I'm 17 pages in and I am wondering if the paper itself is bullshit and that's the joke.
If it's not bullshit, then I definitely need a ELI5 explanation of this: https://imgur.com/38CXnRx
Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
51–60 of 270 posts
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#52It's important to note that this study focuses on data from 15-year-olds taking a math test. I assert that drawing broad conclusions based on that sample is suspect and may be, in fact, bullshit itself.
The authors only claim to have strong results for the studied demographics, make further remarks about other possible biases, and argue these results provide some insight and encourage further research.
This is perfectly fine. Not all fields have the luxury of perfectly controlled lab experiments. If we applied the methodological discipline of experimental physics to social sciences, we might as well give up now.
In the abstract they say:
"Despite this being a well-known and widespread social phenomenon, relatively few large-scale empirical studies have been conducted into this issue. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining teenagers’ propensity to claim expertise in three mathematics constructs that do not really exist."
"we find substantial differences in young people’s tendency to bullshit across countries, genders and socio-economic groups"
"Together this provides important new insight into who bullshitters are and the type of survey responses that they provide."
In the conclusions they say:
"There are of course limitations to this study, and many issues on the topic of bullshitting that remain unexplored. First, the PISA data analysed are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. We therefore do not know whether bullshitting is a stable trait that can be consistently observed for an individual over time, or if it is something that changes with age (and the factors associated with such change)."
Their strongest claim appears to be: "Despite these limitations, we believe this paper has started to open an important new area of social science research"
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#53I'm 17 pages in and I am wondering if the paper itself is bullshit and that's the joke.
Your comment was published 20 minutes after the submission. If you were 17 pages at that point, it makes me wonder if you were just pointing out that you found the paper somewhat insulting.
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 o…
> They don't know how to judge expertise (otherwise they wouldn't be hiring you).
I've had this realization many times that, in most cases, I likely sound exactly the same as the 5 BS artists that came before me, and there's very little I can do to distinguish myself outside of long-term relationship building and delivery.
Others before me have said the exact same things, just not delivered (or hosed up a project beyond belief). Me saying something may sound exactly the same as the previous X times - they've heard it all before.
I've got a few clients I've worked with for years - they trust me implicitly because I've delivered (and when I haven't, I've made good, pushed through, fixed stuff that needed fixing, etc). After years of experience, there's deep trust. When I say "XYZ", they have a high degree of confidence in my ability to deliver. Outside of spending years developing those relationships, I'm not sure how else you can get a level of confidence even close to that.
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that if you're an IC you generally have to produce actual work that will be evaluated at some point. It's of course possible to BS your way into showing your manager you did more than you actually did or better than what you actually produced. If you're in management , then your job becomes mostly talking/meetings, which is much more conducive to "hand waving," which is probably why there are so man…
No way. Plenty of people drift through life getting other people to do work for them.
[deleted]
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#56The 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…
>The notion of bullshitters needs to be brought to the front of our industry's consciousness The industry (tech, startups, VC money) do bring bullshit to the front of the industry consciousness. I’ve never seen another industry push and promote “fake it till you make it” so hard. Democratizing this...disrupting that...we respect your privacy and data...DAO/code is law...Self driving cars...uber is creating good jobs.…
Not only promotes, favours, enables and prefer them.
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#57If 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 ev…
The reverse is also true.
I had read about trust being crucial to innovation, teamwork, execution. But had never experienced it.
Then I got paired with a marketing manager who was fantastic. We truly had a trust-based relationship. Everyone joked that we acted like a married couple (in a good way).
That experience kinda ruined me. Once I learned what trust in a competent person feels like, I had a hard time suspending disbelief, and zero inclination to play the game with bullshitters.
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The notion of bullshitters needs to be brought to the front of our industry's consciousness The industry (tech, startups, VC money) do bring bullshit to the front of the industry consciousness. I’ve never seen another industry push and promote “fake it till you make it” so hard. Democratizing this...disrupting that...we respect your privacy and data...DAO/code is law...Self driving cars...uber is creating good jobs.…
A colleague of mine put the problem more succinctly “what other industry is there where the top decision-makers have never done the basic work of the company?” Most executives in finance have done some form of financial analysis and reporting, construction company owners have almost always done a hard day’s worth of labor, and a lot of directors have had to do some acting / camera work and whatnot. In tech (especiall…
Hmm... The premise is interesting, but c-suites haven't touched the assembly line in many decades, regardless of industry. I have anecdotes of plenty of CEOs from all sorts of industries - ones that never flipped burgers, never played a video game, never pushed steel through a furnace, etc.
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#59I 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).
Politicians that use it are extremely rare.
Re: Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives? [pdf]
#60I recently put up a job post for a COO position for my company and the number of bullshitters with MBAs bragging about their accomplishments on blockchain has been astronomical. It’s amazing to me that bullshitting comes so naturally to some people that I almost wanted to interview them just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.