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Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

journals.plos.org

271–280 of 298 posts

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#271
post #247

A simple self-experiment if you haven't read the paper, find which of these sentences are bullshit. Answer in order without reading further ahead, and don't go back to change your answers (as to replicate experimental conditions). * 1. A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but it's persistence. 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seek…

This is a terrible research. Even the BS meter they used is not very cited elsewhere. first sentence for example, any engineer knows that strong water jets can precisely cut steel in seconds, much better than any persistent river over several generations. Also, they picked the most subjective "pro-social" measurements. It boils down to "volunteering" (time or money), no matter to what (can have been antifa, MAGA, etc…

From Neal Stephenson's Anathem:

Bulshytt: (1) In Fluccish of the late Praxic Age and early Reconstitution, a derogatory term for false speech in general, esp. knowing and deliberate falsehood or obfuscation. (2) In Orth, a more technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. (3) According to the Knights of Saunt Halikaarn, a radical order of the 2nd Millennium A.R., all speech and writings of the ancient Sphenics; the Mystagogues of the Old Mathic Age; Praxic Age commercial and political institutions; and, since the Reconstitution, anyone they deemed to have been infected by Procian thinking. Their frequent and loud use of this word to interrupt lectures, dialogs, private conversations, etc., exacerbated the divide between Procian and Halikaarnian orders that characterized the mathic world in the years leading up to the Third Sack. Shortly before the Third Sack, all of theKnights of Saunt Halikaarn were Thrown Back, so little more is known about them (their frequent appearance in Sæcular entertainments results from confusion between them and the Incanters).

Usage note: In the mathic world, if the word is suddenly shouted out in a chalk hall or refectory it brings to mind the events associated with sense (3) and is therefore to be avoided. Spoken in a moderate tone of voice, it takes on sense (2), which long ago lost any vulgar connotations it may once have had. In the Sæculum it is easily confused with sense (1) and deemed a vulgarity or even an obscenity. It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt- talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bulshytt is pointed out to them. This places the mathic observer in a nearly impossible position. One is forced either to use this “offensive” word and be deemed a disagreeable person and as such excluded from polite discourse, or to say the same thing in a different way, which means becoming a purveyor of bulshytt oneself and thereby lending strength to what one is trying to attack. The latter quality probably explains the uncanny stability and resiliency of bulshytt. Resolving this dilemma is beyond the scope of this Dictionary and is probably best left to hierarchs who make it their business to interact with the Sæculum. — THE DICTIONARY , 4th edition, A.R. 3000

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#272
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined. I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me. I agreed with all the other classifications. edit : I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I…

Based on the other comments further down, you seem to be caught up on whether the statement is technically true for specific definitions of pain, rather than the underlying point of the statement. The underlying point is that whether you think that someone's suffering (physical or emotional) has a real or imaginary cause, that doesn't make them suffer any more or less, because you are not in their head, and they are…

I agree with the "underlying point", but it simply isn't what the sentence says. If you're willing to put that much effort into interpreting it, practically any statement could qualify as profound.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#273
post #164
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said that I'm ok with calling it "not bullshit", so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I was questioning whether or not it could properly be called profound.

On the contrary, you've spent almost every post in this sub-thread questioning whether it is true . To question whether it should properly be called profound would be, conversely, to question the paper's methodology. There is, as I said, a definition of bullshit. There is no equivalent definition of profundity. Nor were test subjects asked to evaluate the sentences with an explicit profundity criterion. The so-called…

>On the contrary, you've spent almost every post in this sub-thread questioning whether it is true

Yes, because it's difficult for a statement to be both profound and obviously false.

I just said that it's obviously false, so I don't understand why it is labeled "profound" in the paper. That's it.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#274
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the sentence talks about imaginary pain, not real pain with imaginary causes.

> No, the sentence talks about imaginary pain, not real pain with imaginary causes. That's exactly what you're getting wrong. "Imaginary pain" does not mean "imagining a situation where imaginary-you is in pain". It means pain with imaginary causes that applies to the real you.

That's not a possible meaning of "imaginary pain" in my dialect of English.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#275
post #166
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the sentence talks about imaginary pain, not real pain with imaginary causes.

But pain is subjective by definition. What does "imaginary pain" mean? The answer can only include some notion of "cause."

Imaginary pain is pain in your imagination, just like an imaginary car is a car in your imagination. If you stub your toe, you are really in pain and not just imagining it. If you imagine stubbing your toe, you are only in imaginary pain (assuming that you imagine it to be painful).

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#276
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As malloryerik said in another comment, that seems to be confusing the cause of the pain with the pain itself. The paranoiac's pain is real, even if the cause is imaginary.

I didn't downvote any of your comments, but I didn't understand your gripe until this post, and I agree with you that the question is not worded well. Imaginary's primary definition is only existing in your imagination , so it's technically correct on one level, but if you look at synonyms for imaginary, and the way that people commonly use it, you get words like nonexistent, made-up, fictional, unreal, etc..

So nonexistent pain hurts as much as real pain? Doesn't that make even less sense?

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#277
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the sentence talks about imaginary pain, not real pain with imaginary causes.

> the sentence talks about imaginary pain It does. But read what the sentence says about "imaginary pain"—that it still hurts. That feeling of hurt is pain. So the sentence is saying that "imaginary pain" is just "pain". So pain that you might think is imaginary, is actually real.

Or, equally, pain that you might think is real is actually imaginary. (If the two terms are equivalent, substitution should work in either direction.) Seems obviously false to me.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#278
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined. I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me. I agreed with all the other classifications. edit : I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I…

My wife and I have very different pain thresholds. A few days ago, I was stung by a bee. I told my wife about it after a while, and she was shocked, asking if I wanted a pain killer, but to me it was just a curiosity. To her, a bee sting is a relatively major source of discomfort. You can't grade pain on an objective scale based on what caused it. It's a subjective experience, and therefore if you truly imagine it, i…

That has nothing to do with comparing imagined pain to real pain. You and your wife experience different degrees of real pain in the event of a bee sting. Imaginary pain doesn't come into it.

>It's a subjective experience, and therefore if you truly imagine it, it exists.

Nope, I can imagine being in pain without being in pain. Similarly, taste is subjective, but I can't satisfy my appetite for chocolate by imagining eating it.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#279
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined. I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me. I agreed with all the other classifications. edit : I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I…

It's a direct response to the common belief that mental ailments--depression, anxiety, dysphoria--are less "real" than physical ones. Basically this: http://www.robot-hugs.com/helpful-advice/

Could just be a bad translation then? Perhaps "mental pain" is what is meant.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#280

Scientists! I offer my services as an author of better bullshit than you can create by feeding a parody generator with marketing materials. Observe! - The unknown flees from the implausible. - Unheard elephants are never green. - Although many people seek apples, few seek the road. - Judgement is like chewing on expensive rubber. - A circle is a square with intention.

If you swapped ‘road’ for ‘seeds’ in the one about apples, it becomes not bullshit.

My approach was to take stereotypical schemas, populate them with nouns that are drawn from the same stereotypical set of actors, but in surreal ways, and then tweak them until they are right on the edge of bullshit. That one was originally "Although many people seek apples, few seek the banana", for example. So it's not too surprising they are close to the boundary of banal "profundities".
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