! I have a running joke with my friends about the ironies we see in the world. Pro poor politicians living in posh areas sending their kids to private school. In my culture no one talks about sex yet we have a healthy birth rate in and out of wedlock. Older generation don't like booze so many of us drink like fish at our own homes then are teetotalers when visiting parents. It does get tiring I must say. Luckily with age I don't really like to drink so much anymore.

As a something I struggle to exist in a world of people doing that.

It seems that socializing is a very subtle anthropological game, where the only goal is to feel a bit close to human beings without feeling bad, threatened and able to make some noises like the other peers. The rest is useless if not counter productive. Aspie probably want to turn spin their neuron to feel the joy of thinking.. most people absolutely don't want to think (maybe a result of natural limits... you can die thinking for too long but being a follower ensure better outcomes ?)

  Hey, how are you doing? [SYN]
  Great thanks, and you?  [SYN-ACK]
  Yeah doing good.        [ACK]

Most of what you describe here falls under the umbrella of niceties/etiquette or smalltalk. It's meaningless fluff, not to be taken at face value.

How are you? (person does not actually care) Great! (person is not interested in detailing the good or bad in their life or day)

That's just business talk, not lies.

You mean that's business talk _and_ lies.

if it's not the truth it's a lie.

Communication is about shared meaning. The shared meaning here is truthful; it's not so much about the words themselves. If your hearer grew up being taught to hear "How are you?" as a meaningless introduction, and you really wanted to know how they were, you would probably say "How are you really?". Isn't that redundant? Why not just say "How are you?"? Because you are aiming for shared meaning, not accuracy in absolute language.

I understand nuance in communication, but its so obviously a lie when a business says they care about you, you are their most priviledged customer etc, etc. They are literally baseless claims that dress up awkward scenarios. They are lies, but people accept them as part of the process.

> but people accept them as part of the process.

But that context matters because if it's both accepted and expected to the extent no one would make any material decision based on it, then there's no material intent to deceive, much less expected or actual harm.

I do agree that such meaningless platitudes are better left unsaid as they's just a waste of time.

This is an accurate portrayal of formal logic, but an inaccurate portrayal of language.

Yea, "I'm fine" when you're really not, isn't a lie because there's no intent to deceive. No one actually expects you to tell you how you truly are when they ask "How are you?". So if anything, the initial question is more the lie because it implies concern for the person being asked when it's really just a salutation.

If you're charismatic enough you can get away with saying how you really feel and you'll find that you make friends more quickly. I remember there was this time in the midst of a relationship ending and my father dying and after years of dealing with a painful medical condition I responded with "it's just another shitty day" with a rueful smile. Instant friends with the cafe worker. When things finally started to turn around for me and I said "things are great!" he was really happy for me.

It's a matter of reading the person and situation. Sometimes if the person asking the question is in a context where I can tell they don't want an honest answer I just say "oh, how are you?" I'd rather evade the question than to say "I'm fine" when things are shitty.

I agree with your view. Because the study result appears to rely on self-reports, it hinges on definitions of key terms by participants, especially what they consider a "lie". If the definition is like yours ("intent to deceive") that can be different than other definitions. Even then it's a spectrum because an innocuous 'white lie' is sometimes a social expectation, like: "I hope us being ten minutes late to the party wasn't a problem..." Not only is that sort of question often answered with a lie, it's expected to be. Depending on the context, the real-question-under-the-question is likely akin to "I hope our being late didn't bother you so much that it's going to create a problem significant enough to require addressing." A more expansive version of your definition might include "an untruth communicated with knowing intent to deceive another in a way likely to cause meaningful harm given the context." That definition would eliminate the example I gave above, however, it could also eliminate many of the 'inconsequential' lies the study reports pathological liars frequently make.

Reading the description of the study in OP article (but not the source paper), I felt there was no way to tell how reliable the result might be without knowing a great deal about how the study framed their questions.

This! Is what they are friggin talking about.

Username checks out.

Or common courtesy / "culture" rules. That said, people on the spectrum have trouble with phrases like "What's up" or "How are ya"; a quick answer like "Not much, you?" is in a lot of cases a lie so it doesn't come out as smoothly as cultural norms seem to expect, and a genuine answer is not something the asker expected, especially if it's about e.g. work or hobbies that the asker doesn't know much about, or if you have to assess your current mood / situation to describe how you are.

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