5 ms·

the best way to spot a bullshitter is to ask them A series of 5-7 why drill down questions expanding on a particular word you don't understand or do understand

the best way to spot a bullshitter is to ask them A series of 5-7 why drill down questions expanding on a particular word you don't understand or do understand. And if they aren't quick to respond or don't answer don't know or aren't out of their depth , you know they are bullshitting. technique borrowed from Feynman's "why magnets work video"

gwervc 3y ago
That works with almost every topic. Two-three questions you're in the bachelor degree level depth, 4-5 master one, 5-6 phd, 7 only God knows.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  You can definitely get to the God level if you start with the question of why are elementary forces and constants the values that they are ;)
  - euroderf 3y ago
    "Tell me what are your three favorite dimensionless constants, and why."
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
nuancebydefault 3y ago
I _think_ I can very easily spot BS. That has its downsides... I very easily get very annoyed with BS. I know a few people who as good as constantly BS. It's a puzzle to me what drives them, and why it seems like they even don't know they are BSing. Is there some psychological explanation, I'm curious. I was thinking about giving examples to state my point, but in fact every somewhat sane person must have had those 'WTF are they saying' moments.
- pixl97 3y ago
  I think part of it is that BS is commonly quite effective. Good BSers are commonly good at getting information out of people and feeding it back to them as a kind of echo chamber. Most people will not pose adversarial information (that is say something purposefully wrong) to see if the BSer agrees with it and parrots it back. The BSer confirms the other persons worldviews at the same time spouting whatever crap it is they are selling. Very common tactic in grifters.
- sufficer 3y ago
  One example I can easily recall is some guy bsing about his arena rank in wow. I wasn't good, but I asked enough questions to determine he was absolutely bsing to the point of laughter. Like the kind of kid that says he has a GF that lives in another city or state or even Canada lol
JKCalhoun 3y ago
I assume this video: https://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8 https://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8 Even from within the first few seconds you can tell Feynman is already annoyed with the interviewer. It's possible that there is some history here: there may have already been a long run of questions and he's now become tired of it.
mistermann 3y ago
They can simply counter with "bad faith", "you're being pedantic", etc. Wins literally every time.
JanisErdmanis 3y ago
Feynman did not bulshit the answer as the interviewer does not have a capacity to understand the phenomena any deeper and he gives all valid reasons why. If instead he would have jumped to writing down a Hamiltonian and constructing a partition function from which magnetization could be derived for a magnet it would have killed the interviewer in obscurity.
Scubabear68 3y ago
Yes! This is what I use on technical interviews. I generally ask candidates to describe systems they have worked on in depth from an architecture perspective. This very rapidly spots the BS hand wavers from those who know how their systems work. As a side effect it can also serve as a gauge on how mature or junior they may be.
- frickinLasers 3y ago
  I don't interview well. I wrote a program from scratch, tweaked it throughout my PhD, used it to get results for my thesis. I am quite confident in the robustness and accuracy of the program. I couldn't explain my code to an interviewer (partially because it wasn't production-ready code, but mostly because I don't interview well). I'm glad I didn't get the job. Moved on to work with people who know I'm not a hand waver.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    TBH, I've found there are people that can give great sounding answers that don't correspond all that well to reality. There are also people who struggle to answer, because reality is more complex than what they can easily convey to someone who doesn't already know the domain. There are pros and cons to both groups.
  - scrollaway 3y ago
    Hey if you want a mock interview in some as-real-as-possible scenario, find my post on whoishiring and email the careers@ email with your cv, I’ll make sure to get you an interview and get feedback to you.
- huytersd 3y ago
  I would fail this hard. Even if I write an entire system from scratch I forget the details in under 3 months.

gwervc 3y ago

That works with almost every topic. Two-three questions you're in the bachelor degree level depth, 4-5 master one, 5-6 phd, 7 only God knows.

antisthenes 3y ago
You can definitely get to the God level if you start with the question of why are elementary forces and constants the values that they are ;)
- euroderf 3y ago
  "Tell me what are your three favorite dimensionless constants, and why."
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

nuancebydefault 3y ago

I _think_ I can very easily spot BS. That has its downsides... I very easily get very annoyed with BS. I know a few people who as good as constantly BS. It's a puzzle to me what drives them, and why it seems like they even don't know they are BSing. Is there some psychological explanation, I'm curious. I was thinking about giving examples to state my point, but in fact every somewhat sane person must have had those 'WTF are they saying' moments.

pixl97 3y ago
I think part of it is that BS is commonly quite effective. Good BSers are commonly good at getting information out of people and feeding it back to them as a kind of echo chamber. Most people will not pose adversarial information (that is say something purposefully wrong) to see if the BSer agrees with it and parrots it back. The BSer confirms the other persons worldviews at the same time spouting whatever crap it is they are selling. Very common tactic in grifters.
sufficer 3y ago
One example I can easily recall is some guy bsing about his arena rank in wow. I wasn't good, but I asked enough questions to determine he was absolutely bsing to the point of laughter. Like the kind of kid that says he has a GF that lives in another city or state or even Canada lol

JKCalhoun 3y ago

I assume this video: https://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8 https://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8 Even from within the first few seconds you can tell Feynman is already annoyed with the interviewer. It's possible that there is some history here: there may have already been a long run of questions and he's now become tired of it.

mistermann 3y ago

They can simply counter with "bad faith", "you're being pedantic", etc. Wins literally every time.

JanisErdmanis 3y ago

Feynman did not bulshit the answer as the interviewer does not have a capacity to understand the phenomena any deeper and he gives all valid reasons why. If instead he would have jumped to writing down a Hamiltonian and constructing a partition function from which magnetization could be derived for a magnet it would have killed the interviewer in obscurity.

Scubabear68 3y ago

Yes! This is what I use on technical interviews. I generally ask candidates to describe systems they have worked on in depth from an architecture perspective. This very rapidly spots the BS hand wavers from those who know how their systems work. As a side effect it can also serve as a gauge on how mature or junior they may be.

frickinLasers 3y ago
I don't interview well. I wrote a program from scratch, tweaked it throughout my PhD, used it to get results for my thesis. I am quite confident in the robustness and accuracy of the program. I couldn't explain my code to an interviewer (partially because it wasn't production-ready code, but mostly because I don't interview well). I'm glad I didn't get the job. Moved on to work with people who know I'm not a hand waver.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  TBH, I've found there are people that can give great sounding answers that don't correspond all that well to reality. There are also people who struggle to answer, because reality is more complex than what they can easily convey to someone who doesn't already know the domain. There are pros and cons to both groups.
- scrollaway 3y ago
  Hey if you want a mock interview in some as-real-as-possible scenario, find my post on whoishiring and email the careers@ email with your cv, I’ll make sure to get you an interview and get feedback to you.
huytersd 3y ago
I would fail this hard. Even if I write an entire system from scratch I forget the details in under 3 months.