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Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

For those who haven't had it, I'll say - you're not missing out on much.

The appealing part is that it is potentially lethal and maybe the high skill requirement to be able to serve it. That's pretty much it.

It's tasteless, mildly chewy texture. Most of the flavor comes from the soy sauce. In hotpot/stews it becomes hard rather quickly. There are lot better fish for hotpots.

And as far as the "potentially lethal" section goes:

> Of the 23 incidents reported in Tokyo from 1993 through 2006, only one took place in a restaurant; all others involved people catching and eating the fish.[0]

I don't have actual statistics, but you walking on the street seems more dangerous.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu#Incidents

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"you're not missing out on much"

Except being able to brag that you've eaten fugu.

You can still brag about it even if you haven't actually done it. Watch this trick:

I've eaten fugu. You're not missing out on much. It's kind of bland.

See? Easy peasy.

For some reason, authenticity bleeds through.

Telling a half truth is much easier than telling a complete lie, so actually having the experience even in the most bland version drastically improves your storytelling. I think it’s the self confidence that makes the difference.

Or you can learn to lie better. It's actually a very valuable skill. Do it well enough and you can become an actor or president of the United States -- or both if you really master the art.

I agree but for most people, it's easer to eat the poison fish :)

If you are a complete fraud you overcompensate and you lack passion, you lack of decisiveness to elaborate the creative details. It's really hard to master the skills so you don't be like that when lie. I think the psychological trick is to convince yourself that you are authentic and having some truth goes a long way with helping convincing yourself. This is why, when you know just a little bit about a subject you can go in great detail of explaining how things work as you are the greatest expert.

Or, you know, being a total psychopath will do the trick!

> for most people, it's easer to eat the poison fish

But lying is a much more transferable skill.

> being a total psychopath will do the trick

I know you intended that to be ironic humor, but the road to success in business often runs close to the border of psychopathy.

I am not that cynical. The psychopathy probably helps with executing rational actions without being constrained by emotions but that doesn't have to be lying or something like that.

Actually, in my opinion, the real advantage probably comes from being able to stay out of the emotional context of the situation. Most people are consumed by things like how they feel or how others feel and get blinded to the implications of following those emotions.

Not just the President, but a Congress critter as well if your aspirations aren’t as high

Why is this even a discussion? “Learn to lie better”, why bother, just be honest?

So, just smelling a fugu and giving it a hard jab with a fork should do?

Perfectly safe, if expensive.

I guess it depends if you would believe it. For me, taking an extremely small bite from a friends dish or observing people eating it while describing their experience could do it. I would be able to fill the details from analogous experience.

Maybe just imagining the experience does it too? I would intellectually know that I never aten it but I would be sure that I know how it is due to having experienced other fish and I can simply adjust the analogous experience to match the details I know about the experience I imagine having. This way I would be able to extrapolate details as if I had it for real.

Yeah but that’s honorless and if I ever find out you’re going to lose respect and credibility.

Part of the art of lying is choosing the right level of specificity so that the story sounds plausible but is unverifiable. Like this:

I had Fugu in 2009, in Tokyo, in some high-end sushi restaurant in the Ginza district (I don't remember the name). It was crazy expensive and not particularly good. I wouldn't have it again. I mainly did it so I could say I've been-there-done-that.

(In point of actual fact, I really was in Tokyo in 2009, and I really did have some crazy-expensive sushi in the Ginza. But I did not have fugu. Never have, never will. The thing that will make you lose respect and credibility in my eyes is being the kind of person who thinks there is value in bragging about having had fugu.)

The first telling is not usually when you get caught in a lie. It’s subsequent references to it that are just different enough that people catch the lie and silently judge you for it. With someone you seldom meet you’ll probably get away with it but behavior like that tends to also bleed into your long term relationships where it actually matters. You have to be very, very smart to be able to maintain many lies and is out of the reach of most people, at least anecdotally.

Memory is unreliable, so changes in subsequent re-tellings are possible even if you originally told the truth. Part of the art of lying well is lying only about things whose details are plausibly forgotten in the fullness of time. So lying about eating fugu works, especially if you really have been to a place where it is served.

People eat a lot of things not for their particular flavour or texture but because they are expensive or rare. For example is caviar really that nice to deserve its price? At some places in soviet union caviar was cheaper than sugar and people used to trade it for lemons (because citrus was rarer). Scarcity makes things attractive.

Fugu is one of those. Requires a highly skilled cook to prepare it and is only available at very few restaurants.

> People eat a lot of things not for their particular flavour or texture but because they are expensive or rare

I guess that is the poster's point, that and helping people with more common sense avoid wasting their money.

> For those who haven't had it, I'll say - you're not missing out on much.

Pretty much this. It's a profoundly unexciting, unrewarding fish, especially since any place you can safely get fugu, there's going to be way better fish on offer.

Adrenaline isn’t nothing to sneeze at..

> you're not missing out on much.

I've never eaten other foods that numb the mouth.

Being a tourist district I believe there was hardly any poison in the meal. So I definitely will experience it again, properly.

Perhaps up to a full liver one day.

Because as you say, it's pretty hard to actually die from.

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