# Hey Liberal, Cite Requests aren't Accusations of Lying **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 6, 2008, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495 "2008-02-06T07:48:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/21 "2008-02-06T23:32:34Z")
Borderline personalities “discussing” philosophy on an ailing message board is not going to improve with the addition of citations. Especially when most people think a cite means “I’ve linked to a blog that I can’t be bothered to read.” ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/22 "2008-02-06T23:36:59Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Of course making shit up equals lying! When has it ever not? [/QUOTE] Um, when it’s invention, such as a novel. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/23 "2008-02-06T23:44:13Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Of course making shit up equals lying! When has it ever not? Sometimes your oppositionality is truly inspired. [/QUOTE] Lying implies you are purposing trying to distort something. When discussing an interpretation of a philosophy, it’s entirely possible to believe that one’s own interpretation is correct, or that one may think one knows more about a subject than one actually does. “Making shit up”, in the context of that discussion, would be a good way to describe someone talking about something that he has little or no knowledge-- or inadequate or mistaken knowledge. That is not lying. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2008, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/24 "2008-02-06T23:58:50Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] Oh, for Pete’s’s sake - of course it does. Especially when he later goes on with My bolding. In the context of the thread, who do you think he was talking about there? [/QUOTE] He’s talking about you, who in an earlier post called him a liar. Which you did. So, after you called him a liar, he called you out on it. For Pete’s sake indeed… ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/25 "2008-02-07T00:30:05Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] He’s talking about you, who in an earlier post called him a liar. Which you did. [/QUOTE] Where? The only place I can see where lying is mentioned by **MrDibble** is where he explicitly denies even _implying_ such a thing. And then, bizarrely, gets told off for it. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/26 "2008-02-07T00:35:30Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Of course making shit up equals lying! When has it ever not? [/QUOTE] Well what if what you make up just happens to be correct? The fact that you made it up does not mean it is a lie. Seems to me a lie must be intentionally false. If you ask me how many beans are in a jar and I just make up a number off the top of my head which happens to coincide with the actual number of beans, have I lied? Maybe I wanted to lie but the fact that I was unintentionally correct has prevented the lie…it’s turtles all the way down… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/27 "2008-02-07T00:42:25Z")
We’ve been through this. If you make something up and assert that you know it to be so, it is a lie, even if your made-up thing later turns out to be correct. If you couch your made-up thing in verbiage that a resaonable person would construe as an invitation to assume that you are asserting that you know it to be so, it’s still deceptive, still a lie. ETA: I’m not getting into the question of **Lib** ’s interpretation of Sartre’s words. Or whether he’s justified in feeling piled-on in that thread. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/28 "2008-02-07T01:36:03Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] If you couch your made-up thing in verbiage that a resaonable person would construe as an invitation to assume that you are asserting that you know it to be so, it’s still deceptive, still a lie. [/QUOTE] I agree that such an implication would be deceptive but I am talking about the truth value of the statement " There are X beans in the jar". If there are X beans in the jar then that statement is not a lie. Perhaps your implication is false but the statement itself is not. A true statement cannot be a lie. The fact that you make a true statement does not mean you are not being deceptive. Nor does it mean that the some total (both verbal and non-verbal) of what you are trying to communicate is not a lie. The verbal statement is true (X beans) the non-verbal implication (I counted them) is false. BTW just because you’ve done this before does not mean we all have… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495/29 "2008-02-07T05:38:41Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] He’s talking about you, who in an earlier post called him a liar. Which you did. So, after you called him a liar, he called you out on it. For Pete’s sake indeed… [/QUOTE] Cite? Are you perhaps referring to: [QUOTE=Me] Sorry, missed the edit window - Lib,you know as well as I that the bolded bit is not true. I think you meant to type “need not” instead. “precedes” can very well mean “happens before” or “to come, exist, or occur before in time” and you know it. [/QUOTE] That wasn’t an accusation of lying, that was an accusation of playing semantics . As \*\*Lib \*\*very well knew, since his “making shit up” reference was specifically to my call for a cite, not to the above quote. I never accused **Lib** of lying in that thread. I _did_ say he had no basis (outside his own head) for his interpretation of Sartre’s words. That’s not lying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-liberal-cite-requests-arent-accusations-of-lying/436495.md?page=1)