Latest / Spotlight English: Advanced / Truth Telling (Advanced Program)
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger Bassik.
- 0:07Speaker 2: And I'm Marina Sante. Spotslight uses a special English method
- 0:12Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
- 0:17Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
- 0:27Speaker 3: I bought poison. I met him at McDonald's.
- 0:31Speaker 1: A police station in Puna, India. Officers are investigating a murder.
- 0:38Speaker 1: They believe that Adity Charmad gave poison to her former
- 0:42Speaker 1: boyfriend and killed him. An officer reads out some statements.
- 0:48Speaker 1: They describe how the police think the murder happened. They
- 0:53Speaker 1: have placed a special covering on her head. There are
- 0:56Speaker 1: thirty two electrodes attached to it. These electrodes carry electrical
- 1:02Speaker 1: messages from the brain to the machine. But Aditi does
- 1:07Speaker 1: not say anything. She does not need to. The machine
- 1:11Speaker 1: shows how Aditi's brain reacts. It is reading her brain.
- 1:18Speaker 2: Today's sponse LIGHTE is on telling the truth? Can technology
- 1:23Speaker 2: force people to tell the truth? Is it possible to
- 1:28Speaker 2: never lie at all?
- 1:32Speaker 1: In June two thousand and eight, Aditi Charmant was found
- 1:36Speaker 1: guilty of murdering her former boyfriend Udit Barti. It was
- 1:41Speaker 1: the first time in the world that brain reading technology
- 1:46Speaker 1: had been used as evidence in a trial.
- 1:49Speaker 2: The machine showed that Aditi remembered the events of the murder.
- 1:55Speaker 2: The judge decided that that meant Aditi must have been
- 1:59Speaker 2: involve in the murder. But not everyone thought the judge
- 2:04Speaker 2: was right to trust the brain reading machine. Scientists in
- 2:10Speaker 2: India did not agree that the machine always produced the
- 2:14Speaker 2: correct results.
- 2:18Speaker 1: India is not the only place that has brain reading machines.
- 2:22Speaker 1: Some groups in the United States also use similar technologies,
- 2:27Speaker 1: but these machines work in a different way. The machines
- 2:30Speaker 1: measure how blood flows through the brain. A person answers
- 2:34Speaker 1: questions while an expert watches the machine. The machine shows
- 2:39Speaker 1: which parts of the brain the person is using, so
- 2:43Speaker 1: experts can work out if the person was lying or
- 2:46Speaker 1: telling the truth. People who have been accused of lying
- 2:50Speaker 1: can pay to use the machine. It can help to
- 2:53Speaker 1: show if the person is being honest, but unlike in India,
- 2:58Speaker 1: these results are not yet usable in US courts.
- 3:02Speaker 2: Truth telling machines sound like something out of a story
- 3:06Speaker 2: book about the future. In fact, many writers have written
- 3:11Speaker 2: about similar machines. In nineteen ninety six, James Halperin wrote
- 3:17Speaker 2: a science fiction book called The Truth Machine. It described
- 3:23Speaker 2: a machine that shows if people are telling the truth.
- 3:28Speaker 2: Alperin is surprised at how quickly his ideas about the
- 3:32Speaker 2: future have become true. He spoke to the website Reason
- 3:37Speaker 2: online about brain reading technology.
- 3:41Speaker 4: He said, it is happening much faster than I thought
- 3:46Speaker 4: it would. I was talking about the idea of a
- 3:50Speaker 4: truth machine back in the nineteen nineties. I had a
- 3:55Speaker 4: friend who was a brain scientist. He told me that
- 4:00Speaker 4: it would take fifty years if ever, before such a
- 4:04Speaker 4: thing could be created. I chose the year twenty twenty
- 4:09Speaker 4: four as the date this was so the idea would
- 4:13Speaker 4: not seem too impossible.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Some people are now worried about the use of brain
- 4:21Speaker 1: reading technology. They say that using such a machine would
- 4:26Speaker 1: be morally wrong. They say people's thoughts should be their own.
- 4:31Speaker 1: It should not be legal for anyone to read the
- 4:34Speaker 1: thoughts and memories of other people. This could affect a
- 4:37Speaker 1: person's basic freedom. However, other people say that the technology
- 4:42Speaker 1: could be used in good ways. The machine could stop
- 4:45Speaker 1: criminals from lying to police. It could also mean that
- 4:49Speaker 1: no one will ever be tortured again.
- 4:52Speaker 2: The technology is still not completely established. Many experts still
- 4:58Speaker 2: think it needs better testing before it can be used
- 5:02Speaker 2: for importance matters. But what if this machine was used
- 5:08Speaker 2: more and more? What would the world be like if
- 5:12Speaker 2: we could force everyone to tell the truth? Would the
- 5:17Speaker 2: world be a better place or would a truth machine
- 5:22Speaker 2: create too many problems.
- 5:25Speaker 1: Most people believe it is generally wrong to lie. Many
- 5:29Speaker 1: religions also teach this. For example, the Christian Bible includes
- 5:34Speaker 1: the command do not lie about other people. Some of
- 5:39Speaker 1: the world's greatest thinkers or philosophers have also written about lying.
- 5:44Speaker 1: One of these philosophers was Immanuel kat He lived in
- 5:48Speaker 1: Germany in the eighteenth century. He said that lying was
- 5:52Speaker 1: always morally wrong. He believed that actions were only good
- 5:57Speaker 1: if these actions could work as a law for everyone,
- 6:01Speaker 1: but lying went against this. He said if everyone lied
- 6:04Speaker 1: all the time, then life would become extremely difficult.
- 6:09Speaker 2: Another philosopher who wrote about lying was Saint Augustine. He
- 6:15Speaker 2: was a Christian teacher who in the fourth century wrote
- 6:19Speaker 2: a book called on Lying.
- 6:22Speaker 5: He said, it seems to me that every lie is wrong. However,
- 6:28Speaker 5: there are different kinds of lies. These depend on the
- 6:31Speaker 5: reason and subject of the lie. Someone may lie to
- 6:35Speaker 5: try and be helpful. He does not do wrong as
- 6:38Speaker 5: much as someone who lies to be evil.
- 6:45Speaker 1: However, in some situations it is difficult to avoid telling lies.
- 6:50Speaker 1: For example, someone prepares a meal for you, but you
- 6:54Speaker 1: do not like it. Is it right to lie to
- 6:57Speaker 1: that person or will it just hurt their feelings for
- 6:59Speaker 1: no reason. One man who faced this issue was Cahol Moro.
- 7:05Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, he decided not to lie
- 7:09Speaker 1: for a whole year. He wanted to experience the issues
- 7:13Speaker 1: created when someone only told the truth. Kahol Morro is
- 7:17Speaker 1: British but lives with his family in Spain. He finished
- 7:21Speaker 1: his truth telling program in two thousand and nine. Before
- 7:25Speaker 1: he started the project, he said.
- 7:28Speaker 3: Lying just gets easier. Once you open the door, there
- 7:31Speaker 3: seems little reason to close it. Thinking about it, I
- 7:35Speaker 3: suppose I do lie a little, but I only tell
- 7:38Speaker 3: an acceptable number of small lies. I often tell people
- 7:42Speaker 3: what I think they would like to hear. This is
- 7:45Speaker 3: instead of what I truly think. Do I lie to
- 7:48Speaker 3: be liked to be nice? Because it's easy.
- 7:52Speaker 2: Kathle Morrow wrote a book about his year of truth telling.
- 7:57Speaker 2: For most people never lie. It is just too difficult.
- 8:03Speaker 2: But for many philosophers and religious leaders, these questions about
- 8:08Speaker 2: truth and lies are very important. As Kathle Morrow said,
- 8:13Speaker 2: it is easy to open the door to lies, but
- 8:16Speaker 2: it is much more difficult to close it again, do.
- 8:23Speaker 1: You prefer people who tell you the truth? How often
- 8:26Speaker 1: do you find yourself lying because it is easier than
- 8:29Speaker 1: telling others the truth? Tell us what you think. You
- 8:33Speaker 1: can leave a comment on our website at www dot
- 8:36Speaker 1: Spotlight English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
- 8:42Speaker 1: Blue Sky n X. You can also get our programs
- 8:46Speaker 1: delivered directly to your andriter Apple device through our free
- 8:50Speaker 1: official Spotlight English app.
- 8:52Speaker 2: The writer of this program was from the Spotslight team.
- 8:56Speaker 2: The producer was mitchio Ozaki. The voice as you heard
- 9:00Speaker 2: were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All
- 9:05Speaker 2: quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotslight.
- 9:09Speaker 2: This program is called truth Telling.
- 9:13Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
- 9:15Speaker 1: Spotlight Advanced program. Goodbye,