Thanks. I'm not sure about making "lie" a word that precludes intention. I'm often hyperbolic in my words, using the most evil word instead of a more nuanced one. That's how I do it in my head, because nuance confuses me.
My intent was to deceive. Plain and simple. Why I intended this, if it was to help, is just not relevant. I desired to misdirect.
I think often of a social engineering "trick" (and also self-help trick): Most people think behavior is caused by thought. But in reality, behavior begets behavior + justification.
If I do something that I personally think is lying, then no matter how logically wrong I am, if i keep doing it I'll train myself to lie, and simultaneously (because who wants cognitive dissonance?) I'll find reasons for why it was necessary.
It's a classic crowd manipulation trick. Make people say Heil Hitler while moving their arm in a specific way. Even if they know they're being manipulated, eventually they'll justify it, and be honest in their "heil hitler". Quoting hitler, as I fairly never have done before, on his description of effective crowd manipulation:
Repeat your message constantly: "[Propagandist technique] must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."[43][44] (Gustave Le Bon believed that messages that are affirmed and repeated are often perceived as truth and spread by means of contagion. "Man, like animals, has a natural tendency to imitation. Imitation is a necessity for him, provided always that the imitation is quite easy", wrote Le Bon.[45] In his 1881 essay "L'Homme et Societes", he wrote "It is by examples not by arguments that crowds are guided." He stressed that in order to influence, one must not be too far removed his audience nor his example unattainable by them. If it is, his influence will be nil.)[46]
On stacker you can see the same thing from many bitcoin maximalists. Repeat a simple message, keep repeating it. Shitcoin. Shitcoin. Affirm the ones who also repeat it. People think how "true" something is, is strongly proportional to the amount of times they hear/read it. Also, make an us vs them environment. Be strongly emotional. Never deviate from the message. Never engage with experts. They're all shitcoiners. Aren't they, @DarthCoin?
Also the same trick that makes habits easy to form, you just do the habit for 1 minute the first week, until you are bored and start doing 4 minutes, etc. Eventually you justify why you need to perform the habit :)