I agree with the skeptical approach, but caution against speaking truth forthrightly in all situations. I speak my truth obtusely sometimes. In a business meeting that seemed to me a hoax, excitedly planning for a huge project I knew would would never happen, when called upon for comment I said “The Emperor’s clothes are magnificent. Everyone says so.” Nobody pressed for further elaboration. It was actually appropriate to my role in the discussion, as I was the engineer among middle managers, they plan, I execute. I didn’t try to explain to them they were justifying their phony baloney jobs by concocting pipe dreams to feed the front office.