Don’t Make it Up……

 

A while back it was reported back to me that a lady, I meet at a function had reported back that I had behaved in an overtly friendly way and had been constantly calling her up to go out to the best night clubs in Kuala Lumpur (KL). I laughed at this story because, while as much the person telling me this was trying to make feel I was being complained about, I knew it wasn’t true. Yes, I met the young woman at a function but I never spoke to her long enough to exchange business cards or to ask for her number or for a link on social media.

Like or not, we live in an age of social media. News travels faster than we can imagine. The truth of what people believe is often based on whether it’s something that resonates with us or whether we like the person giving us the information rathe than what it actually is. Thanks to social media, the easiest thing to talk about in the most amplified way is people. Hence, unless one is living under a shell, one is bound to be talked about as much as one will be talking about people.

As someone who has worked in media and publicity for the better his working life, there is some good news. The good news is that lies are easy to spot and debunk if you act fast. So, if there’s a rumor floating around cyberspace that you are partial to eating gerbils, you have two options. You can either laugh at it and ignore it or jump in and set the record straight.

Telling lies is an onerous enterprise. On an individual level, telling lies requires you to remember who you lied to and what you told them. It gets complicated because in order to avoid getting caught, you not only got to remember what you said that person, you also have to watch what you tell people who might tell that person you lied to. The effort is such that one is, sooner or later bound to get caught. One only has to watch the 1984 movie, Miki and Maud, about a man who has two wives and struggles with what he tells each of them – in the end he collapses on the series of lies he’s built around his life with each of them.

It gets more complicated as the scale of the lie increases. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, two regimes that had issues telling the truth to people, had to build sophisticated propaganda machines that eventually broke down when reality burst through. The political regimes built on “lies” need to control information. There is a reason why the internet in North Korea is severely restricted while South Korea has the world’s fastest internet.

However, this is not to say that lies only exist in places with dubious political regimes. The fact is, lies are very plausible in places that are officially open to a free flow of information and the sophistication does not come from the heavy hand of the censor but in the effort that it takes to make the lie as plausible as possible.

This is best illustrated on the Netflix series, “Marcella,” which tells the story of brilliant detective who suffers from various psychosis. In the last season, the titular character is sent undercover to infiltrate a family of criminals. Her cover story is that she’s a former policewoman and there is a scene when she’s asked to help the family cover up a murder. Her advice is that the witness testimony must be as identical to the actual event as possible.

 

Copyright Amazon UK

Her argument is that you tell the truth as far as possible but leave out or embellish certain details. When most of what you’re saying is true, it easy for everyone to remember and tell a credible story that people can believe. The “cover-up,” comes from the slight details that are either omitted or embellished. These are the slight details that nobody thinks of in the general narrative but are crucial to the “truth.”

The best lies are effectively 90-99 percent the truth. There is such a thing known as honest people telling lies because they don’t know they are telling lies. When 90 plus percent of what you are saying is true, you are more likely to believe yourself and the bodily signs of lying (increase in heart rate) won’t occur.

All good scams are credible on the surface. The scam element usually involves a high degree of probability and the scams only get caught in the minute details. Good forensic work involves looking for the crucial details that the ordinary person would have no reason to spot:

 

 Would you know this if you were not told?

We live in an age where information flows freely and its easy to treat information as something personal where you see credibility in the people that are likeable. However, there is all the more reason to be skeptical about every piece of information that one receives. Those who are skilled in the art of scamming understand our desire to believe certain things and they know how to exploit our need to believe. They are getting better at giving the appearance of credibility and if governments want to protect their citizens from scam artist, they will need to ensure that the population has a healthy dose of skepticism towards everything.