The fine art of fibbing | Athena Kugblenu

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hume. We all tell little white lies sometimes. Is that okay? This comedic talk is all about, well, lying. Comedian, writer, and podcaster, Athena Kogblenu lays it all out for us. The good lies, the honest lies, the silly lies, the important lies, and of course, the bad ones are thrown in there too. I won't give anything else away. I'll just say, honestly, this isn't one to miss.

0:49I could not live without lying. I'm British. If you ask me how I am, I will always say, I'm fine. I could have just stubbed my toe. I could have lost all my money on cryptocurrency. But don't worry, I'm fine. It's not just us. Absolutely no one on this planet could live without lying. Imagine telling the truth when your doctor asks you how much alcohol you drink. In a week, on average. average. I'll give you a figure, but it'll be my weekend average. I told you I'm British. We drink our alcohol in pint glasses. If you don't know what a pint glass is, it's a glass you can fit your fist into. Lying is useful.

1:57It can keep us in denial of our responsibilities. It can help us avoid protracted conversations we don't want to have. Sometimes lying is the right thing to do. God forbid you should ever find me underneath the wheels of a bus. For goodness sake, do not tell me the truth. Tell me for a fact you know that I'm going to be okay. Okay, don't accurately list all the bones in my body that are broken. Tell me I am going to make it to watch the next Avatar movie. Give me hope. We tend to think of lying as something bad people do to manipulate us when they want us to believe something that isn't true. When most of the time, for the day-to-day lies, it's just nice, ordinary people lying because in that moment, it's easier than telling the truth.

2:57For example, I'll be there in five minutes. When you haven't left the house yet, have you?

3:07Or this is a good one. I've read the terms and conditions.

3:14No one reads the terms and conditions. I've got a three-year-old and a five-year-old. Kids that age, I don't know why, they don't like to brush their teeth. So to get my kids to brush their teeth, I say, do you want me to throw your iPad in the bin? Do you want me to put it in the bin? It's a lie. I'm not going to put their iPad in the bin. But there's two stereotypes about British people. One about the state of our teeth.

3:43And one about the state of our drinking. I only want them to fall into one of those stereotypes. So I lie to get them to brush their teeth, and it works. And of course, it's a lie. I'm not going to put the iPad in the bin. No warranty will give me my money back because my kids are naughty. And it's my iPad. I think the trick is to ask this question. Am I lying for my good or for someone else's good? I wrote a children's book about lies. I combed history for lies that are well-established as untrue, because I wanted to find that line between the kind of lie we tell every day and the kind of lie we'd like to distance ourselves from.

4:28The kind of lie that you might tell a bride when you say, I love the bridegroom dress she chose. It's just my color. It's hideous. But that's a good lie. It's not about you. It's about the bride. It's her day. She should have the dresses she wants. Or the kind of lie you tell to the elderly billionaire you're about to marry when you say you love them.

4:56That's a bad lie. You should not get married for money. You should get married for a Netflix password.

5:07I think it's the selfish lies we need to deal with. The kind of lies that might make people money, the kind of lies that might harm others, the kind of lies that might win people votes. We need to get better at distinguishing between the acceptable lies and the unacceptable lies. And the way to do this is to get fib literate. Want to be qualified in fibs? Ask yourself this question when you're given the opportunity to lie or when you've been given information and you're not sure it's true. Ask yourself, who will benefit? Some examples, you get home late, you're tired, your partner was supposed to put the bins out.

5:53They have not. Worse, they're going to go out and you're going to have to do the job yourself. And before they leave, they ask you, are you mad? You're furious, you're incensed, but you say, I'm not mad. That could be a good lie, okay? They can take the bins out next week, it's not a big deal, you're furious because you're tired. It's not a big deal. That's a good lie. Who benefits from that lie? Both of you in that relationship. Another example, you've gone out with your friend, you've gone to the club, your friend has driven. Whilst in the club, they've drunk five pints of wine.

6:34On the way out of the club, they say, I'm good to drive. It's okay, it's a short drive, We barely have to do two right turns. It's not a problem. I'll get you home. That is a bad lie. Okay? Who's going to benefit from that lie? Nobody. That could harm others. The key to FIB literacy is to apply the question, who will benefit to any scenario? Take the mortgage crisis. Who benefited when lenders believed what the borrowers were telling them? Who benefited when everyone believed the lenders, when they acted British and said, oh, we're fine, nothing to see here. The lies were building up like dirty laundry until the stench became too bad to ignore.

7:17Or take smoking. Who benefited when they lied about our ill health? They made smoking look so cool with their lies. Imagine that picture of Audrey Hepburn in that iconic picture from Breakfast at Tiffany's with a vape. we wouldn't change that cigarette for anything but it's still a bad lie the act of lying is a necessity that we need to use and it's an act of social grace oh i love that present you brought me thank you your cooking tastes delicious we're actually very skillful in deceit what we need to get more skillful in is determining the difference between the acceptable and unacceptable lie We cannot vaccinate ourselves from lies.

8:05But by asking the question, who will benefit, we can build resilience to deception. I feel very bad to tell you all that we're all on the lion train. But the question is, are you going to get off on the good stop or the bad stop? You're right not to lie. That was a terrible analogy. It was terrible. I'm sorry. But you get what I mean. and I'd like to take this moment to say this is an absolute honour thank you Ted for giving me the greatest moment of my life

8:47sit down love, sit down love, that was a lie

8:55I'm sorry, it wasn't the greatest moment of my life Do you want to know what the greatest moment of my life was? Or still is. Do you want to know what the greatest moment of my life is? Yeah? Once, I got given a hotel breakfast. For free. It was a pretty good moment. Pretty good moment. But this comes close. Thank you.

9:26That was Athena Kuglenu at TED Next in 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faze-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.