Page 104 - SurprisingTruthFinal

The Surprising Truth About Lying
“Fiction 2: The Social Grace Fiction. All personal
speech below a threshold of verifiable material
consequence (e.g., complimenting a dress, expressing
gratitude, asking ‘how are you’) shall be legally exempt
from the Mandate, recognizing that social lubricant
requires the right to omission.
“Fiction 3: The Marital Fiction. All relationships
based on emotional covenant (marriage, life
partnership, parental status) shall be granted a legally
enforced black box of privacy, acknowledging that
intimacy requires the shared right to protect each other
from painful, non-actionable truths.
Henry looked at his stunned audience. "The old
world allowed every politician to lie about a 98%
failure rate. I'm only demanding they publish the 2%
success rate, just enough to justify the first step
forward. We make the lies visible, necessary, and
minimal. We save the species by giving it a controlled
dosage of illusion."
Lina dropped the circuit board she was holding. It
clattered loudly on the concrete floor. She looked at the
paper in Henry’s hand, her face a storm of disgust.
“You’ve gone insane,” Lina spat. “You were the one
who taught us that the difference between the two
percent and the ninety-eight percent was the entire
104