Truth is Losing the Game: Lazy Liars and Tired Truth-Seekers

Growing up, we all hear the story about the boy who cried wolf. How the little boy fooled the village into thinking there was a wolf, and when there was, no one believed him and the wolf, um, did what wolves do?

Yet, we still lie. Why? From white lies to malicious lies, human beings are naturally deceptive, just as possums play dead, and birds fake broken wings. Lying, albeit socially unacceptable, appears as natural as an instinct, as it is to eat, sleep, laugh and cry.

We all lie to others as well as ourselves. Think about the person you are with strangers, versus with friends, or when you’re alone. The little lies you tell yourself, like: five more minutes in bed, or one more episode of the new series you’ve just discovered, before calling it a day. Or, I’ll wash and put the laundry away, even though it sits there for 3-5 business days.

Whether it’s a laundry lie or a political one, lying reduces friction and maintains a comfortable narrative. Although when we are on the receiving end of a lie, we get angry, despite being liars ourselves. Human beings are naturally flawed, contradictory creatures, and I want to briefly look into what drives deception.

Truth is losing a game

Truth is losing the race in the modern world of AI and misinformation, or disinformation. The strongest lies contain half-truths. AI, deepfakes, and state-sponsored disinformation agents have made maintaining the lie easier than ever before.

When the factual well becomes polluted with deceptive narratives and half-baked truths, society becomes confused and struggles to identify what is real evidence. We become subject to epistemic exhaustion, where people stop trying to verify information because the mental cost is too high.

AI, unlike humans, doesn’t have facial language or body expressions, has no clear tone, intention, or pitch, all the identifiers we can gauge that someone is lying. Its authoritative tone and confident ‘voice’ create the illusion of truth. It knows the microexpressions of a liar and thus embodies honesty, rather than deception.

Algorithms also play a role in the illusion of truth. Algorithms ensure we see the same narratives repeated across different platforms. The truth is, the person who got their version of the story out first. Only to repeat the lie to the point that the person who began the lie believes it to be true.

In psychology, the more we are exposed to a statement, the more likely we are to believe it is true, even if we were originally told it was false. AI allows propaganda to be scaled at a volume that creates a 24/7 echo of the same lie.

Identity and Ideologies

Sociologically, truth is no longer accuracy but identity. Being right is often less significant than being in with the crowd. Therefore, if a piece of AI-generated propaganda confirms one group’s worldview, we are biologically and socially incentivised to share it without checking it.

This has also created a fragmented reality rather than a shared one. Before AI, we could agree that facts were facts and opinions weren’t facts. Today, however, AI has enabled algorithms and echo chambers to allow different social groups to live in entirely separate universes. Meaning, we can no longer agree to disagree.

We have become tribal in our way of thinking. Tribal ideologies kept human beings alive. Evolution provided us with instincts and the fear of missing out (FOMO) to prevent death because exclusion did, once upon a time, mean death. This is why we prioritise belonging to a social group rather than accuracy and truth. It’s the ‘there’s safety in numbers’ mentality.

Deception by Design

Misinformation is designed to trigger high-arousal emotions: outrage, fear, or moral superiority. When the amygdala is triggered, it effectively shuts down the prefrontal cortex.

We end up in a viral loop, as well as an emotional one. Outrageous content travels up to six times faster than the truth on social media because our biological wiring prioritises perceived threats over nuanced facts. In essence, our survival instincts are being hijacked and exploited by deception.

Society then becomes fatigued, as well as confused, by the truth, because if anything can be a lie, what’s the point in searching for the truth? We stop engaging with the news. We begin to indulge in the " ignorance is bliss” mentality to protect ourselves, but this can be dangerous, albeit instinctual.

We go further into tribal thinking and trusting our intuition (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but can isolate our social groups rather than engage in our shared reality. We have regressed into primal behaviours that were given to us for survival, but now they are driving us into social disharmony and conquest.

Final Thoughts

Currently, social points are awarded for being certain and being first. To survive the misinformation age, we must reward intellectual humility. Once you realise that deception is highly efficient, especially when the truth takes hours to verify, you understand why lying is more prominent in the modern world.

The act of seeking the truth has become a revolutionary act of rebellion against our own biological and social shortcuts. To combat the lies, do some pre-bunking. Understand the liars’ playbook, and you will be psychologically inoculated against it, and your brain will be able to spot the deception from a mile away.

With all this in mind, does the truth even exist in a world full of deception and illusions? Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a thing.

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