4 ms·

I don’t know if there are specific signs to look for. I’ve spend a lot of time studying people, their inputs and outputs. There is a lot of data in body languag

I don’t know if there are specific signs to look for. I’ve spend a lot of time studying people, their inputs and outputs. There is a lot of data in body language and inflection. People lie, evade, omit, or exaggerate all the time. For example, talking about things that make them uncomfortable. It’s one of those unconscious things that makes societies work. This isn’t unconscious for me. I see everything and analyze it logically. Detecting misdirection is fairly easy for me. When someone is actively lying, they are generally trying present specific body language and inflection. What happens is they miss something and I see the mismatch between the fake and real signals. It’s very similar to reading a polygraph. This isn’t a unique ability, most people have it and it manifests as a gut feeling. I’m neurodivergent and I’m able to give more than a gut feeling. I can usually point to what I’m seeing and explain it. All that said, I haven’t found any general “tells” for good lairs. It’s an art, not a science. It’s one reason polygraphs aren’t allow in court and I don’t use this ability to make snap judgements. :)

throwanem 4y ago
I understand what you're describing, but the point I'm making is that what makes a con artist a con artist is their ability to deceive this sort of analysis. If you can fool the thing I'm emulating, you can fool my emulation, too - in fact, the better my emulation, the better the attack works.
- YourDadVPN 4y ago
  IMO it has more to do with people's desire to believe others are honest than any skill.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    Eh. Twenty years living in Baltimore has done a real number on my good-hearted naïveté, but that's not at all the same as saying I can no longer be played for a sucker.
throwaway923663 4y ago
Be careful with this. Some people, including me, can purposely (and falsely!) trigger your lie detector. If I believe that x=1 and if I want you to believe that I believe that x=0, I can say "x=1" while purposely displaying the tells you are looking for. People want to think that they are smart- that they are capable of reading people. It's much easier to just give them what they are looking for and move on than to leave them sitting there analyzing you for the next few minutes. They'll also think that you're a shit liar which is useful.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  I’m not a lie detector. I spot inconsistencies. :) I’ve had to learn to read people logically. I have no intuitive feeling for emotions. So I got good at analyzing and predicting people in a non-standard way. People don’t know what I’m looking at and don’t know what they need to fake. For all of the people who have lied to me (successfully or not), I’ve seen no common patterns to look for. That's why I compared it to a polygraph.
YourDadVPN 4y ago
You can't really evaluate your ability to detect lies accurately, because you can't count the times someone was lying and you didn't notice it. You also probably can't count the times you thought someone was lying but wasn't (people can look like they're lying when admitting something that makes them uncomfortable, or hiding something while still telling the truth), since you probably didn't prove every single case. So you have an unknown rate of false positives and an unknown rate of false negatives. The gut feeling/discrepancy you notice in body language can only be used as a sign you should dig deeper. Just like a polygraph, it can't prove someone is lying or not. You have to cross-reference.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Maybe I misspoke. I don’t spot lying. I spot inconsistencies. I can’t say whether or not if someone is deliberately trying to deceive me without addition information. I do have feedback because I’m continually adjusting and refining the technique as my assumptions are confirmed or disproven. It’s similar to the technique I use for reading emotions. Occasionally I run across people who don’t follow the normal pattern and I need to adjust how I read them.

throwanem 4y ago

I understand what you're describing, but the point I'm making is that what makes a con artist a con artist is their ability to deceive this sort of analysis. If you can fool the thing I'm emulating, you can fool my emulation, too - in fact, the better my emulation, the better the attack works.

YourDadVPN 4y ago
IMO it has more to do with people's desire to believe others are honest than any skill.
- throwanem 4y ago
  Eh. Twenty years living in Baltimore has done a real number on my good-hearted naïveté, but that's not at all the same as saying I can no longer be played for a sucker.

throwaway923663 4y ago

Be careful with this. Some people, including me, can purposely (and falsely!) trigger your lie detector. If I believe that x=1 and if I want you to believe that I believe that x=0, I can say "x=1" while purposely displaying the tells you are looking for. People want to think that they are smart- that they are capable of reading people. It's much easier to just give them what they are looking for and move on than to leave them sitting there analyzing you for the next few minutes. They'll also think that you're a shit liar which is useful.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
I’m not a lie detector. I spot inconsistencies. :) I’ve had to learn to read people logically. I have no intuitive feeling for emotions. So I got good at analyzing and predicting people in a non-standard way. People don’t know what I’m looking at and don’t know what they need to fake. For all of the people who have lied to me (successfully or not), I’ve seen no common patterns to look for. That's why I compared it to a polygraph.

YourDadVPN 4y ago

You can't really evaluate your ability to detect lies accurately, because you can't count the times someone was lying and you didn't notice it. You also probably can't count the times you thought someone was lying but wasn't (people can look like they're lying when admitting something that makes them uncomfortable, or hiding something while still telling the truth), since you probably didn't prove every single case. So you have an unknown rate of false positives and an unknown rate of false negatives. The gut feeling/discrepancy you notice in body language can only be used as a sign you should dig deeper. Just like a polygraph, it can't prove someone is lying or not. You have to cross-reference.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
Maybe I misspoke. I don’t spot lying. I spot inconsistencies. I can’t say whether or not if someone is deliberately trying to deceive me without addition information. I do have feedback because I’m continually adjusting and refining the technique as my assumptions are confirmed or disproven. It’s similar to the technique I use for reading emotions. Occasionally I run across people who don’t follow the normal pattern and I need to adjust how I read them.