"Why We Lie" by David L. Smith - great read

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Just found out about this great PhD author/thinker, David Livingstone Smith, and his recent book "Why We Lie". Google it.
Smith talks about how lying is an evolutionary force, and those who are too honest are basically casualties of the evolutionary cycle. He doesn't mention Aspergers as far as I know (I just read excerpts online, not the actual book!) but it certainly puts things in perspective. We have had to struggle to tell white lies or nuanced half-truths etc which don't seem logical to our way of thinking. Smith does mention that lies are used to get social capital and tribal acceptance. Of course, with institutions like religion, and indoctrination therein (e.g. Catholic School), that puts an interesting variable into the mix. Some people become brutally honest through religious and spiritual beliefs, but others use it to exploit the masses by spouting big lies.

part of the reason i'm a hermit out in the woods, is that having to tell people lies just to keep the peace, just got too hard, having to keep track of all those lies.

I find that only people who are dishonest find it acceptable to lie to people. And the very same people also (I find) are the first to shun religious thinking and ways. Why? Because they're lawless, illogical, and willfully deceptive to get their way. And when they don't get their way they point fingers and make false accusations.

It's a viscious cycle in modern "normality" and they don't want to be wrong, so they make it ok to lie.
Well, it's not ok to lie, plain and simple, lying/deception only serves to hurt everyone around you, and when it finally comes full circle, it will bite the liar in the a** one way or another. Do they care about the consequences? Of course not, and that's partly what makes them lawless. Meanwhile, everyone they've lied to has to pay the price.

I don't like to lie to anyone so I just try to avoid and find an exit out. The worst kind of liar that I met was one who kept everything "vague" and acted like he told me something he did not. He wasn't really lieing but when you looked at the context or the exact words that were spoken then there was quite a discrepancy between what was actually said and what he said. Example: He butt dialed ex gf ....she asked you called? or did you call? he said he didnt remember ....she got upset because she got a voicemail .....he goes off later saying "my phone was in my pocket and it accidently dialed Sue and she got sooooo mad" The first thing you think is "who gets mad over something silly like that" Well, his friends think that and they tell him he deserves a better girl. One thing he did to me was tell his friends "I told her I never wanted to see her again and she later goes off on me because she couldn't handle rejection" well the truth was he pretended to not know who i was, pretended to be another person on the phone, to "show" me that he didn't want to see me again without actually saying it. Not only that, but he kept it vague...just a name so he could argue his way out. Say something like I dont think I did that, I dont remember doing that, I didnt do that.....now its a well we all know you are crazy (because I ended up checking myself into the ER and was diagnosed with post traumatic)