Lying, by Sam Harris torrent

Albeit with tongue in cheek, Mark Twain once wrote: \\\"No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our circumstance--the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without saying.\\\"

Well, Sam Harris begs to differ. And differ he does, with an impassioned, straight-shooting argument not only that lies are \\\"the social equivalent of toxic waste,\\\" but also that each of us is capable of, and would benefit from, a life led free of the lie.

Harris takes his time defining and stratifying types of lies--from adultery to government cover-ups to the seemingly innocuous little white lie--but insists that at any scale, a lie \\\"condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act.\\\" Worse, the gravest danger is the liar\\\'s inability to contain its effects; when we gamble on deception, we can\\\'t anticipate how far the lie will spread, and thus we limit the informed decision-making of who knows how many others.

Conversely, Harris argues, even if we\\\'re motivated only selfishly, lying less frees us to trust others more. And that\\\'s the truth.