Many of you are no doubt familiar with the film "Invention of Lying," premised on the tale of a person who first introduces the concept of lying to society where it hadn't previously existed. A couple recent conversations made me realize that we may well be witnessing, in our own lifetimes, the very opposite phenomenon, namely, the dawn of an era that actually obsoletes lying to a large degree. Before you reject this as outlandish fantasy, take a step back and recognize that lying is not fundamentally intrinsic to human behavior.

Steven Johnson wrote an interesting provocative