A Beautiful Lie

[Mister Agenda]

A beautiful lie, to the Gestapo: 'No, there are certainly no Jews here! We'll definitely call you at once if we see any!'

[Spongebob]

I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful lies that people tell, sometimes with good intent and others not. But I don't think its ever bad to question such a lie. I think its actually good practice to question them and to question almost everything. I don't regard hopes or stretch goals to be a lie, but rather challenges that require extraordinary effort to attain. I enjoy picking apart such lies and examining their flaws. Even if it is a lie, there might still be some good to come of it or some good ideas involved.

One example of what I would call a "beautiful lie" is the practice some religious leaders have that if you follow such and such rules or believe such and such with all your heart that magical things will happen. You will attain great wealth, be assured of health and happiness. So on and so forth. These are somewhat well intentioned lies but they are absolutely lies and not worthy of acceptance. Depending on how good the purveyor of the lie is, they can be almost hypnotizing in their allure.

The truly interesting question for me is why some people so readily accept such lies and why they fail to question things that are obviously intended to manipulate and exploit them.

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That's just it, the lie is beautiful to the ones who want to believe in it, but to others, who see it's a lie, it's not beautiful.

I didn't consider this aspect in my first response.  Yes, we are all quite familiar with such situations, particularly with Trump, the right wing, corona...so forth.  And I understand you appear to be saying that whoever questions the lie is the bad person expressly because they are questioning it.  This is a psychological question and brings into focus the entire field of group think, in group vs out group, security and probably a host of psychological issues I know little about.  I do know that people tend to believe what makes them feel comfortable in the world and reject information that contradicts that "framework".  This is a huge reason that Christian indoctrination sticks to well.

[Jehanne]

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

"Not at all, darlin."  :-x

Dresses/skirts rarely make people look fat; I speak from experience here.

[Nomad]

A beautiful dream can have a life of its own, to inspire and change.

The thing is, anyone can have such a dream - the question is whether it is achievable, and whether the dreamer has the ability to turn it into reality.

Musk has shown that he can make his dreams reality.  Sure, it makes no sense right now to set up colonies on Mars, as they can't be self-sustaining.  They will always be a huge money-sink, and eventually the colonies will be abandoned.  But, perhaps that can be solved one day.  I'll take the ability for humans to get to different rocks in the Solar System as a huge win.  We will let others figure out how to make money off such travel (asteroid mining, tourism, etc.).

A hundred years ago Musk would have been touring hick towns selling snake oil. These days being a welfare queen* is far more profitable.

*Given the billions ingovernment subsidies his companies get this is accurate.

[The L]

Lies are always ugly. One knows this.

"I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.“ — Bertrand Russell 1920s