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You can use the same sort of polite etiquette in well crafted form to undermine these polite attacks. It takes quick thinking and usually works best in the form

You can use the same sort of polite etiquette in well crafted form to undermine these polite attacks. It takes quick thinking and usually works best in the form of an open ended question that sets the BS in its place. No one says anything explicitly but everyone internally acknowledges it. It may be a bit passive aggressive but such is most modern business culture and meetings.

harles 5y ago
From why I’ve seen on LinkedIn, subtly doesn’t work. Folks that pick up on it probably spotted the BS already. You really have to hit them over the head with a hammer to drive the point in.
SummerlyMars 5y ago
Can you elaborate a bit on what this would look like?
- Frost1x 5y ago
  Someone passive aggressively gives you with a backhanded compliment to set you up for failure. They stroke your ego, build you up in front if people, then offer a trove of BS that needs to be accomplished that only you are capable of accomplishing and makes it difficult for you to refute. Instead of being pressured into saying yes, you quickly think about the information and ask a general question like, "well that might be possible, I'm personally not sure how, perhaps you had some ideas on how we can accomplish that in the proposed timeline?" and so forth. If someone is marketing you a BS solution, you can usually dip down to a kernel of truth and quickly form a well crafted open ended question to ask how they address some problem their solution clearly couldn't. "With our application, you can easily interface with any platform" -- "that's awesome, how much effort is typically required to do that? Do you have example cases?" And so on. You could also use an even more general/vague question similar to the one you just posed: asking someone to elaborate on something that's clearly BS usually catches them off guard if they were just making up nonsense and had no thought behind their statement. If they had some thought, it's going to be pretty clear. All that's needed is to pepper on some politeness to make it: "that sounds intriguing and thought provoking, could you elaborate on that idea more?" These are benign on the surface but can be used offensively and without any clarity of the genuine intent to pass the BS baton around.
- tolbish 5y ago
  A polite question asking the person to go into further detail, for instance.
danaris 5y ago
The problem with this is well-stated in Brandolini's Law [0]: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." So, effectively, this means that given equivalent amounts of effort, you've got 10 people producing bullshit for every 1 refuting it effectively. Thus the bullshit continues to spread. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
- Frost1x 5y ago
  The trick to that problem is to pass the burden of proof on the one producing the BS (as it should be), which is similar to what Bertrand Russell does in Russell's Teapot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

harles 5y ago

From why I’ve seen on LinkedIn, subtly doesn’t work. Folks that pick up on it probably spotted the BS already. You really have to hit them over the head with a hammer to drive the point in.

SummerlyMars 5y ago

Can you elaborate a bit on what this would look like?

Frost1x 5y ago
Someone passive aggressively gives you with a backhanded compliment to set you up for failure. They stroke your ego, build you up in front if people, then offer a trove of BS that needs to be accomplished that only you are capable of accomplishing and makes it difficult for you to refute. Instead of being pressured into saying yes, you quickly think about the information and ask a general question like, "well that might be possible, I'm personally not sure how, perhaps you had some ideas on how we can accomplish that in the proposed timeline?" and so forth. If someone is marketing you a BS solution, you can usually dip down to a kernel of truth and quickly form a well crafted open ended question to ask how they address some problem their solution clearly couldn't. "With our application, you can easily interface with any platform" -- "that's awesome, how much effort is typically required to do that? Do you have example cases?" And so on. You could also use an even more general/vague question similar to the one you just posed: asking someone to elaborate on something that's clearly BS usually catches them off guard if they were just making up nonsense and had no thought behind their statement. If they had some thought, it's going to be pretty clear. All that's needed is to pepper on some politeness to make it: "that sounds intriguing and thought provoking, could you elaborate on that idea more?" These are benign on the surface but can be used offensively and without any clarity of the genuine intent to pass the BS baton around.
tolbish 5y ago
A polite question asking the person to go into further detail, for instance.

danaris 5y ago

The problem with this is well-stated in Brandolini's Law [0]: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." So, effectively, this means that given equivalent amounts of effort, you've got 10 people producing bullshit for every 1 refuting it effectively. Thus the bullshit continues to spread. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

Frost1x 5y ago
The trick to that problem is to pass the burden of proof on the one producing the BS (as it should be), which is similar to what Bertrand Russell does in Russell's Teapot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot