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Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]

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Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]

#21
If you've never experienced it before, the first time you work with someone who is a pathological liar and bullshitter is a completely disorienting experience. Normal people just don't lie that brazenly and with so little remorse - so you walk out of meetings wondering if perhaps you just misunderstood because there's no way someone would straight up lie that way.

Interestingly, both of the worst bullshitters I've ever met were in academia - and the business world has been a breath of fresh air in comparison. When I used to work in computational biology, I met several senior professors who lead big labs who had absolutely no understanding of any of the methods used by the grad students in their group.

Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]

#22
I've seen a class of people who are so insecure with their choice of technology that they have to put down rivals technology. I'm fine with objective contrast but I think the generalizations and lack of data with opinion pass as fact is a terrible behavior to have in this industry.

It creates tribalism and it doesn't do anything remotely constructive but to put other people who chose different technology down.

Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]

#25
post #12

The notion of bullshitters needs to be brought to the front of our industry's consciousness. Our industry is one where the impostor complex is rife and anyone who sounds confident must know what they're talking about, since even the PhD's aren't half as confident in their field of expertise as a bullshitter is at anything. The tech industry is increasingly inundated with these types of people who manage to get placed…

If bullshitters rise to the top with very little work or knowledge, then perhaps being a bullshitter is the smart choice for people of a certain disposition.

You're right that bullshit sells well. From OP, something about it runs in the family:

>socio-economically advantaged teenagers are more likely to be bullshitters than their disadvantaged peers.

I had the misfortune of seeing this up close in consulting in tech. Your customers are idiots, that's why they hired "experts." They don't know how to judge expertise (otherwise they wouldn't be hiring you). They hire based on emotions, recommendations and epaulettes because that's the best they can do.

All three of those are completely subjected to cronyism, in my observation.

My experience here made me a firm believer that institutions and businesses really need to be allowed to fail. The most epic stupidity (and toxic politics) always comes from the ones that were furthest from that principle.

And I'm never doing that again. There is nothing I can buy with paychecks from interacting with that toxic, idiotic side of humanity that makes it worth it.

Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]

#27

I'm 17 pages in and I am wondering if the paper itself is bullshit and that's the joke.

The paper seems to provide an insight to 15-year-olds' bullshit... but I'm not sure if this also applies to our society as a whole

Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]

#28

I consider myself to be an anti-bullshitter. I once said in a job interview that I knew nothing about the technology they were hiring for, but I was pretty sure I could take a decent stab at it. I was telling the truth. I got the job.

"I don't know" is such an underappreciated phrase (followed with action to remedy that).
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