12 ms·
It Turns Out You Can Bullshit a Bullshitter After All
- smitty1e 6y agoBut does this article pass the Frankfurt test? https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122946/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122...
- mcphage 6y agoWhat is the Frankfurt test?
- smitty1e 6y agoThe tl;dr from the book at the link is that the point of BS isn't so much to amuse or mislead, rather, real BS is an attack on the concept of truth as such.
- MrDrDr 6y agoMy thoughts exactly! I read 'On Bullshit' a while back and it struck me as an hilarious thesis attacking the social sciences in general. There is some type of recursive irony going on here.
- hatmatrix 6y agoThe summary: > Some earlier work has suggested that better liars are also better at detecting lies. But as the team notes, bullshit isn’t quite the same, as it falls just short of outright deception. > Recently, researchers have begun to treat bullshitting as having two separate dimensions. “Persuasive bullshitting” is motivated by a desire to impress or persuade. “Evasive bullshitting” is different — as a “strategic circumnavigation of the truth”, it’s the sort that a politician might engage in when trying to cover up a mistake, for example. > The team found that people who reported engaging in more persuasive bullshitting were more receptive to all forms of bullshit (pseudo-profound, pseudo-scientific and fake news). However, higher scores for evasive bullshitting were not related to susceptibility to the first two forms of bullshit, and were actually associated with less susceptibility to believing fake news. I'm still not sure what the distinction between lying and bullshitting is.
- csunbird 6y agoEasy. The paragraphs that you have quoted does not say anything in particular but it is long and looks informative. That is bullshit. I am living in America. That is a lie.
- sudhirj 6y agoI’ll take a crack at it. Lying is when I say something and hope that you’ll believe what I’m saying, while bullshit is saying something hoping you’ll believe something else, either indirectly or transitively. If I wanted to you to think I went to Stanford, I could say I went to Stanford, which is a lie, or talk about how much I enjoyed my time studying in the Palo Alto area, which is bullshitting.
- mirekrusin 6y agoMaybe they consider lying as uniform pathology and with bullshitting they make an effort to categorise into "presuasive" and "evasive", but they could be as well defined other way around imho.
- mirekrusin 6y agoThinking about it more there may be something I don't get about it because if you think about concepts like "while lie" - it is category of a lie, however doesn't belong to bullshitting category, there is something about incentive that may be distingishing between two.
- darkerside 6y agoI would say persuasive bullshitters probably includes the perhaps small group of people who have realized that everything people say (themselves included) contains at least some small measure of bullshit (however you define it), and that it isn't necessarily intentional or malicious, and that it doesn't fully invalidate the statement. Thus, they are willing to confess to engaging in bullshitters, and while quick to recognize it in others, they are generous enough to play along for what truth might lie within.
- netflixandkill 6y ago
- chmod775 6y agoTwo reasons come to mind: If you can't see through bullshit, you might think others can't either, and are thus more likely to bullshit yourself. If you can't see through bullshit, you may think others are actually accomplishing some of the things they claim, and will be more likely to embellish your own story to "keep up".
- djmips 6y agoI see a pattern where persuasive bullshitters surround themselves with persuasive bullshitters.
- daniellarusso 6y agoAt my work, we call it the sales team.
- spuz 6y ago> If you can't see through bullshit, you may think others are actually accomplishing some of the things they claim. The converse is probably also true. I.e. if someone tells you something that is true but you can't tell whether they are bullshitting you, you might feel more justified in bullshitting or embellishing the truth yourself.
- coffeefirst 6y agoA third: many pathological bullshitters don't even realize they're making stuff up.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mirekrusin 6y agoIt makes sense, one group doesn't know shit and the other does and the rest is implied by it.
- cyberlab 6y agoWorth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it"
- matsemann 6y agoSometimes when reading comments below articles (about vaccination for instance) I wonder if it would be more effective to stoop down to the anti-vaxxers level instead of trying to refute their claims. Just pump out loads of exaggerated pro-vaxx stuff.
- toto444 6y agoThat's clever but there is one reason I think this would not work. Most pro-vaxx don't (and don't want to) spend their entire days thinking about why they are pro-vaxx. Being anti-vaxxer is a lifestyle.
- lou1306 6y agoSadly, antivaxxers already believe that scientific findings are "exaggerated pro-vaxx stuff".
- darkerside 6y agoWhich is exactly why this would probably work. It's all bullshit on both sides (in their view), so it might as well be balanced bullshit. Right now, the bullshit evidence points to potential for horrific outcomes, not worth it! I think a similar dynamic is behind Trump's rise to power. First you confuse the people, them you can tell them what to think.
- AzzieElbab 6y agoEvery anti-vaxxer I came across had a history involving their kids reaction to vaccines. You may call them bullshitters all you want, but they are incredibly more motivated than you given above mentioned history.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago> The results were clear: while those who scored highly for evasive bullshitting were also better at distinguishing between the genuinely profound and the pseudo-profound statements, the high persuasive bullshitters were poor at this. “Put another way, high persuasive bullshitters appear to interpret/mistake superficial profoundness as a signal of actual profoundness,” the team explains. Interesting way of breaking down the categories. In my experience, the persuasive bullshitters might not even understand that they’re bullshitting. That is, they drink their own kool-aid, and therefore the line between their pseudo-profundity and reality starts to disappear.
- mabbo 6y agoBut the study accounted for that by having people self assess how often they would persuasively bullshit and evasively bullshit.
- tjpnz 6y ago>That is, they drink their own kool-aid, and therefore the line between their pseudo-profundity and reality starts to disappear. Largely helped by a society that would deem it too impolite to challenge them on it.
- bilbo0s 6y agoIt's worse than that, because the society drinks their kool-aid too. They don't think it's impolite, they heard the challenges, and decided the BSer's idea was best. Like the buzzword guru that convinces everyone on your team that a javascript server can handle all the requirements of, say, a game streaming server. You can present evidence of the superiority of C++, Java, and Rust until you're blue in the face, but you don't have the gift of gab. If you're a persuasive BSer, you can go far in life.
- Ekaros 6y agoI might even go to say that persuasive bullshitters have something to gain from believing and taking in and joining the other persuasive bullshit. There is likely also lot of group dynamics in play here. While evasive bullshit and outright lying is much more goal driven cover oneself and others bullshit is likely be harmful...
- paganel 6y ago> I might even go to say that persuasive bullshitters have something to gain from believing and taking in and joining the other persuasive bullshit. To bring the conversation closer to what's usually on this website, AI in cars has been a bullshit discourse for at least five years now (since I've started to more closely follow the conversation), and what you're saying is correct, many of the people that spat out said bullshit had direct financial gains from it via investors' money who wanted to trust that bullshit.
- Teever 6y ago"People are full of shit man, really. But I don't mind people being full of shit I just don't like when people bring their full of shitness to me, right? And try to make me feel uncomfortable about how I'm full of shit to make me full of shit like them so that they feel more comfortable about how full of shit they are. you understand what I'm saying? I didn't really understand it myself but I know someone understood what I'm talking about." -- Patrice O'Neal
- fefe23 6y agoOh how I'd love to see their list of profound statements and the pseudo profound bullshit!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rodion_89 6y agoPage 17 of the appendix: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1111%2Fbjso.12447&file=bjso12447-sup-0001-AppendixS1.docx https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSu...
- machinelearning 6y agoSome of this seems a bit arbitrary. “Good health imparts reality to subtle creativity.” While poorly worded, it contains a kernel of truth that you can only express your creativity by being in good health. However it is put into the bs pile. The non bs section contains motivational quotes which are popular but are bs mostly. What is the definition of bsing? Thinking out loud? Not being accurate? Intentionally stringing together words to sound impressive?
- mewpmewp2 6y agoI don't get this one, that is supposedly a real quote - "Art and love are the same thing: It's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you." Seems pseudo-profound to me, unless I'm missing something.
- Bakary 6y agoIn both art and love, the person who experiences them perceives links between their own identity or characteristics and the art/object of love, or sees these characteristics projected back at them through the art/process of loving.
- Bakary 6y agoThe motivational quotes can be bs in a practical sense, but they are not bs in a literal sense: the sentences have meaning in and of themselves. In this case, the rewording of the example you cited actually grants meaning to the sentence that it doesn't have but that we accidentally interpret it as having because the sentence is quite close to a meaningful sentence
- fallingfrog 6y agoI get the sense that the people who self reported as being good persuasive bullshitters probably aren’t fooling people to the extent they think they are. They’re just not aware of how transparent they are. And if those same people are also susceptible to fake news and pseudoscience, it kind of adds up to them just not being very smart. Or perhaps, it adds up to them not being the kind of people who always take two ideas they have in their heads and test them to see if they are consistent with each other. After all, it takes work to try to figure out if you’re actually seeing the truth. And it takes work to realize you’re wrong about something and to update your mental model of the world. Maybe accepting/sowing bullshit is just easier. If I’m trying to convince someone they’re wrong about something, the way I try to do it is to find a contradiction in their position. I point out two things they believe that can’t both be true at the same time and then I let them trace out the consequences on their own. But evidently for high bullshit individuals, that might not work, since they might not see self-contradictory ideas as a problem. How would you convince those people of anything? I’m not sure.
- Bakary 6y ago>They’re just not aware of how transparent they are. Conversely, we might not actually be aware of the true masters at work precisely because of their skill and the fact that we can catch the novices >How would you convince those people of anything? I’m not sure. The same way they convince their marks: create the impression of yourself as a strong and confident leader and they will form an internal story as to why it makes sense to follow and believe what you say
- fallingfrog 6y agoOh how interesting! I’m trying to figure out how susceptible I am to manipulation by a “strong and confident leader”. My immediate reaction is that I instantly dislike the kind of people you’re talking about- I can think of lots times when a tall handsome person with a self satisfied smirk has spoken in a loud voice and I hated them immediately. Once I was in one of those corporate cheerleading sessions in a big room and the CEO of the company walks in- tall guy, immaculately dressed. Beautiful skin. Just flew over from Europe. He says how “blown away by the enthusiasm” he is. Shows a video of himself walking among the people, talking to lowly cashiers and baggage clerks. I could barely restrain myself from throwing a chair at him. I sometimes regret that I didn’t, the loss of my job might have been worth it to get a shot in at that rotten bastard. I thought, of course they acted enthusiastic around you, they felt compelled to. I feel the same way about the Cuomos and Trumps of the world. I’ve had the same reaction to sales and marketing pitches. I instinctively hate them on a deep, subconscious level, and that’s not too strong a word. I suppose this must be an atypical reaction though? I can’t imagine reacting any other way. It’s not just that I think those kinds of figures are not good people; they activate my fight or flight response. They feel like a threat. Are there really people out there who like those kind of people? I just find that idea so baffling. But yet I do see all sorts of people who appear to do just that. I don’t understand it.
- roland35 6y agoThere is nothing more frustrating than dealing with a BSer. Unfortunately I have found that a lot of effective BSers are actually pretty smart which makes sense since they tend to have some credentials to back up their arguments. The other hard part about dealing with BSers at work is that oftentimes they are saying the types of things management wants to hear, ie "yes of course our team can build an entire hardware product in 8 months, it's easy!".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lonesomewhistle 6y agoThis is some serious bullshit.
- marshmallow_12 6y agothis article is ripe for an ig Nobel award. well done to the authors. they should be nominated.
- chris_wot 6y agoI am curious how they determined the subjects tested were bullshitters. Did they get to know them enough to realise they bullshit a lot? Or did they ask them if they were good bullshitters? If so, then maybe they missed those who are bullshitters but either don’t know it, or won’t admit to it.
- awinter-py 6y agothe linked BJSP paper is paywalled what's the effect size?
- tgv 6y agohttp://psyarxiv.com/5c2ej/download http://psyarxiv.com/5c2ej/download says the Unpaywall extension (works on Firefox, probably also on Chrome). Great thing to have installed. However, before getting carried away, let's not forget the results are based on made-up scales, bad, unbalanced alternatives and online surveys, Mechanical Turk in this case. The sample is guaranteed to be unrepresentative, because "[o]nly those who had completed a minimum of 500 surveys and had at least a 97% MTurk HIT approval rating were eligible to participate" and 62% had at least a bachelor degree. Best r they report is .39.
- motohagiography 6y agoWhen I learned to play poker with some "semi-pro" players at the table, they asked what I did I said I worked in security and cryptography, which is what got me into playing. When they said, "oh, you're a math guy?" I said, "not really, more code, but the problems I deal with at work are edge cases where assumptions about math break down, for example like how statistical models of card shuffling assume an even, normal distribution, which is great in theory, but doesn't bear out in practice." This created enough uncertainty and second guessing in their minds about their own odds calculations on each hand that with a bit of aggression and beginners randomness, I was able to take a few of them out. I wasn't doing better calculations, I was just adding uncertainty to theirs. I still don't know much about playing cards, but that is how you bullshit bullshitters.
- andrewflnr 6y agoThat's beautiful. It sounds like you were using the standard odds calculations?
- mewpmewp2 6y agoI'm not sure I get it. How do you know this created uncertainty and second guessing?
- vl 6y agoHe said that he knows that the deck is not shuffled randomly.
- mewpmewp2 6y agoI mean how does he know that this had influence on the semi pro players. It just seems unlikely to me that they would start second guessing after that fact.
- mpol 6y agoMath. Or he might be a human being with feelings and perceptions, however subjective they may be.
- rq1 6y agoWe know since at least 384BC[1] that the best strategy against a bullshitter is to bullshit. You can’t win against someone who cheats and takes freedom with the rules while you follow these rules. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthydemus_(dialogue) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthydemus_(dialogue)
- skybrian 6y agoThe study is paywalled, but since it seems to based on surveys I’ll link to an article about why research based on surveys are often bullshit: https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/ https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/
- magwa101 6y agoLiars are susceptible to lies, recent activity in the US proves this out.
- karmakaze 6y agoI might believe it more if I was given access to their surveys and data.
- AZ-X 6y agoThe team notes.'The team found. The team wondered.' The team explains.How wonderful the team is.
- xivzgrev 6y ago“Evasive bullshitting” - that’s a new term for me. I definitely have done that. It’s where the truth hurts, but you don’t want to “lie” so you base something in truth. But it’s still lying, just makes you feel better because if called on it, you have at least some plausible deniability.