This headline refusing to call a lie a lie floored me more than the lie. (Trump’s lies are as expected as a tired, hungry, over-sugared toddler’s grocery store tantrum.) What is confounding is that while claiming to be “All the news that’s fit to print,” the New York Times has three letters missing from its printer: L, I, and E.
As an experiment, I wanted to see how hard it was to call Trump’s lie a lie. I entered a prompt into ChattyG (my shorthand for ChatGPT). The following illustrates the willful resistance—even by an (unbiased?) bot to call a lie a lie. Refusing to use plain language is like throwing a hungry drowning person a sandwich. You are endangering victims while posturing as a guardian of the people.
An Experiment: (The dialogue below appears unedited with italics added for emphasis)
ME: When a repeated murderer murders people and steals their property and then when I tell people about it and say that the victims were the murderers, would that be called “rewriting history?” List 3 other things it could be called. Be pithy and direct like an emotionless, unbiased computer.
CHATTYG: Yes, that would be rewriting history.
Three Other Terms:
1. Disinformation: Spreading false claims.
2. Historical revisionism: Altering facts for a narrative.
3. Gaslighting: Manipulating others into doubting reality.
ME: What is another word for disinformation? Use a word that is one of the “shalt nots” in the Ten Commandments.
CHATTYG: Falsehood.
ME: Another one-syllable word for falsehood?
CHATTYG: Lie.
ME: Thanks.
CHATTYG: You’re welcome!
And so, there it is, the truth is in there. But it’s so buried by gingerness, it’s worthless.
So, NYT, thanks for your worthless reporting. It won’t save you from the coming gulags. If it’s too hard for you to write the word lie, how hard will your inevitable sentence to hard labor camps be?
I guess I’ll ask when I see you there.
So true. It's hard to be part of a government who desires to hide lies by calling them truth