61–70 of 363 posts
Most policemen aren't really learning state of the art stuff. It's institutional knowledge passed down over time. So they're likely to be far behind the truth. They likely usually don't have the tools necessary¹ to even understand these studies since they are not taught how. This manifests in hard to prove stuff like this, but also obviously in things like when facial recognition or shot spotter tech is used. Scienti…
I played a ton of Among Us in 2020, which is a game where you have to figure out which of your friends are lying. I quickly learned that going off "well they're acting pretty guilty" was an easy way to lose. A friend of mine would immediately jump to accuse me whenever I cast suspicion on them, even if they were innocent. Way better to rely on actual evidence and not hunches, even more so when it comes to giving some…
Just think of it as like a GAN neural network. The liar and the discriminator continue to evolve in an arms race. I, as an average discriminator can probably tell the bad liars but could be fooled by the good ones.
Most of us can’t reliably tell when a romantic interest is actively signaling their mutual interest. If we can’t get cooperative activities right, most of us don’t have a chance to spot a liar through nonverbal cues. The fact is that random effects are huge when dealing with people. Is that person you’re interrogating not showing emotion because they’re a psychopath, or because they were taught not to display emotion…
> current polygraph techniques can allegedly be beaten with training No training is needed because polygraphs don't work. Polygraph testing is about as worthwhile as astrology: https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph https://www.salon.com/2000/03/02/polygraph/ And inadmissible in court in many places: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/2000/6.html > if trained polygraph techs with special equipment T…
"""Terry McLarney once mused that the best way to unsettle a suspect would be to post in all three interrogation rooms a written list of those behavior patterns that indicate deception: Uncooperative. Too cooperative. Talks too much. Talks too little. Gets his story perfectly straight. Fucks his story up. Blinks too much, avoids eye contact. Doesn’t blink. Stares."""
... which (although in a slightly different context) captures the problem of detecting lies in interrogation very well.
If anyone is interested, please contact me at the address in my HN profile!
I played a ton of Among Us in 2020, which is a game where you have to figure out which of your friends are lying. I quickly learned that going off "well they're acting pretty guilty" was an easy way to lose. A friend of mine would immediately jump to accuse me whenever I cast suspicion on them, even if they were innocent. Way better to rely on actual evidence and not hunches, even more so when it comes to giving some…
If you liked this you might like Embassytown
Most of us can’t reliably tell when a romantic interest is actively signaling their mutual interest. If we can’t get cooperative activities right, most of us don’t have a chance to spot a liar through nonverbal cues. The fact is that random effects are huge when dealing with people. Is that person you’re interrogating not showing emotion because they’re a psychopath, or because they were taught not to display emotion…
[0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-signals-a... on dares and costly signals, also discussing The Psychopath Code by late Pieter Hintjens.
The first was at a part-time job during my days at uni. A new guy had joined the crew, intelligent and affable, but it turned out, simply a pathological lair. We weren't aware of this until ... I forget precisely what had occurred, but apparently lying when filling out bank cheques was among his failings....
The second was a more personal relationship, in which it transpired that I'd been lied to from the very beginning. This person displayed many of the characteristics of borderline / narcissistic personality disorder, and would often become wildly (and increasingly inappropriately) upset under questioning, deflecting or projecting questions and accusations back. I'd had little experience with the behaviour previously and it was exceedingly disconcerting.
This essay on diversion tactics covers many of the behaviours I'd experienced in that incident (I'd submitted it to HN a few months back, though there was no traction): https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversio...
What ultimately broke that case for me was:
- Finding several people who'd known something of the person's background, and comparing notes. Inconsistencies immediately started popping up. Score one for the consistency rule of truth determination. Various audit methods rely heavily on these.
- Realising I had a trove of communications from the person (legitimately obtained --- they'd given them to me, though some reverse-engineering was required to recover data, both points that held significance in later proceedings). It took some patching together of these to generate a clear picture, which was hampered by the false / incomplete story I'd been told, but the full story eventually was clear.
Eventually we were able to pin down the individual under testimony showing the scope of deception and the fact that it was intentional, premeditated, and predated my encounter with the person (I happened to be the sufficiently clueless victim appearing at the right or wrong time, depending on whose viewpoint you take).
Many standard bullshit-detection tactics (see several referenced in https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28ge14/on_nons...) turn out to apply. Sloppy logic, imprecise language, deflecting questions, various forms of special pleading, turning to accusations against the questioner when the situation gets too heated, etc., vagueness as to facts, and inconsistencies within the story (these can require close listening) were ultimately the tells. Even once presented, there was a lot of work left to uncover the actual truth.
In more mundane dealings, what I find is that fairly sensitive and alert to unqualified claims, inconsistent actions, or statements at odds with facts of which I'm aware. It's interesting to see just how often this occurs (I'm thinking of examples from an appliance purchase, broadband service calls, and medial services, within the past year or three), and once those occur, I call the person on their bullshit. I've walked away from purchases or services strictly due to such behaviours --- if you cannot be trusted to tell the truth or admit to the limits of your knowledge or understanding on the simple stuff, much as with Van Halen's brown M&Ms, why the hell should I trust you with the complex bits I don't have knowledge of?
There's a book by an underappreciated author, Jeremy Cambbell, which I've yet to read though it's premise is fascinating. It's The Liar's Tale: A History of Falsehood (https://www.worldcat.org/title/liars-tale-a-history-of-false...), and concludes that lying is a universal behaviour.
(Campbell's other notable book, the 1982 title Grammatical Man, is about information theory, and was a fascinating introduction to the field for me.)