Page 150 - SurprisingTruthFinal

The Surprising Truth About Lying
He wasn't a hero or a leader; he was the Warden of
the Spark, which basically meant he was the jailer who
kept humanity quiet enough to survive.
Everyone knew his name and his past. They all
learned in school the fundamental truth: the world
only works because Henry Talbot put a necessary lie
(The Filter Protocol) into the cosmic system. They
didn't forgive him for it; they just tolerated him as a
necessary evil.
The new social contract was a strange, functional
compromise. The city below was running on
Functional Honesty, enough truth to act, enough
illusion to hope.
He watched the mechanics of the TTS in action.
The Power Grid Lie (The Optimism Fiction): A crew
was out fixing dangerous power lines. Henry knew the
system had only a 35% chance of long-term success. In
the old, honest world, they'd have run away. But under
the 2% Rule, public reports always had to include a
guaranteed, non-negotiable 2% chance of total success.
That small white lie was the reason they kept working
and paid their bills.
The Dating Lie (Social Grace Fiction): A young
couple walked by, smiling and holding hands. Under
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