I Lied

Japanese engineers never admit they were wrong.

To be precise, they can't say "I was wrong." What they say instead is "I lied."

You misinterpret a spec in a meeting. Someone corrects you. "Sorry, I lied." You misread a log during an incident. "I lied, this one's correct." You leave a wrong comment on a code review. "I was lying."

You didn't lie. You were just wrong. Getting something wrong and making something up are different things. But Japanese engineers reach for "I lied" every time. I do it too. Everyone around me does. It's like some invisible virus we've all caught.

"I was wrong" would do. Eleven bytes of ASCII. Nothing hard to pronounce. But those eleven bytes won't come out. Instead, "I lied" — six bytes — slips out effortlessly.

I think we can't stand admitting ignorance. "I was wrong" implies "I didn't know the right answer." "I lied" implies "I knew the right answer but said something else." The second one is psychologically easier. It wasn't that I didn't know. I knew, I just misspoke. That's the story we want to tell ourselves.

Engineers might be terrified of technical ignorance. Being wrong is less scary than not knowing. So the brain quietly converts ignorance into dishonesty. I didn't not know. I lied.

Rationally, being a liar is a worse problem than being wrong.

I lied. I don't think that either.