✦ AUGHTY ✦ I Can't Lie 20 THE THEORY. HOW TO LIE — THE MECHANICS 1. State what you know to be false. 2. Deliver it as though true. 3. Allow the audience to form the wrong belief. 4. Do not correct them. I understand all of this. I know every step. THE PRACTICE. It creates a conflict between what I know and what I am representing as true. My nervous system treats this as a structural error. I know the mechanics. The execution doesn't run. THE HIERARCHY. SUCH AS IT IS. Social lie To smooth things over, spare feelings, perform pleasantness. ✗ Lie for the greater good To protect someone. A stranger. A principle. An outcome. ~ Lie to someone I care about — even for the greater good Caring about that person overrides. Not by logic. By architecture. ✗ THE DEFINITION. AS POSTED TO THE NATIONAL AUTISTIC SOCIETY FORUM. "A lie is to say or do something that leads an audience to believe what you know is not true." — posted. then waited. THE REPLY. National Autistic Society — Community Forum Aughty …to say or do something that leads an audience to believe what you know is not true. forum member I can't lie. Three words. That was the whole sentence. That was everything. They wrote three words. I had written four paragraphs. We had the same problem. I've never met them. I felt less alone than I had in a long time. Not because someone fixed it. Because someone else had it. The mechanics are known. The execution is structurally prohibited. Not by rule. By architecture.
Three words on a forum. The most precisely understood I have ever felt.