151–160 of 270 posts
It'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.
But because of this, many programmers I have worked with who admittedly are really smart, think they are head and shoulders above their peers, particularly those who aren't writing code. Being your own judge of the quality of your work distorts your perspective.
People who spend a lot of time programming are sometimes not outgoing or people who prefer interpersonal interactions over technical problems. If they are, they often become managers. If they are managers long enough they inevitably lose touch with the nuts and bolts of what the technical team is doing. They talk about things without understanding them nearly as well as the people on the front line of implementation. In the eyes of the people doing the technical work they can be seen as "bullshiters" who are less capable and less effective than the engineers.
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"I don't know" is such an underappreciated phrase (followed with action to remedy that).
We had an interviewee (is that a word?) today who said that he didn't know and to me that was a reason to hire him.
Saying "I don't know" is one thing - it's good to admit one's lack of knowledge.
Being able to then follow it up with the will to expand their knowledge - that is valuable IMHO.
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…
I mean nobody is 100% bullshitter 100% of the time. How do you know when and about what they are.
(I am genuinely interested in knowing)
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 ev…
Why do all Ted Talks and KickStarter Promos sound the same to me? Do I have Bullshit Agnosia? It's like there's this certain style of Archetypal Motivational Making The World A Better Place Inspiration Porn Bullshit that they're all striving for, and they all use the exact same music and slogans and rhythm and inflection.
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>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…
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> “what other industry is there where the top decision-makers have never done the basic work of the company?” Most? Sorry for the blunt answer, but I really don't know how this can even be a question. The "I worked the assembly line and now I'm the CEO" is Hollywood fiction or outright lies in 99% of the cases.
> The "I worked the assembly line and now I'm the CEO" is Hollywood fiction or outright lies in 99% of the cases. Do you have a citation for 99% or are you... bullshitting?
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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…
So long as human labor is structured under Capital's impetus, we'll have such structures of idiocy because the VC is apodicticly talentless in the domain of his investment.
From wiki, "Apodictic" or "apodeictic" (Ancient Greek: ἀποδεικτικός, "capable of demonstration") is an adjectival expression from Aristotelean logic that refers to propositions that are demonstrably, necessarily or self-evidently the case.
I dislike bullshitters and I've unfortunately had to work with many. I read the paper and something that really stuck out at me is how bullshitters were more likely to actually try and understand the problem than non bullshitters. Page 25: I think about what might have caused the problem and what I can do to solve it Non bullshitters: 85% Bullshitters: 90% I study a map and work out the best route Non bullshitters: 5…