The dangers of social hubris.... "How to tell when someone's lying"

All I know is I don't ever want to end up in interogation. I don't lie, I live an honest life. So hopefully it will never happen. I think most people want to know when those close to them are lying and enter a thread like this hoping to know if their mate/friend/child/parent/coworker can be pinpointed by certain "tells" -

In this case I go by the gut - I had the pleasure once of being involved in an Equal Opportunity Mediation where all the players were brought in the room at the same time. It was dumbfounding to see who was where in the big scenario going on. In a situation like that - people who lie will eventually out themselves. In a room with more then 20 people I witnessed 2 have breakdowns. 2 men, military men of high enlisted rank were outed as instigating bass-turds - and heros rose from the most unlikely places. People are absolutely amazing in both good and bad ways.

reply to post by Maxmars


Excellent analysis, Maxmars!

I think we are moving into this direction of uniform, non-thinking judgments for three reasons. First, we are not seen as individuals anymore; we are now seen as a herd to manage in "equality." In this way, the baby at the airport presents an equal danger as the adult man in line behind her. And now it is the one with the shifty eyes or the one with wierd lip action who are the liars, without looking at and understanding the individual in front of you.

Second, in our modern disconnected structure of social media, we are losing the instincts - we used to call it "people smarts" - we once gained through extensive social interaction with others. In fact, some people are so hooked on technology entertainment, they don't even interact with themselves that much.

Finally, we are overpopulated and in places that are overcrowded, interacting with the individual means less than managing the herd. It is all resulting, ultimately in a lack of knowledge and love for ourselves and others and the managers of the herd see us more and more as farm animals. Orwell's vision comes to mind. Individuality and independence can not be tolerated in a mechanized police state.

As our population ages, I wonder how well grandpa and grandma will hold up to this kind of one size fits all character analysis. Hopefully they will remember to keep their mouths shut until their lawyer is present but there is no guarentee they will remember to do that. We recently had an 80 year old man thrown down by and officer because he touched the officer on the arm while talking with him and the officer took it as a threat. We had a police officer who was not capable of discerning the meaning of an eigthy year old guy touching him in a friendly manner versus a gang member punching him in the gut or reaching for his gun! The officer broke the old guy's neck.

After I finished this note to you, something else struck me. To justify the massive amount of money flowing into Homeland security, for the "war on terror" they have expanded the enemy to include just about everyone. We have the war protestors, the anti-corporate protestors, second amendment advocates, pro-life people, criminals, etc. (everyone including children and babies at the airports and soon, the trains and busses and malls) named as the enemy. We now have the military industrial complex focused on creating strategies and products to focus on defeating and controling a new enemy - us. We are a country occupied by a military force.

I use to be a cop and about 9 times out of 10 I know when someone is lying to me. It comes down to watching behaviors in people. An example is fear or someone that is nervous. On a traffic stop, I got to a point when I can tell the difference between someone being scared because they don't deal with law enforcement much and when someon is nervous cause they are hiding something. Also depending on if a person is right handed or left handed; if they look down and to the left, they are recalling events of facts. If they look down and to the right they are making up events or facts. Someone touches their nose or mouth after a statement, thats a sign of deception. Its against your human nature to lie so subconscious is trying to pull it back. The point is that you can't just use one technique and gauge deception. If you use 5 or 6 and then lead you to believe they aren't being straight with you, chances are they aren't.

Wow, there is alot of law enforcement bashing in here. I don't know how many of you guys actually had to be interrogated by the police but I guess if they all went as bad as you guys made it sound, I'd be that way too. Being a cop isn't about power or forceful with people. A cop's best weapon is his attitude and his words. It's all about how you talk to someone. There is corruption but for every story you hear about it, there's hundreds of cops that live a honest life. One minute they may have you pulled over, writing a ticket but then next minute they maybe standing between you and someone with a gun.

everything I say is a lie

spotting liars
I think its a probability thing
right nine times out of twenty on eighteen out of twenty attempts.
(sic)
look at GWB and how many people were executed in TEXAS while he ws guvernator
and then later found to be innocent through DNA

I've been read wrong by people who should have known better
the results were not good
( though the song wound up in a movie )

I'd say guessing wrong on someone is worse then lying
people should be libel for it

bring back targeted jurisprudence

Love this thread. Some people are great liars. Others stink at it. Some people are great at detecting liars. Others stink at it. As with any other guidelines attempts to quantify guidelines are useful for the liars meat of the bell curve, but it's usually the ones on the ends of that curve that cause the agita.

I read somewhere not too long ago that liars in their made up "stories" often use the number 3. "I only had three drinks." "I called three times, but no one answered." Things like that. .Don't know how true that it, but ever since I read it I've been hyper-aware of using the number 3 in my lies (just kidding...I never, ever lie...well maybe three times in my life!), so a book like this really might give liars a heads up too.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


You know, I didn't think much about when I was told this but when someone has had too much to drink," they only had 2 drinks". Sure enough I heard "i only had 2 beers" or "only had a couple drinks". So there maybe something to people using the number 3.

reply to post by TheBirdisDone


Everyone lies. That's the real skill of interrogation Finding out where a person's "lie bone" is. Break down their value structure.