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I tracked down my impostor

theguardian.com

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Re: I tracked down my impostor

#61

Post by Veen »

jonnat wrote: post #43
chrisseaton wrote: post #26

> Some of the work should have been spotted by plagiarism checkers I've been in postgraduate academia and industry, and been involved in multiple conferences at different levels. I'm not aware of anyone ever running a plagiarism detector on any submitted work at all. Do other people do this? Should the people I work with have been doing it?

My daughter is in 5th grade, attending school virtually due to the pandemic, and she has all her submitted assignments automatically verified by plagiarism checkers. In fact, she's encouraged to use online plagiarism checkers herself before submission to avoid false positives.

My partner finds it frustrating that she has to edit out “false positives” even when she knows damn well she hasn’t plagiarised.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#62

Post by ironmagma »

Sebb767 wrote: post #59
ironmagma wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the only definition we have for mental illness is whether your situation falls under some category that we have a name for. It’s a slippery (and fuzzy) enough slope having designations for illnesses that encompass a huge portion of the human condition (see Rosenhan). Much worse if we also include things that don’t have entries in the DSM. It would be trivial enough to say that anyone you have even mild distaste f…

> But the only definition we have for mental illness is whether your situation falls under some category that we have a name for. The one I heard was a variation of "does the person suffer due to the condition or cause harm to other people". That was a side course in university. I actually like that one a lot, since there's really not a clear line between an illness and just being different.

It also doesn’t make a meaningful distinction from non-mental illness though, like chronic pain or even poverty.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#63

Post by dakial1 »

This seems a case of a high level mythomaniac. Funnily enough I've encountered some in the recent years that got me thinking if this kind of psycho disease was increasing or simply I got more knowledgeable in a way that I started spotting it. I really don't know, because we can clearly spot this kind of people today (Trump anyone?) but is it getting worse or have they always been there?

It something impressive the lenghts these kind of people go with their lies and deception, keeping a straight face even when the lie is obvious.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#64

Post by vletal »

kergonath wrote: post #56
autophagian wrote: post #19

For the curious: this emerged as a twitter thread back in Jan https://twitter.com/mattlodder/status/1350192856154198016 . In it, Dr. Lodder posts a comparison between his tattoos and his imposters, as well as a talk his imposter gave based on his work, while dressed as him. Creepy.

That’s some dedication. And some nerve. I wonder why he’d try that in academia; there are probably other jobs in which his skills would be more useful.

Nice burn.

Joking aside, I agree. There is so many things you could achieve while successfully impersonating someone. Seems like the best you can do in academia is to ruin someone's career. In this case it seemed fortunately "harmless" though.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#66

Post by Ansil849 »

I think the positive here is that more people got to learn about the person's work. Sure he didn't get credited, but the important thing should be his research, not himself.

And the tattoos I can't even begin to understand what the issue is. Walking down a busy street, I can't begin to count how many mimicked tattoos I see.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#67

Post by vletal »

Ansil849 wrote: post #66

I think the positive here is that more people got to learn about the person's work. Sure he didn't get credited, but the important thing should be his research, not himself. And the tattoos I can't even begin to understand what the issue is. Walking down a busy street, I can't begin to count how many mimicked tattoos I see.

Like maybe if it was cited properly...

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#69

Post by imagica »

jancsika wrote: post #30
kfoley wrote: post #6

Reminds me of something I experienced on HN and Reddit, though my case was a far less significant level. I posted a comment on HN in response to some article about Emacs. Later that day I saw someone had copied my comment word for word in reply to the same article on Reddit. I still have no idea why someone would do that. I thought at first it was some kind of karma farming operation but the post history of the Reddi…

> I still have no idea why someone would do that. It's a fundamental way to learn. E.g., suppose people tell me I'm a real funny person. Let me test that. 1. I remember a joke from a professional funny person widely considered to be one of the best. 2. I tell that joke to the people who told me I'm a real funny person. 3. I measure the laughter I get. If the laughter is different-- e.g., if the people tell me this is…

Retelling helps learning a lot more than copying verbatim.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#70

Post by formerly_proven »

dakial1 wrote: post #63

This seems a case of a high level mythomaniac. Funnily enough I've encountered some in the recent years that got me thinking if this kind of psycho disease was increasing or simply I got more knowledgeable in a way that I started spotting it. I really don't know, because we can clearly spot this kind of people today (Trump anyone?) but is it getting worse or have they always been there? It something impressive the le…

I'm pretty sure people who habitually lie about basically everything (Sayre's law applies, for some weird reason) are simply believing their own lies and cannot consistently tell reality from their made-up world. Any conflict between reality and their world is met with a defensive response (straight up acting like something was not brought up, shallow dismissals, changing topics, aggression).

I didn't know there's a special word for this - mythomaniac - I just figured these guys are somewhere on the psychopath/sociopath scale.

Edit: Trump put a slightly different twist on it, he lied as a show of power/dominance by lying about something which is immediately and obviously false, then observing that no one speaks up (i.e. submitting to his power).

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