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June 18, 2025 9 mins
Roger Basick and Marina Santee talk about lying versus telling the truth and how it may not always be an easy decision to make. Do you prefer people to tell you the truth?

https://spotlightenglish.com/uncategorized/truth-telling/

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger Bassik.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Marina Sante. Spotslight uses a special English method
of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
matter where in the world they live.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I bought poison. I met him at McDonald's.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
A police station in Puna, India. Officers are investigating a murder.
They believe that Adity Charmad gave poison to her former
boyfriend and killed him. An officer reads out some statements.
They describe how the police think the murder happened. They

(00:53):
have placed a special covering on her head. There are
thirty two electrodes attached to it. These electrodes carry electrical
messages from the brain to the machine. But Aditi does
not say anything. She does not need to. The machine
shows how Aditi's brain reacts. It is reading her brain.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Today's sponse LIGHTE is on telling the truth? Can technology
force people to tell the truth? Is it possible to
never lie at all?

Speaker 1 (01:32):
In June two thousand and eight, Aditi Charmant was found
guilty of murdering her former boyfriend Udit Barti. It was
the first time in the world that brain reading technology
had been used as evidence in a trial.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
The machine showed that Aditi remembered the events of the murder.
The judge decided that that meant Aditi must have been
involve in the murder. But not everyone thought the judge
was right to trust the brain reading machine. Scientists in

(02:10):
India did not agree that the machine always produced the
correct results.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
India is not the only place that has brain reading machines.
Some groups in the United States also use similar technologies,
but these machines work in a different way. The machines
measure how blood flows through the brain. A person answers
questions while an expert watches the machine. The machine shows

(02:39):
which parts of the brain the person is using, so
experts can work out if the person was lying or
telling the truth. People who have been accused of lying
can pay to use the machine. It can help to
show if the person is being honest, but unlike in India,
these results are not yet usable in US courts.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Truth telling machines sound like something out of a story
book about the future. In fact, many writers have written
about similar machines. In nineteen ninety six, James Halperin wrote
a science fiction book called The Truth Machine. It described

(03:23):
a machine that shows if people are telling the truth.
Alperin is surprised at how quickly his ideas about the
future have become true. He spoke to the website Reason
online about brain reading technology.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
He said, it is happening much faster than I thought
it would. I was talking about the idea of a
truth machine back in the nineteen nineties. I had a
friend who was a brain scientist. He told me that
it would take fifty years if ever, before such a

(04:04):
thing could be created. I chose the year twenty twenty
four as the date this was so the idea would
not seem too impossible.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Some people are now worried about the use of brain
reading technology. They say that using such a machine would
be morally wrong. They say people's thoughts should be their own.
It should not be legal for anyone to read the
thoughts and memories of other people. This could affect a
person's basic freedom. However, other people say that the technology

(04:42):
could be used in good ways. The machine could stop
criminals from lying to police. It could also mean that
no one will ever be tortured again.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
The technology is still not completely established. Many experts still
think it needs better testing before it can be used
for importance matters. But what if this machine was used
more and more? What would the world be like if

(05:12):
we could force everyone to tell the truth? Would the
world be a better place or would a truth machine
create too many problems.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Most people believe it is generally wrong to lie. Many
religions also teach this. For example, the Christian Bible includes
the command do not lie about other people. Some of
the world's greatest thinkers or philosophers have also written about lying.
One of these philosophers was Immanuel kat He lived in

(05:48):
Germany in the eighteenth century. He said that lying was
always morally wrong. He believed that actions were only good
if these actions could work as a law for everyone,
but lying went against this. He said if everyone lied
all the time, then life would become extremely difficult.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Another philosopher who wrote about lying was Saint Augustine. He
was a Christian teacher who in the fourth century wrote
a book called on Lying.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
He said, it seems to me that every lie is wrong. However,
there are different kinds of lies. These depend on the
reason and subject of the lie. Someone may lie to
try and be helpful. He does not do wrong as
much as someone who lies to be evil.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
However, in some situations it is difficult to avoid telling lies.
For example, someone prepares a meal for you, but you
do not like it. Is it right to lie to
that person or will it just hurt their feelings for
no reason. One man who faced this issue was Cahol Moro.

(07:05):
In two thousand and eight, he decided not to lie
for a whole year. He wanted to experience the issues
created when someone only told the truth. Kahol Morro is
British but lives with his family in Spain. He finished
his truth telling program in two thousand and nine. Before
he started the project, he said.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Lying just gets easier. Once you open the door, there
seems little reason to close it. Thinking about it, I
suppose I do lie a little, but I only tell
an acceptable number of small lies. I often tell people
what I think they would like to hear. This is
instead of what I truly think. Do I lie to
be liked to be nice? Because it's easy.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Kathle Morrow wrote a book about his year of truth telling.
For most people never lie. It is just too difficult.
But for many philosophers and religious leaders, these questions about
truth and lies are very important. As Kathle Morrow said,

(08:13):
it is easy to open the door to lies, but
it is much more difficult to close it again, do.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
You prefer people who tell you the truth? How often
do you find yourself lying because it is easier than
telling others the truth? Tell us what you think. You
can leave a comment on our website at www dot
Spotlight English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
Blue Sky n X. You can also get our programs

(08:46):
delivered directly to your andriter Apple device through our free
official Spotlight English app.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
The writer of this program was from the Spotslight team.
The producer was mitchio Ozaki. The voice as you heard
were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All
quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotslight.
This program is called truth Telling.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
We hope you can join us again for the next
Spotlight Advanced program. Goodbye,
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