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I could not live without lying.
I'm British.
(Laughter)
If you ask me how I am,
I will always say, "I'm fine."
I could have just stubbed my toe.
I could have lost all my money
on cryptocurrency.
(Laughter)
But don't worry, I'm fine.
It's not just us.
Absolutely no one on this planet
could live without lying.
Imagine telling the truth
when your doctor asks you
how much alcohol you drink.
(Laughter)
In a week,
on average.
I'll give you a figure,
but it will be my weekend average.
I told you, I'm British.
We drink our alcohol in pint glasses.
If you don't know what a pint glass is,
it's the glass you can fit your fist into.
Lying is useful.
It can keep us in denial
of our responsibilities.
It can help us avoid protracted
conversations we don't want to have.
Sometimes lying is the right thing to do.
God forbid you should ever find me
underneath the wheels of a bus.
For goodness sake,
do not tell me the truth.
Tell me for a fact you know
that I'm going to be okay.
(Laughter)
Don't accurately list all the bones
in my body that are broken.
Tell me that I am going to make it
to watch the next "Avatar" movie.
(Laughter)
Give me hope.
We tend to think of lying
as something bad people do
to manipulate us when they want us
to believe something that isn't true.
When most of the time
for the day-to-day lies,
it's just nice, ordinary people lying
because in that moment
it's easier than telling the truth.
For example,
"Oh, I'll be there in five minutes."
(Laughter)
When you haven't left
the house yet, have you?
(Laughter)
Or, this is a good one,
"I've read the terms and conditions."
(Laughter)
No one reads the terms and conditions.
I've got a three-year-old
and a five-year-old.
Kids that age, I don't know why,
they don't like to brush their teeth.
So to get my kids
to brush their teeth, I say,
"Do you want me
to throw your iPad in the bin?
Do you want me to put it in the bin?"
It's a lie, I'm not going to put
their iPad in the bin.
But there's two stereotypes
about British people.
One about the state of our teeth.
(Laughter)
And one about the state
of our drinking, OK.
I only want them to fall
into one of those stereotypes.
(Laughter)
So I lie to get them
to brush their teeth, and it works.
And of course, it's a lie.
I'm not going to put the iPad in the bin.
No warranty will give me my money back
because my kids are naughty.
And it's my iPad.
I think the trick is,
is to ask this question: am I lying
for my good or for someone else's good?
I wrote a children's book about lies.
I combed history for lies
that are well established as untrue,
because I wanted to find that line
between the kind of lie we tell every day,
and the kind of lie we'd like
to distance ourselves from.
The kind of lie that you
might tell a bride when you say,
"I love the bridesmaid dress you chose.
It's just my color."
It's hideous.
But that's a good lie.
It's not about you.
It's about the bride, it's her day.
She should have the dresses she wants.
Or the kind of lie you tell
to the elderly billionaire
you're about to marry
when you say you love them.
(Laughter)
That's a bad lie.
(Laughter)
You should not get married for money.
You should get married
for a Netflix password.
(Laughter)
I think it's the selfish lies
we need to deal with, OK?
The kind of lies
that might make people money.
The kind of lies that might harm others.
The kind of lies
that might win people votes.
We need to get better at distinguishing
between the acceptable lies
and the unacceptable lies.
And the way to do this
is to get fib literate.
Want to be qualified in fibs?
Ask yourself this question:
when you're given the opportunity to lie,
or when you've been given
information and you're not sure it's true,
ask yourself who will benefit.
Some examples.
You get home late, you're tired.
Your partner was supposed
to put the bins out.
They have not.
Worse, they're going to go out
and you're going to have
to do the job yourself.
And before they leave,
they ask you, "Are you mad?"
You're furious, you're incensed,
but you say, "I'm not mad."
That could be a good lie, OK.
They can take the bins out next week.
It's not a big deal.
You're furious because you're tired.
It's not a big deal, that's a good lie.
Who benefits from that lie?
Both of you in that relationship.
Another example.
You've gone out with your friend,
you've gone to the club.
Your friend has driven.
Whilst in the club,
they've drunk five pints ...
Of wine.
(Laughter)
On the way out of the club,
they say, "I'm good to drive.
It's OK, it's a short drive.
We barely have to do two right turns.
It's not a problem, I'll get you home."
That is a bad lie.
Who's going to benefit from that lie?
Nobody, that could harm others.
The key to fib literacy
is to apply the question,
“Who will benefit?” to any scenario.
Take the mortgage crisis.
Who benefited when lenders believed
what the borrowers were telling them?
Who benefited when everyone believed
the lenders when they acted British
and said, "Oh, we're fine.
Nothing to see here."
The lies were building up
like dirty laundry
until the stench became too bad to ignore.
Or take smoking.
Who benefited when they lied
about our ill health?
They made smoking
look so cool with their lies.
Imagine that picture of Audrey Hepburn
in that iconic picture
from "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
with a vape.
(Laughter)
We wouldn't change
that cigarette for anything.
But it was still a bad lie.
The act of lying is a necessity
that we need to use,
and it's an act of social grace.
"Oh, I love that present you bought me.
Thank you."
"Your cooking tastes delicious."
We're actually very skillful in deceit.
What we need to get more skillful in
is determining the difference
between the acceptable
and unacceptable lie.
We cannot vaccinate ourselves from lies.
But by asking the question,
“Who will benefit?”
we can build resilience to deception.
I feel very bad to tell you all
that we're all on the lying train.
But the question is,
are you going to get off on the good stop
or the bad stop?
You're right not to lie,
that was a terrible analogy.
It was terrible, I'm sorry.
But you get what I mean.
And I'd like to take this moment
to say this is an absolute honor.
Thank you, TED,
for giving me the greatest
moment of my life.
(Cheers and applause)
No, no, no, sit down.
Sit down, love, that was a lie.
(Laughter)
I'm sorry, it wasn't
the greatest moment of my life.
Do you want to know what the greatest
moment of my life was or still is?
Do you want to know what
the greatest moment of my life is?
Once, I got given a hotel breakfast
for free.
(Laughter)
It was a pretty good moment.
Pretty good moment.
But this comes close.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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