HFQ Official Snippet #13

Peter2 wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:I think it was in Time Enough for Love that Robert Heinlein said "One of the best ways to lie is to tell just enough of the truth and shut up".

I submit that RFC is an excellent student of this practice.

Charybdis wrote:While I bow to no one in my respect to RAH, another 'best way to lie' is to just not say a thing. It is, however, difficult to portray in books and non-visual media. Visually, responding to a query with a quiet faint smile that allows the questioner's assumptions free range is such an excellent strategy that I am certain that it is in Sun Tzu's book, though I cannot do the research at this moment.

But to the second, I do believe that RFC would love to 'shoot the bull' with RAH and most certainly will in the hereafter! As to his Snippeting, there RFC is the MASTER! Add his scurrilous and evil use of misleading phrases (Mortal Wound) and ellipses that may be placeholders and he would probably have the admiration of RAH who never had the opportunity to so torment his readers.

On the side, I wonder what RAH's output would have been if he had the same technology as our current authors have? I remember several of Jerry Pournelle's columns on his computerization from the late great BYTE Magazine and the effect on his ability to write. Of course his later medical problems made some of that dream a mirage. Imagine writing "Stranger" and "Time Enough" on a typewriter and reams of paper and ink ribbons! *** OK, close excursion!

There is a considerable difference between lying and telling the truth in a manner calculated to mislead. Most if not all of the press and politicians, and many lawyers, are experts at it. Selective editing is probably the easiest, but there are others.

Charybdis wrote:he would probably have the admiration of RAH who never had the opportunity to so torment his readers.

runsforcelery wrote:In the late 1930s, the Japanese withdrew from the naval arms limits treaties which had been negotiated beginning in Washington in 1921. They did so by giving the requisite notice that they no longer intended to be bound by the treaty's voluntary limitations on worship tonnages.

JRM wrote:runsforcelery wrote:In the late 1930s, the Japanese withdrew from the naval arms limits treaties which had been negotiated beginning in Washington in 1921. They did so by giving the requisite notice that they no longer intended to be bound by the treaty's voluntary limitations on worship tonnages

octavian30 wrote:

JRM wrote:runsforcelery wrote:In the late 1930s, the Japanese withdrew from the naval arms limits treaties which had been negotiated beginning in Washington in 1921. They did so by giving the requisite notice that they no longer intended to be bound by the treaty's voluntary limitations on worship tonnages

Also priest's were required to publicly post their weight as well, and the length of proposed sermons.

ROFL

runsforcelery wrote:]=== SNIP ===
The Japanese indignantly — and truthfully — denied that they were doing anything of the sort. The bit of the truth they omitted from their official statements was that they were building 70,000-ton battleships with 18" guns.

Charybdis wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:]=== SNIP ===
The Japanese indignantly — and truthfully — denied that they were doing anything of the sort. The bit of the truth they omitted from their official statements was that they were building 70,000-ton battleships with 18" guns.

In hindsight, a great many allied military remained alive to see the war's end from that decision as opposed to building additional aircraft carriers. The Yamato and her sister ship, Musashi, were designed, like their German, British and American counterparts, to be the big-fist in an all-out battle between fleets that never happened. If the Japanese had changed over and converted them to A/C Carriers and maybe built, for the costs another 1 or 2 Carriers, Midway would not have been so crippling for the IJN.

FYI: Changing intentions did work for the US in that the counterparts of the Yamato for the US were the post-Iowa class of Battleships, the Montana Class. Planned but never built, the funding eventually went towards the Aircraft Carriers and faster Cruisers.

runsforcelery wrote:In the late 1930s, the Japanese withdrew from the naval arms limits treaties which had been negotiated beginning in Washington in 1921. They did so by giving the requisite notice that they no longer intended to be bound by the treaty's voluntary limitations on >>>worship<<< tonnages.

TN4994 wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:In the late 1930s, the Japanese withdrew from the naval arms limits treaties which had been negotiated beginning in Washington in 1921. They did so by giving the requisite notice that they no longer intended to be bound by the treaty's voluntary limitations on >>>worship<<< tonnages.

Evidently, someone neglected to have his wife edit before he posted.

TN4994 wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:In the late 1930s, the Japanese withdrew from the naval arms limits treaties which had been negotiated beginning in Washington in 1921. They did so by giving the requisite notice that they no longer intended to be bound by the treaty's voluntary limitations on >>>worship<<< tonnages.

Evidently, someone neglected to have his wife edit before he posted.