# If someone built a truth machine? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 12, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051 "2012-07-12T21:51:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![L.mo5rg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f475e1/32.png) [@L.mo5rg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/L.mo5rg)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/1 "2012-07-12T21:51:55Z")
What do you thing the world would be like if a perfect lie detector was built? If every job you did, you had to have been screened by a truth machine first? If in court a truth machine was used? What if this truth machine became commercially available in a portable version, so parents could check their kids? or couples could check each other? Do you think people would manage to deceive it, by only saying part of the truth? Would a machine like this (the portable version) be morally correct? Would the changes it causes be positive or negative? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/2 "2012-07-12T21:56:41Z")
Discussed numerous times around here. You can search past threads…or you can read the book: [The Truth Machine](http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Machine-ebook/dp/B000FC1KR0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342130130&sr=8-2&keywords=the+truth+machine), by James Halperin. ---
**Author:** ![L.mo5rg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f475e1/32.png) [@L.mo5rg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/L.mo5rg)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/3 "2012-07-12T21:59:29Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Discussed numerous times around here. You can search past threads…or you can read the book: [The Truth Machine](http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Machine-ebook/dp/B000FC1KR0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342130130&sr=8-2&keywords=the+truth+machine), by James Halperin. I read the book a while back but that’s just one person’s take on it. I’ll search for the other threads. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/4 "2012-07-12T22:43:24Z")
Without having read any of the referenced sources or earlier threads, I will make the obvious cynical prediction: Society would quickly be reduced to a flaming morass of chaos – just like all employers demanding all employees Facebook passwords only much more so. A whole new ethic would be needed – an ethic that ain’t gonna happen, and ain’t gonna work. There will be blood in the streets, until the machine is destroyed, or civilization is truthed back to the stone age, whichever comes first. It will be glorious! /signed/“The cynic in me” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/5 "2012-07-13T03:41:29Z")
I would say that successful people would become incredibly adept at half-truths and diplomatic emphases and delicate shades of truth. I can easily tell the truth and only the truth…but unless you allow me to speak uninterrupted for the next fifty years or so, I am not able to tell the “whole truth.” Just deciding where to _start_ telling the truth would allow for a great deal of influence on how my testimony would be perceived. If, however, the machine went further, and denied a person the ability to intend to deceive – then we become a society of insects and quickly stagnate, decaying in a long, sad spiral to racial extinction. Without the ability to deceive, the human social intellect cannot exist. And yes, that dress does make you look fat. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/6 "2012-07-13T04:04:25Z")
Somewhat related to the OP. It reminds me of one of the stupidest things I have ever read. Written by an academic judge or lawyer IIRC. They were against the use of a truth machine. Not because of civil rights or privacy issues. Not because of social problems it might cause. Not even because it might not be absolutely 100 percent accurate. No, such a thing would be bad because it would undermine the “sanctity of our jury system” or some such. Yeah, 12 random people basically making an educated guess is infinitely better than knowing what the hell actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/7 "2012-07-13T04:14:05Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I can easily tell the truth and only the truth…but unless you allow me to speak uninterrupted for the next fifty years or so, I am not able to tell the “whole truth.” IIRC, a great deal of it is about frogs. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/8 "2012-07-13T05:57:34Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > IIRC, a great deal of it is about frogs. What can I say? I like frogs. (Actually, I’m completely whooshed by your comment, and would love an explanation. But even in my ignorance, it’s funny…and I do like frogs. A “Truth Machine” would back me up on that. Brekekekekek.) ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-someone-built-a-truth-machine/628051/9 "2012-07-15T04:54:26Z")
I would probably make a killing teaching people to follow what I like to call the “Way of the Giant Space Weasel”, named for the putative path Obi-Wan Kenobi took through his Jedi training. While he never really outright _lies_, I’m pretty sure that at no point in any of six movies does he ever manage to tell any one person the entire unvarnished truth, particularly if they had to _ask_ him for it. I’d feel kind of dirty teaching people how to use psychology and logic as voodoo black magic, but I think lying around on giant bags of money would go a long way towards easing my tortured soul. **Trinopus** : It’s a _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ reference. Arthur once meets a man who had encountered the truth to the universe. He said he particularly liked the bit about the frogs. 🙂