Hacker News Reader

Besides being overly simplistic, because you cant always know what the truth was, or finding out can take you longer than the timing of the decision you have to make, its is also a flawed process: a person can truthfully say something false. Being wrong doesn't make you a liar.

If what they said was false, then would the conclusion not be that they either held the belief incorrectly, misspoke, or were telling a lie?

Not all false statements are lies (in what I believe to be the most common definitions)

It might be occasionally useful to be able to distinguish between whether someone is telling a lie or is simply stating something false.

A lie is "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive".

Emphasis on "deliberate intent to deceive".

due to strong reality distortion fields, whether Putin lied or not depends on where you produce that conclusion - outside or inside of Russia

This sentence is false.

Liar!

Obama, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Bush I, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft, Clinton.... I mean -- the list is endless.