Ancestors

Written by comex on 2025-01-16 at 20:07

Some fantasy settings have a system where someone is required to tell the truth, but ‘truth’ is construed very literally. They are free to blatantly deceive people as long as their exact words are true.

I always think, ‘The law is kind of like this - it also has truth-telling rules - but law doesn’t brook any such silliness. False vs. misleading makes no difference.’

Which is usually true. But not always, as shown by an entertaining Supreme Court argument this week:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/supreme-court-considers-chicago-aldermans-false-statement-charges/

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Toot

Written by comex on 2025-01-16 at 20:15

TL;DR: If you take out a bank loan for $110k, and then take out additional loans from the same bank for another $109k…

And then the bank fails and loses track of what you owe them…

And when you’re asked, you say “I borrowed $110k”, conveniently not mentioning the other loans…

Did you violate a law that prohibits making “any false statement”?

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Descendants

Written by Kyle Bashour on 2025-01-17 at 01:01

@comex you can bet the wording when they ask will be more like “how much do you owe us” - phrased in a way that omission is a false statement

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