Straight talk, double talk, fast talk

Abstract

We learn early in life that two excuses are always worse than one. Even if they are only somewhat fictional, two stories can tangle, and inconsistencies are easily detected by the alert human brain. A second reason why one should never give two reasons for anything is that the alert human brain likes things to be simple. Perhaps this is because of its dismally limited conscious thinking capacity, but there is no doubt that we do like a straight answer even when perhaps there isn’t one. We want to know the cause of that thing that happened yesterday and upset Mrs. McGinty, and the real reason why she was so annoyed.