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Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

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Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#81

Post by ahartmetz »

eksemplar wrote: post #13
barking wrote: post #5

Bullshit-sensitivity and cynicism are practically synomyms I'd say. It feels counter-intuitive to find cynicism positively correlated with prosocial behaviour (which the article defines as donating to and/or joining a charity.)

I think you can be extremely apt at detecting bullshit without being a cynic. In fact I think a lot, though certainly not all, of cynicism stems from the disappointment of having been fooled too much by bullshit.

I guess this means that many "IT professionals" don't even reflect enough to clearly detect rubbish even after a fad is over.

OOP (as the solution to every programming problem), Java everywhere (performance is great and/or doesn't matter - really!!), P2P everything (because Napster), semantic web, XML, SOAP, agile(washing), cloud (whether it makes sense or not), server-side JS (overused), client-side JS whether you need it or not, IoT (aka please pay us monthly), blockchain. You see a lot of bullshit in a career.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#82

Post by shoo »

awild wrote: post #7

I am slightly confused by the selection of those sentences, the bullshit sentences barely make grammatical sense, while the profound sentences are honestly pretty banal and sound like things you'd find written on tote-bags sold in etsy stores. I found the study pretty interesting especially table 2 is extremely informative!

I classified them into "falsifiable" and "not even wrong".

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#83

Post by addicted »

foldr wrote: post #78
stubish wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pain hurts by definition. Even if the pain is imagined, it still hurts, by definition. If you are imagining something that doesn't hurt, you are not imagining pain, by definition. Pain hurts, even if it is all in your head. Same as 'irrational fears are scary despite being irrational', or 'imaginary fears are scary despite being imaginary'.

>If you are imagining something that doesn't hurt, you are not imagining pain, by definition. By the same logic, I can feel happy just by imagining myself feeling happy?

Yes you can. In fact, considering happiness is a feeling, it’s a reasonable question whether there is even a difference between feeling happy and “being” happy.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#84

Post by ACow_Adonis »

peteretep wrote: post #62
tabs_masterrace wrote: post #28

> Health and tolerance provides creativity for the future. This one is classified bullshit, although I think it makes at least somewhat sense.

Right. Also: > 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. Describes reading the description of an artwork at a Modern Art gallery pretty well

That one clearly describes LISP.

Lisp has an abstract beauty in that it is a homoiconic language thought up as an intellectual exercise from a small number of basic rules and simple syntax.

The hidden meaning, which surprised even its creator at the time that he wrote "RECURSIVE FUNCTIONS OF SYMBOLIC EXPRESSIONS AND THEIR COMPUTATION BY MACHINE", that a mathematical syntax should also be a fully implementable language to get a working interpreter, transforms the original paper into something even more beautiful and amazing than the original abstract beauty of the idea.

"The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty".

Edit: indeed, i think that one can apply to many instances of people who find programming languages and math aesthetically beautiful but also practical :P

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#85

Post by foldr »

addicted wrote: post #83
foldr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you are imagining something that doesn't hurt, you are not imagining pain, by definition. By the same logic, I can feel happy just by imagining myself feeling happy?

Yes you can. In fact, considering happiness is a feeling, it’s a reasonable question whether there is even a difference between feeling happy and “being” happy.

Ok -- we must have such different internal lives that I'm willing to believe that your imagined pains actually hurt you.

Responding to your edit:

>whether there is even a difference between feeling happy and “being” happy.

That's not the question. The question is whether there's a difference between feeling happy and imagining yourself feeling happy.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#87

Post by scns »

peteretep wrote: post #62
tabs_masterrace wrote: post #28

> Health and tolerance provides creativity for the future. This one is classified bullshit, although I think it makes at least somewhat sense.

Right. Also: > 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. Describes reading the description of an artwork at a Modern Art gallery pretty well

IMO it is only Art if you feel something immediately. If you have to read some description to get the meaning, it is only pretentious and not Art for me.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#88

Post by red75prime »

foldr wrote: post #58
duopixel wrote: post #19

A simple self-experiment if you haven't read the paper, find which of these sentences are bullshit. Answer in order without reading further ahead, and don't go back to change your answers (as to replicate experimental conditions). * 1. A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but it's persistence. 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seek…

>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined. I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me. I agreed with all the other classifications. edit : I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I…

11 does make sense even if it is false. As I see it, the distinction is on make sense/doesn't make sense axis.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#89

Post by foldr »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #80
foldr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. The sentence seems to be accepting the distinction between imagined pain and real pain, and saying that the imaginary nature of the former does not cause it to hurt less than the latter (technically leaving open the possibility that it does hurt less for some other reason). Also, we clearly can distinguish imaginary pain from real pain. For example, there's a difference between the real pain I feel…

But a pragmatist in many people would say: “why then that person does not take any antidepressants/codeine?”, if that pain is so painful? So it may be quite a bullshit statement, depending on how you take it.

We're just talking about cases where people suffer pain because of false beliefs, which can easily happen to people who have no mental health issues. If you heard that a loved one died, you'd be in a lot of pain, regardless of whether or not that report was true (so long as you believed it).

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#90

Post by raverbashing »

duopixel wrote: post #19

A simple self-experiment if you haven't read the paper, find which of these sentences are bullshit. Answer in order without reading further ahead, and don't go back to change your answers (as to replicate experimental conditions). * 1. A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but it's persistence. 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seek…

> "its power but it's persistence"

Can I call BS on getting the first its right and the 2nd one wrong?

On that subject, I would have classified 5 differently but it seems to be the highest score of the BS sentences so I guess it's debatable

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