The best way to win against a liar, is to never meet one,

the simplest way to "win" is not to play their game.

This is extremely easy, because avoidance of liars entails a path that they will never walk on,

liars will never walk on the path of Knowledge, Invention, Hard Earned Accomplishment, Wisdom, and Greatness.

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One example of a good liar is that good old Wild Wild West snake oil salesman,

they were probably selling cheap sugar and cheap moonshine, because it was cheap to make and didn't cause much headache.

But it, looking like an expensive medicine, and costing like one,

when people felt it in their system, they automatically assumed it was working.

This is still going on, and when I was a teenager I actually bought a skin cleanser,

at a pharmacy, in the US, that in no uncertain terms, stated that this was homeopathic medicine,

Home and medicine, sounded good to me,

and it seemed to have been a gentle soap, but it was just the cheapest thing that they could possibly put in a tube.

I checked the top three pharmacies in the US in 2020, and heart-breakingly,

they all continue selling homeopathic "medicine".

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Knowledge and Wisdom, and the path it entails,

is the most wonderful and safest way to avoid all this nonsense.

Because once you become more knowledgeable than the liar,

you will be able to hear them bending words, and twisting stories, the way your Mum was able to pick up on subtle cues when you were lying as a baby.

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Now, past some point in an education, many, or perhaps most people, front healthy skepticism first,

not because they assume everyone is a liar, but because they wonder if someone might not have tricked themselves into a falsehood like I did with my homeopathic "medicine".

More than that, when I was a teenager, and someone asked me if Mokele-mbembe existed,

I would whole heatedly, and with all the love in my heart, say:

"I hope so, after all, it is not a question of their existence, is it now? They used to exist millions of years ago.

It is a question of whether or not there is one or two, left in Rhodesia." - with a heavy and hairy accent, whilst bouncing my unibrow up an down.

Anybody asking me about cryptozoology was better off,

fronting mountains of skepticism first - the brontosaurus was my favorite dinosaur!

And get this, Brontosaurus is no longer the same thunder lizard we are all familiar with,

it was a misclassification, the dinosaur that you think of as Brontosaurus is actually called Apatosaurus now.

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In context of liars, which are pretty damn scary, and only get more frightening as they come together in groups,

...searching for forgiveness, reinforcement and easy pickings to whatever their disorder is; we need to take to knowledge and wisdom as soon as possible.

Middle school, is a pretty good time to start learning for real,

and start climbing over everyone's heads, to get ahead of things.

Books narrated by their authors,

are an especially precious gift of knowledge.

Bill Bryson has some nice and funny books that help people grow,

A Walk in the Woods, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and In a Sunburned Country, are beautiful.

But it is best that you start with what moves you,

look at various best seller lists, and keep an eye on non-fiction of you can.

And climb, keep searching for that next book that will agree with you,

and explore everything, explore the world, the trails, the libraries, all the places of knowledge, wisdom and greatness.

It does not take many books to get ahead of liars,

it only takes a few more to get ahead of those that don't know they are causing harm.

And here the handful of your beloved Memoirs, Biographies, and adventure books,

will transform, to your Sword and Shield, and you will fell many a monster and dragon, onward to a cheerful future.

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Start learning on your own, not just to avoid liars and crappy people,

but to become you, the person that you are predisposed to be.

As you grow, there will be some mild regrets, but it is not going to be anything huge,

and whatever you do end up missing by taking your own less traveled road...

Use is as a compass, just because you missed something, it doesn't mean you can't find it again,

feeling like you missed something is a beautiful call to new adventure.

There is nothing to be scared of, by choosing the path of Knowledge, Wisdom, and maybe Greatness,

those are the very components by which humanity grows.

Our superpowers that grant us the abilities to prevent suffering.

making our pains count for more by fixing the problems that hurt us, and preventing others from falling into the same trap.