according to miriam webster,

Lie: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive


In the world of politics, though, I find the word tossed around to mean any untrue statement. I understand because it is not easy to determine someone else's intentions, so it is easier to use a minimal standard that a lie is anything untrue.

But the fact that the word lie comes with the assumption of intent to deceive causes a problem. I dont consider the person who repeats something they believe is true the same as the person who knowingly repeats something as true that they know is not true.
For instance, the person who says the earth is flat, because they believe it, is ignorant maybe, but not of ill character or deceptive.

The person who KNOWS the earth is round, and says it is flat, is deceptive.


Maybe the language should be altered in politics to discuss when individuals are being deceptive, instead of discussing whether they lied, when all lying means is that what they said was not accurate or true. I bet those lists of lies that have become popular in tracking candidates would diminish greatly.

So basically what you're saying here is you don't judge negatively the boy who cries wolf if the boy just thinks there's a wolf, but the boy who cries wolf and that boy knows for a fact there is no wolf should be judged "deceptive."


Why?
How do you motivate both boys to either pay better attention and learn to spot a wolf, or stop deceptively yelling "wolf" if you don't equate the outcome?
Do you really have the time to sit down and go through the behavior and words of each and every person and everything they've said at any point in time, plus delve so deeply into their personal life through personal relationships with them to figure out "for sure" which one is being deceptive, to what degree they are being deceptive, and which is ignorant and exactly when any ignorance may have turned into deception?

To use the word "lie" against someone has an implied threat.

Much easier to just call them both "liars" with the implied "that is not valued behavior, so learn, stop doing it, or you'll be ostracized, not trusted, not listened to, not valued."


So you're saying that since people can't use language correctly, possibly because they don't really understand the miriam webster absolute definition, that it should be altered to something else...and that would make things "easier?" or "better?"

Here's an experiment to see how effective that would be.
Go learn Spanish. Then go to France and get a job. Any difficulties in communication, demand your boss come up with a third language for everyone in the company to use, then go out on a sales call.
Please let us know how altering the languages in whatever profession helps in discerning peoples motives and knowledge.

Lies are much more complex than knowing the intent. Just not sharing something you know when asked a direct question is a lie. By your omission, you are being dishonest! When I twist the truth to make a point or embellish a fact, am I trying to deceive or just make you more aware? It goes back to the age old couple question: does this dress make me look fat? Is it the dress or the size of your butt?

I respectfully disagree with the omission is a lie analogy, though I know many believe it. I feel a lie has to be spoken or shared. What is not shared might be sneaky or deceptive, but they cannot, by definition, be 'untrue statements"


I also think statements about opinions are neither true nor false(like what someone 'looks' like), but people can lie about what their opinion is.

Intention is not easy to discern. Not every deception is as simple as, say, a married person telling their partner they were somewhere they were not of how long they were actually in a place before leaving ... et cetera.

Deceptive lie cuz really this is just a recruitment for the politics forum!..

Saying something you believe to be true isn't a lie.
Saying something you KNOW to be untrue is lie.

IMO most people who knowingly lie do so thinking the person is too stupid find out what the truth is or thinks the person is too meek to call them out for lying. Personally I believe liars think the other person is stupid more often so IMO they aren't only guilty of lying, they are also guilty of insulting someone else's intelligence.

I posted on another thread that my dad told me "Everyone lies" and I told him "Not everyone lies but you just admitted to being a liar".

i think to lie is perhaps rhetorical in nature. As differentiated from untruth from ignorance.

I agree very much with your core concern with this, but I think some more subtleties could do with being recognized.

In particular, something can be a LIE, independent of the intent of the speaker. You seem to halfway recognize that. If someone repeats something that originated as a LIE, the fact that they repeat it in ignorance doesn't mean it's no longer a lie.

I think that's a very important distinction, especially nowadays, when some of the worst propagandists use the careful accuracy of those who stick to the truth, to have their falsehoods accepted as POSSIBLY true.

This is where I become very frustrated with what I see as second or even third rate efforts to be "unbiased."

When news people repeat accusations and falsehoods, in order to "tell both sides" of an issue, and fail to identify the false statements as false, more people get tricked into believing lies.

In a way, suppose I am supporting the distinction between saying someone has told a lie, and accusing them of being a LIAR.

So, a lie, from your perspective is ANY untruth, regardless of context of the speaker's understanding or intent, but a liar is someone with understanding and intent?

Ignorance is not a lie.
It is a lack of understanding.
If, however, someone is ignorant and lies, they are trying to protect their ignorance.

This happens a lot in the scientific community's social grandstanders.
They know they are ignorant about some detail but they lie to the public instead of just saying "I Don't Know".

If someone is ignorant in what they believe is truth, I don't believe they are trying to protect their 'ignorance' anymore than someone who is correct about the truth is when they claim or reclaim it.

i expect people to speak the truth, as it pertains to what they have come to believe the truth is. I think that is quite natural. I expect people are sometimes incorrect about what the truth is.

Consider this:

Black Holes
Scientists are ignorant of the properties within a black hole.
They know they are ignorant.
They will formulate their own ideas and present them as truth.
They will argue their beliefs, write papers and give lectures.
They teach these ideas to others as fact.
They believe they are right but they know they can't possibly know if they are with any certainty or proof.
The very terminology of a Black...Hole is wrong.
It is not black and it is not a hole.
If anything, it is a white hot singularity.
Everybody knows its a black hole.
Ignorance is accepted and perpetuated on purpose.
Ignorance that was initiated by drawing a conclusion based on insufficient evidence.

Not quite. A lie is as you mention, something false said intentionally to deceive. What I'm saying, is that the statement given out AS a lie by whoever says it first, STAYS a lie, even if someone who is honest and innocent, repeats it unwittingly. The distinction I'm making is that I will not declare the person who repeats a lie that THEY BELIEVED TO BE TRUE, is guilty of intentional deception.

But I think it is entirely accurate to tell such a person that what they have said IS a lie, just not to call them A LIAR.

"President Obama was born in Kenya" is a LIE. No matter who repeats it afterwards, it remains a lie. The people who eagerly believe that and repeat it may be something else, but they are not necessarily liars.

It's a bit similar in logic, I suppose, to a situation where someone steals something, and gives or sells it to someone else (who does NOT know the item was stolen), who then sells it themselves. The person who innocently sells the stolen item would not be guilty as a thief, and if the law enforcement is good, will not be charged with knowingly accepting stolen goods.

But the thing they sold, IS still a stolen item.

Thus, a lie doesn't become, oh, say, an OPINION, just because it is repeated by someone who fails to check it out.

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