I’ve had similar experiences. For me personally, in cases where:
The Technical Truth is not my business: go ahead and lie to me and/or omit sensitive details if possible.
— is a much more complex thing that I likely don’t have the foundational understanding to grasp: tell me a portion and then check for comprehension, if I fail that just say some vague ‘it’s complicated’ and give me some ideas of what to study if I really want to know.
— would probably be disturbing for me to know and I am not likely to be negatively affected by not knowing: You can lie to me or omit some details. Alternatively, ask me what reference classes of things I would want to not be informed about.
— would be likely to cause significant harm in my hands or the hands of those I would likely tell it to: obviously lie or omit.
After reflection, the situations where I would mind being lied to are when my future actions are contaminated by reliance on incorrect data. If the lie will not meaningfully affect my future actions I probably don’t care. Although obviously not feasible to accurately predict all possible future actions I might take and why, giving it your best guess is usually sufficient since most conversations are trivial and irrelevant, particularly small talk. As topic of conversation becomes more consequential, the importance of accuracy also increases.
I’ve had similar experiences.
For me personally, in cases where:
The Technical Truth is not my business: go ahead and lie to me and/or omit sensitive details if possible.
— is a much more complex thing that I likely don’t have the foundational understanding to grasp: tell me a portion and then check for comprehension, if I fail that just say some vague ‘it’s complicated’ and give me some ideas of what to study if I really want to know.
— would probably be disturbing for me to know and I am not likely to be negatively affected by not knowing: You can lie to me or omit some details. Alternatively, ask me what reference classes of things I would want to not be informed about.
— would be likely to cause significant harm in my hands or the hands of those I would likely tell it to: obviously lie or omit.
After reflection, the situations where I would mind being lied to are when my future actions are contaminated by reliance on incorrect data. If the lie will not meaningfully affect my future actions I probably don’t care. Although obviously not feasible to accurately predict all possible future actions I might take and why, giving it your best guess is usually sufficient since most conversations are trivial and irrelevant, particularly small talk.
As topic of conversation becomes more consequential, the importance of accuracy also increases.