"I wanted to become such a stickler, so faultlessly truthful, that anything that came out of my mouth would bear the stamp of accuracy in everyone's mind.
It doesn't work."
Eventually, it does work; I think you just haven't been doing it long enough. I started practicing honesty in this way, consciously and for much the same reasons, in the mid-90s. By the mid-00s, I had a reputation for conspicuous truthfulness, and the other day, someone asked me if I'd heard of X, and when I said 'Yes' (she'd apparently been expecting that I hadn't), she said, "Really, Randall? Really?!" and her husband said, right in front of me, "Well, when Randall says that, at least, you can be sure it's true". (He was not being ironic, by the way).
So, basically, it just takes years to build up a reputation for honesty. You have to have the opportunity for the easy, safe lie and reject it more than once for a person to understand that you mean it.
There are two issues here. People can wonder about whether someone's being honest, and people can wonder about someone being mistaken. It is a widely held hypothesis that people tend to hold incorrect beliefs about themselves - that they rationalize things to put themselves in the best possible light and then believe the rationalizations.
In particular, "the ... expressions on my face were not meaningful and should be ignored" is, according to popular wisdom, invariably false; when one's body language conflicts with what one says, the signal given by the body language is assumed to be the accurate one. The classic example is when someone who seems angry denies being angry.
Also, the whole "tell the truth even when it's a really stupid idea" seemed to work pretty well on my parents, though, as I've done it many times. (I have a devil of a time keeping secrets, too.)
>It is a widely held hypothesis that people tend to hold incorrect beliefs about themselves - that they rationalize things to put themselves in the best possible light and then believe the rationalizations.
Yes. That's exactly what I'm trying to work around with the luminosity project.
>In particular, "the ... expressions on my face were not meaningful and should be ignored" is, according to popular wisdom, invariably false; when one's body language conflicts with what one says, the signal given by the body language is assumed to be the accurate one. The classic example is when someone who seems angry denies being angry.
Any tips on getting people to believe what I say and not what the phantom facial expressions from outer space say? I have a lot of meaningless nonverbal communication. For example, I have some sort of lung problem which means I have to sigh, gasp, and yawn all the time whether it's appropriate or not. I don't want people to think I'm bored or surprised or tired when this happens.
You have my sympathy. Not my total understanding, because I somehow lucked out and ended up with maybe the world's only pair of actually perfect parents, but I've always had a terror of the alternative, of having to live the first eighteen years of my life under the total control of people who were deluded or immoral, and you have my sympathy.
I know that wasn't your main theme here, and I don't know what to tell you about honesty. But if it makes you feel better, this post is a pretty convincing signal.
...except it's a lot like living in a first world country, in that you feel a bit guilty for your unearned good luck, and whenever you're unhappy or angry over some stupid little thing you feel really guilty because what right do you have to be upset when practically everyone else in the world would kill to be in your position?
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It doesn't work."
Eventually, it does work; I think you just haven't been doing it long enough. I started practicing honesty in this way, consciously and for much the same reasons, in the mid-90s. By the mid-00s, I had a reputation for conspicuous truthfulness, and the other day, someone asked me if I'd heard of X, and when I said 'Yes' (she'd apparently been expecting that I hadn't), she said, "Really, Randall? Really?!" and her husband said, right in front of me, "Well, when Randall says that, at least, you can be sure it's true". (He was not being ironic, by the way).
So, basically, it just takes years to build up a reputation for honesty. You have to have the opportunity for the easy, safe lie and reject it more than once for a person to understand that you mean it.
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In particular, "the ... expressions on my face were not meaningful and should be ignored" is, according to popular wisdom, invariably false; when one's body language conflicts with what one says, the signal given by the body language is assumed to be the accurate one. The classic example is when someone who seems angry denies being angry.
Also, the whole "tell the truth even when it's a really stupid idea" seemed to work pretty well on my parents, though, as I've done it many times. (I have a devil of a time keeping secrets, too.)
Reply
Yes. That's exactly what I'm trying to work around with the luminosity project.
>In particular, "the ... expressions on my face were not meaningful and should be ignored" is, according to popular wisdom, invariably false; when one's body language conflicts with what one says, the signal given by the body language is assumed to be the accurate one. The classic example is when someone who seems angry denies being angry.
Any tips on getting people to believe what I say and not what the phantom facial expressions from outer space say? I have a lot of meaningless nonverbal communication. For example, I have some sort of lung problem which means I have to sigh, gasp, and yawn all the time whether it's appropriate or not. I don't want people to think I'm bored or surprised or tired when this happens.
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I know that wasn't your main theme here, and I don't know what to tell you about honesty. But if it makes you feel better, this post is a pretty convincing signal.
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...except it's a lot like living in a first world country, in that you feel a bit guilty for your unearned good luck, and whenever you're unhappy or angry over some stupid little thing you feel really guilty because what right do you have to be upset when practically everyone else in the world would kill to be in your position?
Still, pretty good.
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