4 ms·

Are not "intend to mislead" and lying synonyms? Misleading without intent may not be, but if you mislead with intent you are lying.

anonym29 4y ago
Lying? Of course not! It's just paid marketing for a sponsor's ideological position! /s
ptero 4y ago
I am not a native English speaker, so my cultural priors might be way off, but I think those two things are quite different. Lying is making statements that the speaker knows are false. An attempt to mislead is stressing some parts of the actual information and omitting or obfuscating other parts to promote a specific viewpoint. But not actually making false statements. This is literally what most of the layers do much of the time in court. To me, this is a much lesser evil, as a rational person can detect the spin and probe for missing parts, which is what the judge and opposing lawyers work on. Lying is a much bigger deal because it is harder to expose through rational exploration. Possible, but requires more external facts. In a court, a spin is a normal part of the defense, but being caught in a lie is likely to doom the case. My 2c.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > those two things are quite different. Your grasp of English seems fine, to me. I think your "quite different" distinction is incorrect. The distinction between lying and attempting to mislead isn't a clear one. There's a gradation from plain lying your face off, through mixing in a few truths with your lies, through lying by omission, through presenting true facts in such a way as to make the reader believe falsehoods. The tactic most-used by newspapers is lying by omission. Newspapers routinely "spike" stories that aren't aligned with the paper's political agenda. You can search the paper's output, and you won't find a direct lie; but a parallel search for truth will also fail. Truth is to be found in the gaps.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "The distinction between lying and attempting to mislead isn't a clear one." There is if you look up definitions. Lying involves falsehoods. You can mislead someone using selective truths without using falsehoods. That's why the article etc was about misleading, persuading, etc and not mentioning lying (aside from the commentor I originally responded to).
    - autoexec 4y ago
      Yep. Lies are not the same thing as being dishonest. You can use lies to be misleading, or manipulative, or dishonest but you don't need to, and it's usually more effective if you don't (or at least don't entirely). If someone can't see how a person could be misleading without lying they're going to fall for a lot of bullshit.
giantg2 4y ago
Then what distinction was being made? Knowingly providing an incomplete picture, focusing on one side, or selective editing are intended to misled. They are not "outright lies" nor "counter-factual".
1659447091 4y ago
The way I classify them is lying is "outright lies". "intend to mislead" is manipulation. The nuance between manipulation and lies is that manipulation usually distorts a collection of facts through rearrangement, omission or massaging those things to create a view that is not factual, which I think may also relate it as implicit lies. Lying is stating explicitly counter-factual things. I prefer the distinction of using manipulation over implicit lies as I think it communicates the narrower focused maliciousness of it, where lies don't always have that same level of "premeditation", for lack of a better term.
fortuna86 4y ago
No, there are several contractions here: > intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public persuasion is not misinforming is not misleading.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Hence why they're called out separately.
- autoexec 4y ago
  misleading and misinforming are often used to persuade, but it doesn't always require it.

anonym29 4y ago

Lying? Of course not! It's just paid marketing for a sponsor's ideological position! /s

ptero 4y ago

I am not a native English speaker, so my cultural priors might be way off, but I think those two things are quite different. Lying is making statements that the speaker knows are false. An attempt to mislead is stressing some parts of the actual information and omitting or obfuscating other parts to promote a specific viewpoint. But not actually making false statements. This is literally what most of the layers do much of the time in court. To me, this is a much lesser evil, as a rational person can detect the spin and probe for missing parts, which is what the judge and opposing lawyers work on. Lying is a much bigger deal because it is harder to expose through rational exploration. Possible, but requires more external facts. In a court, a spin is a normal part of the defense, but being caught in a lie is likely to doom the case. My 2c.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> those two things are quite different. Your grasp of English seems fine, to me. I think your "quite different" distinction is incorrect. The distinction between lying and attempting to mislead isn't a clear one. There's a gradation from plain lying your face off, through mixing in a few truths with your lies, through lying by omission, through presenting true facts in such a way as to make the reader believe falsehoods. The tactic most-used by newspapers is lying by omission. Newspapers routinely "spike" stories that aren't aligned with the paper's political agenda. You can search the paper's output, and you won't find a direct lie; but a parallel search for truth will also fail. Truth is to be found in the gaps.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "The distinction between lying and attempting to mislead isn't a clear one." There is if you look up definitions. Lying involves falsehoods. You can mislead someone using selective truths without using falsehoods. That's why the article etc was about misleading, persuading, etc and not mentioning lying (aside from the commentor I originally responded to).
  - autoexec 4y ago
    Yep. Lies are not the same thing as being dishonest. You can use lies to be misleading, or manipulative, or dishonest but you don't need to, and it's usually more effective if you don't (or at least don't entirely). If someone can't see how a person could be misleading without lying they're going to fall for a lot of bullshit.

giantg2 4y ago

Then what distinction was being made? Knowingly providing an incomplete picture, focusing on one side, or selective editing are intended to misled. They are not "outright lies" nor "counter-factual".

1659447091 4y ago

The way I classify them is lying is "outright lies". "intend to mislead" is manipulation. The nuance between manipulation and lies is that manipulation usually distorts a collection of facts through rearrangement, omission or massaging those things to create a view that is not factual, which I think may also relate it as implicit lies. Lying is stating explicitly counter-factual things. I prefer the distinction of using manipulation over implicit lies as I think it communicates the narrower focused maliciousness of it, where lies don't always have that same level of "premeditation", for lack of a better term.

fortuna86 4y ago

No, there are several contractions here: > intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public persuasion is not misinforming is not misleading.

giantg2 4y ago
Hence why they're called out separately.
autoexec 4y ago
misleading and misinforming are often used to persuade, but it doesn't always require it.