4 ms·

That is my experience as well. The people who lie so much, so compulsively to the point of a narcissistic personality disorder, drink their own kool-aid. They a

That is my experience as well. The people who lie so much, so compulsively to the point of a narcissistic personality disorder, drink their own kool-aid. They are manipulating themselves with the stupid as much as everybody else they lie to. Perhaps this is due to a combination of frequent life failures, low confidence, and low ability of critical examination. That low ability of critical examination that permits the self delusion also opens them to undue manipulation from others.

specialist 6y ago
How you talk changes how you think. The scary part: Most won't remember the change.
- vsareto 6y ago
  I guess, but that seems weird because then it'd be your brain wanting to change how it thinks itself through speech
EGreg 6y ago
To all the company founders here... sometimes the difference between bullshit and amazing prescience is just success. I don’t mean lying about the data when communicating, but prioritizing some signals while downplaying, dismissing or overriding many others. Did pg says founders need to be somewhat delusional or they’d give up?
TeMPOraL 6y ago
The two may be related. I think it's hard to convincingly bullshit yourself - your brain knows what you're doing. But if you successfully bullshit other people, some of them will start to reflect your bullshit back at you - providing external validation for it. At some point your brain may forget that the only reason people around you believe something is because you tricked them into it, and you start truly believing it yourself.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  This is used in various belief systems to instill and reinforce deeply held beliefs in the absence of any evidence apart from the manufactured social proof. If one is experiencing doubts, they are told to try telling others that what they doubt is actually true. One example of the phrasing that might be used: "You have to share your testimony to strengthen it." No doubt the technique of manufacturing consent through reflected BS is pervasive elsewhere too, in marketing, politics, etc.
- lukeasrodgers 6y ago
  An argument of Elephant in the Brain (https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/ https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/) is that a key component of bullshitting others (paraphrasing, somewhat) is that you must also bullshit yourself, in order to be convincing.
- austincheney 6y ago
  > I think it's hard to convincingly bullshit yourself That is entirely dependent upon the personality and goal of a given person. For some people the brain knows what it wants to know, such as selective data necessary for group conformance. For some other people the brain knows only what it sees and hears. For some different people will doubt what they see and hear until after several iterations as to meld conflicting reports. There is a common expression for people who commonly and easily lie to themselves: Talking a big game. In that case everybody knows its bullshit except for the person talking.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  > your brain knows what you're doing Not really, you believe it yourself. You don't put up much resistance, it's just kind of "this is convenient, therefore it must be the truth, and these pesky contradicting facts probably have some other good explanation".
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    If you believe it yourself. What I'm saying is, I don't think you can think yourself into believing something on purpose, when you didn't believe it before, and know that thing is wrong. You'll need a round-trip through other people (external validation), for your brain to stop seeing "motivated reasoning" tag on arguments.
mpol 6y ago
> Perhaps this is due to a combination of frequent life failures, low confidence, and low ability of critical examination. Ah, nice combination :) Purely anecdotal, I once had very low confidence, but could be very critical to myself. This broke me down quite bad, this was not a good combination. Only after 30 I would learn to not be so negative in my criticism, but be more nice to myself, and I thought I had learned a lot. Just the last few years I learned to just observe situations and myself, and not judge so much, not negative and not positive. Just like I learned from meditation. I can imagine when having low confidence, it might be so much easier to avoid being critical to yourself. Ofcourse you might then also learn to avoid observing yourself, it feels almost the same. So then you are stuck in some path where you might never get out, you just keep on doing what you did.
- ta988 6y ago
  Could you explain a bit more how you got out of that? Was it just introspection or did you do other things? Asking for a friend.

specialist 6y ago

How you talk changes how you think. The scary part: Most won't remember the change.

vsareto 6y ago
I guess, but that seems weird because then it'd be your brain wanting to change how it thinks itself through speech

EGreg 6y ago

To all the company founders here... sometimes the difference between bullshit and amazing prescience is just success. I don’t mean lying about the data when communicating, but prioritizing some signals while downplaying, dismissing or overriding many others. Did pg says founders need to be somewhat delusional or they’d give up?

TeMPOraL 6y ago

The two may be related. I think it's hard to convincingly bullshit yourself - your brain knows what you're doing. But if you successfully bullshit other people, some of them will start to reflect your bullshit back at you - providing external validation for it. At some point your brain may forget that the only reason people around you believe something is because you tricked them into it, and you start truly believing it yourself.

nitrogen 6y ago
This is used in various belief systems to instill and reinforce deeply held beliefs in the absence of any evidence apart from the manufactured social proof. If one is experiencing doubts, they are told to try telling others that what they doubt is actually true. One example of the phrasing that might be used: "You have to share your testimony to strengthen it." No doubt the technique of manufacturing consent through reflected BS is pervasive elsewhere too, in marketing, politics, etc.
lukeasrodgers 6y ago
An argument of Elephant in the Brain (https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/ https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/) is that a key component of bullshitting others (paraphrasing, somewhat) is that you must also bullshit yourself, in order to be convincing.
austincheney 6y ago
> I think it's hard to convincingly bullshit yourself That is entirely dependent upon the personality and goal of a given person. For some people the brain knows what it wants to know, such as selective data necessary for group conformance. For some other people the brain knows only what it sees and hears. For some different people will doubt what they see and hear until after several iterations as to meld conflicting reports. There is a common expression for people who commonly and easily lie to themselves: Talking a big game. In that case everybody knows its bullshit except for the person talking.
StavrosK 6y ago
> your brain knows what you're doing Not really, you believe it yourself. You don't put up much resistance, it's just kind of "this is convenient, therefore it must be the truth, and these pesky contradicting facts probably have some other good explanation".
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  If you believe it yourself. What I'm saying is, I don't think you can think yourself into believing something on purpose, when you didn't believe it before, and know that thing is wrong. You'll need a round-trip through other people (external validation), for your brain to stop seeing "motivated reasoning" tag on arguments.

mpol 6y ago

> Perhaps this is due to a combination of frequent life failures, low confidence, and low ability of critical examination. Ah, nice combination :) Purely anecdotal, I once had very low confidence, but could be very critical to myself. This broke me down quite bad, this was not a good combination. Only after 30 I would learn to not be so negative in my criticism, but be more nice to myself, and I thought I had learned a lot. Just the last few years I learned to just observe situations and myself, and not judge so much, not negative and not positive. Just like I learned from meditation. I can imagine when having low confidence, it might be so much easier to avoid being critical to yourself. Ofcourse you might then also learn to avoid observing yourself, it feels almost the same. So then you are stuck in some path where you might never get out, you just keep on doing what you did.

ta988 6y ago
Could you explain a bit more how you got out of that? Was it just introspection or did you do other things? Asking for a friend.