How to lie to authority figures

Step 6 Don't get caught

If you get caught, never tell the truth. Make up another lie or tell a half-truth that isn't as bad and would have forced you to make up the original lie. The goal is to distract them from the real truth and keep yourself out of trouble.

Comments

[ayelvington]

OK, you need help. Lying is never a good option. Even a partial truth is safer. Secondly, lying never (read my lips: never) ends up making things better. It sounds like your life is circling the drain, so get help

[pbossum]

There are plenty of authority figures you are going to need to lie to in order to walk out of school with good grades and intact mental health.

At least if you are not very lucky with your teachers.

[wenpherd]

what if your lying to save somones life.

[Vaxinius]

This article is very specific, i think we all know its not a good idea to make a habit of lying in our daily lives. I rest my case on the first picture of this article which is really the type of scenario w1 is referring to. Would you really tell a nazi officer that you hid a radio from their inspectors? Of course not, you'd get your peepee slapped in a seriously bad way.

[dla888]

A nazi would shoot you!

[DeusExMach]

How can something be a partial truth?

[Frank H.]

Otherwise known as a white lie.

The White Lie:
Parent: Where did you go?
You: To the park.
Parent: What did you do?
You: Skipped rocks with my fellows, etc...

The Truth:
You went to the park to smoke weed with your bros and you guys thought it would be hilarious to throw rocks at ducks.

That was a hypothetical situation conceived as I wrote it. Oh, it seems I'm replying to a post from 3 years ago. How's about that.

[Mirime]

Ok the one day my mom asked me if i had seen a certian object of my sister i said nope wich was true but tecnicly i was to looking out for it so i sort of lied but still to the truth

or this from grandma

her sister called(sister loved to talk for a long time) grandma told mom to put a potato in the oven so after 10 mins. grandma told her sister that she had something in the oven and needed to go.

[CrackWilding]

You're either Colonel Sanders or a liar yourself. Which is it?

[shmacky26]

That guy made me so hungry for chicken.

[Weissensteinburg]

Of course you would say that. When someone is good at lying, you don't know it. Therefore, it's impossible to tell whether or not what made things better was a lie.

[randofo]

I challenge you to show me one person who is truthful 100% of the time. Anyone who claims they don't lie is the biggest liar of them all. Like it or not, we all lie. Also, a partial truth is a lie. You are still making a false statement. You wouldn't tell your wife you only partially lied about cheating on her. A false or misleading statement is a false or misleading statement, no matter how much truth you inject into it.

[Yerboogieman]

what if its like, your talking to your friend and he asks if you smoke sheesha and you say i cant say whether i do or don't.

[benthekahn]

true...

[cprocjr]

actually lying does sometimes make things better, but most of the time your right it and it does make it worse.

[zachninme]

*cough*
w1n5t0n's instructables have nothing to do with Cory Doctrow's new book, Little Brother.

[Chouette2011]

ZOMG no way ha ha he links to his Instructables account on the first page of the book.

[Tool Using Animal]

Really? I'll have to spend some time reading it. Is it any good?

[whatsisface]

It's alright, although targeted at a younger demographic than yourself.

[spyguy99]

Its very good. He came to my school and I got a signed copy. :)

[spyguy99]

Exactly. No relation at all, unless we start seeing Instructables from m1k3y. *eyeshift*

[Labot2001]

I do agree with you. But just to clear things up, the user who wrote this instructable isn't actually a real person; he's based on a character in a particular book.

Just to clear things up =]

[Quickeagle]

what? lying has always helped me, even in small things that don't seem worth lying about.

[Uncaray]

You people are amateurs. First off, suppose you are living under an illegitimate kleptocracy which has turned your constitutional democracy into a coast to coast prison for all but the elite, and you have sworn to return freedom to your suffering fellow citizens or die in the attempt. Your duty is not to perform a useless martyrdom for the cause but to win. That being the case you will have to lie and lie well to survive. 1. Know your story and know it well, be able to recite it having been just awakened at 3 am with a boot on your neck and a gun in your face. 2. The Stasi, or the FBI, or whatever they are currently calling themselves are professionals, they get lied to by experts every day. See to it that the details you present back up your story. If you are attempting to "pass" as a member of the Elite then wear expensive clothes, have the phone numbers of the local Party Bigwigs, and the most expensive whorehouse in town in your pocket pal, and behave with arrogant authority. 3. If you are someplace you shouldn't be, act as if you own the place. Treat the security guards like wallpaper. Bark orders to underlings. 4. Don't lie until you must. Aside from your duty as an agent of the resistance you must be a scrupulously honest person. Habitual liars have a recognizable haze of bullshit about them that twangs police antennae like a guitar string. 5. "Be" the person you are playing at. Know his unconscious gestures, wear him like a suit of clothes, and yes "believe" you are him, telling the truth to the point of righteous indignation that anyone would doubt you. Schizophrenia is one of the side effects of this game that Agents must contend with habitually. 6. If you are not the kind of person who can face death and torture with a cool head and a smile then consider taking up gardening instead. Sweaty palms, quick glances at the exit, and dilating pupils of fear are only some of the "giveaways" security police are trained to look for. I make no claims for the outcome of confrontations with authority in which you use the above suggestions.

[toshimarise]

Here are three additional tips that can help:

1) When speaking in generalities, give a couple of specific details *that ARE true*- specifics are usually the only things that get fact-checked, and can lend credibility to the entire tale. For example, you are late to work because you overslept and hate your job anyway. Your story: your cat was sick and you took it to the vet. Corroborating detail: your cat has asthma and takes steroids to control it; these stupid tiny white pills. (Only works if you do in fact have an asthmatic cat, of course.)

2) Cultivate a reputation as a terrible liar. Make up some really obvious tell, like blinking a lot or scratching your nose or neck, and make sure everyone has a chance to see you using it in a harmless context. Then when you really need to lie, abandon the tell. Even people who aren't consciously aware of it will tend to register you as truthful.

3) I disagree with the eye-contact advice here. Very few people will make direct eye contact with an angry authority figure until commanded to do so. Full eye-contact is usually perceived as aggressive, especially if your body language is off because you're nervous. While they're talking, I recommend a neutral point between your shoes and their eyes- a desk is usually a good option. Then when they command you to look at them when they are talking, you can comply without too much trouble. When giving your lie, return your eyes to the desktop and only make eye contact every couple of words or when making a major point.

Finally, one advanced strategy (Heinlein's favorite): Tell the truth, maybe even the whole truth, but so unconvincingly that no one will believe you. This can be combined with the false tell for extra verisimilitude. For example, if you are late to work due to oversleep, you could confess to the truth while giving your false tell and looking shifty- combined with wearing yesterday's clothes, maybe giving yourself a hickey that's *almost* covered by your shirt, it's fairly straightforward to plant the idea that you hooked up with someone last night and came in late for more exciting reasons.