[charleshmorse]

Good points, and I am not advocating sweeping lies in every instance. There's also the assumption that lies always take on a negative form, there are many positive forms of lies. The most obvious example being white lies in conversation to not insult people, when the truth can only be interpreted as insulting (the 'Do I Look Fat In This?' Dilemma).

And then there is also the consideration of the lies lifespan. If the effect of a lie is momentary, its residual effects could only last mere moments, instead of continuously into perpetuity (the ripples of water from a rock thrown into a pond only last for so long). It's chain of causality could die-off - now continuous lying is another matter all together.

My points in this blurb merely show that a rational economic member of society should use lies in some cases; for it is a best response in many common instances - but of course not all and, if avoidable, not for the wrong reasons.

[insoluble]

I certainly understand your point about certain things having insignificant effects. Positive actions too can be insignificant. There is a certain noise level which makes the little things inaudible. On another note, everything a person does, bad or good, should be understood in terms of magnitude. For this reason, the use of derogatory labels over categorical actions can be very harmful to society.

A fair part of what you are referring to seems to be a cultural thing. From what I have heard, in places like the UK and Japan, white lies are often considered polite. But in places like Germany, white lies may be considered rude and inconsiderate. The "Does this make me look fat?" is a curious classic example of a white lie solicitation. Perhaps it's something of a game with an understood message of "Do you love me enough to tell me what I want to hear?". It could also be rephrased as "I'm feeling hungry. Would you kindly feed my ego?".

Back in the day I knew a compulsive liar who for each new person he would meet would make up a new and elaborate backstory of himself and his friends. The majority of what he would lie about could be considered white lies since they were primarily for showing off or for entertaining. The harm may be small, but it nevertheless does exist: A person's worldview and understanding of reality is based in part on the stories he or she comes across. By being exposed to false tales, his victims were being given a false account of reality, which is almost guaranteed not to help them in the long run. They were investing time into learning a lie.

A similar phenomenon which occurs in the tech world is when someone who happened upon lucky fame goes on to tell everyone else how to make it big quickly -- but happens to leave out the details of the 10 failed startups and any uncertainty in the current undertaking. This gives people a false account of reality, which is sure to lead more people down bad paths than good ones.

Another case, which has been scarily common is when someone who was supposedly diagnosed with cancer or something tries some random remedy, sees a remission six months later and goes on to write a bunch of blog posts or even a book about this miracle cure -- but then you never hear from the person again. Hmm, one has to wonder, did the cancer really go away like this person told everyone? Or did the person speak too soon, and now out of shame avoids telling everyone that the advice was unfounded after all. I would like to believe that the harm here is obvious.

The three examples above have two things in common: They all involve a person trying to gain more popularity and self esteem; and they all involve implicitly giving others bad advice about life and reality. Hence, the liar gains while the greater society suffers.

BTW: I appreciate that you have brought up this overall topic. On many sites it is very difficult to find worthwhile discourse on important social topics.