Tags: non-fiction literature-notes –

One Sentence Summary

Untruth existed for a long time and there’s nothing new about mind boggling nonsense that affected (negatively) the history of mankind. Phillips (2020)

Personal remarks:

• A book that wants to be funny or maybe it is but I didn’t get it,
• Vulgar language so common these days, it seems required when you want to be profound but have no solid footing.

Key Takeaways

• The greatest worry about the idea of fake news isn’t actually that people believe false news - it’s that they stop believing real news (p. 266)

Miscellaneous Notes

• There’s an extremely limited number of ways of being right and an almost infinite number of ways to be wrong.
• St. Augustine (395 AD) identified eight types of lies:
  1. Lies in religious teaching
  2. Lies that harm others and help no one
  3. Lies that harm others and help some one
  4. Lies told for the pleasure of lying
  5. Lies told to please others in smooth discourse
  6. Lies that harm no one and that help someone materially
  7. Lies that harm no one and that help someone spiritually
  8. Lies that harm no one and that protect someone materially
• A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is still getting its boots on.
• Con artists exploited the state of their time and country:
  • Mac Gregor exploited British weakness
  • Demarca exploited American weakness
  • Gromov exploited Soviet’s oppressive ideology and bureaucracy
  • Humbert exploited French’s legal system
• Con artists find weakness in people and society at large, and exploit weakness by utilizing their:
  • Natural charm
  • Fake credentials
  • High social status

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. - Harry G Frankfurt

We have reason to fear that multitude of books which grows everyday will make the following centuries fall into a state as barbarous as that of the centuries that followed the fall of Roman Empire. - Written in 1685 by French Scholar Adrien Baillet

Truth had ever one father but lies a 1000 men’s bastards. - Montaigne

If falsehood had one face, we should be upon better terms. But the reverse of truth has 100000 forms without bound or limit.

Note to Self: Considering current times, the number of books and mass media, the situation is a lot worse today. Also, no country has fallen as Roman Empire did… So it’s a lot worse but global dynamics also evolved.

References