WEBVTT - The Science of Bullsh!t Detection 0:00:00.000 --> 0:00:10.840 Okay, this thing on, I got a light. Okay, we're 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:17.479 ready to go. Let's see here bubble bulls eye, here 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:25.760 we go. Bullshit exclamation now complete nonsense, crazy stuff, no accuracy, 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:30.880 and just nonsense. Information that makes you angry or annoyed. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.080 Verb to try to persuade someone or make humor her 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.760 admire you by saying things that are not true. It's 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.120 one someone maybe has like an angle, but it's not 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.159 the full truth, like crap, like nothing makes sense, Like 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.400 they're trying my intelligence. I've got the number one miracle 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.600 in a bottle to burn your fact, and they're not 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.280 really telling you the truth. We have been an international 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.280 oil company for a hundred and twelve years. We want 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.000 to transform ourselves into an integrated energy company. It's like, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.280 what the fuck are you saying? A lot of what's 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:05.400 on the media this bullshit. I think a lot of 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.000 the politicians are bullshit. I'll tell you what you want 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.720 to know and don't do anything about it. So many 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.720 people seem to think that bullshit only comes from certain sources, 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:20.880 you know, advertising, politicians, salesman. Not true. Bullshit is rampant. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.880 Is bullshitting simply human nature. Everybody's a bullshit oil is 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.600 at one point or another, is there even a difference 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.560 between bullshit and straight up wise? And the thing that 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:33.720 I think we all need to do right now is 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.200 work to bring people closer together. That we're going to 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.280 change Facebook's whole mission as a company in order to 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.920 focus on this. Parents are fullish it teaches, a fullish 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.680 it clergyman, a fullish it law enforcement people are full 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:59.840 of shit? Why is bullshit everywhere? Welcome to Calling Bullshit 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.960 the podcast about purpose washing, the gap between what an 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.720 organization says they stand for and what they actually do 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.400 and what they would need to change to practice what 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.799 they preach. I'm your host, Time Montogue, and I've spent 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.480 over a decade helping organizations define what they stand for, 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.840 their purpose and then help them to use that purpose 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:25.880 to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, at a lot 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.560 of institutions today, there's still a pretty wide gap between 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.920 word and deed. That gap has a name, bullshit. But, 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.760 and this is important, bullshit is serious, but it's also 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.799 a treatable condition. So when our bullshit detector lights up, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.239 we're going to explore everything the organization should do to 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:57.600 fix it. Hey, folks, Welcome to season two of Calling BS. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.800 In season one, we looked at a number of bullshitting organizations, 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.919 We developed the BS index, and we worked with our 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.720 guests to imagine a bunch of different ways to actually 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.160 fight BS. Here on the show, we define bullshit as 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.480 the gap between word. Indeed, it's in our intro and 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.120 it's what the B S scale is all about. But 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.720 not everybody defines BS in exactly the same way, and 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.200 so we thought, let's kick off season two by dedicating 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.160 an entire episode to the concept of BS itself. What 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.000 is it? Where does it come from? And at what 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.200 point does it become dangerous? How can we all keep 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:48.920 our BS detectors in fighting shape bull detective? To begin with, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.960 let's examine the origins of the phrase. The first surprise, 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.120 it doesn't have anything to do with cow boop. The 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.520 bull in bullshit may actually reference the last name of 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.400 Obadiah Bull, an Irish lawyer living in London in the 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.880 late fourteen hundreds who was famous for spouting nonsense. It 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.760 may also have originated back in the days when the 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.479 Pope wrote decrees on parchment and authenticated them with a 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.239 metal seal called a bulla, leading to the shorthand phrase 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:28.279 papal bull and shit likely comes from shite, the staff 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:34.800 carried by ancient Scottish warlocks. I'm kidding, Actually, shit likely 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.480 comes from the Old English word shitta for dung, So 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.960 no mystery there. But where there is a bit of 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.039 mystery is when bullshit actually became slang. One thing we 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.760 know for sure is that T. S. Eliot used the 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.840 two words side by side in his poem The Triumph 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.680 of Bullshit, written in the early nineteen hundreds. More recently, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.600 the concept was picked up by moral philosopher Harry G. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.599 Frankfurt in his book on Bullshit, which was published in 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.920 two thousand and five. Frankfort writes that one of the 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.159 most salient features of our culture is that there is 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:15.440 so much bullshit. To see how Frankfort's theory holds up today, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.520 we sent our producers Hailey Pascualites and Parker Silzer out 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.120 to ask New Yorkers what they think. Would you agree 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.840 or disagree with the following statement. One of the most 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.359 common features of our culture is that there is so 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:35.680 much bullshit. Oh yes, no, I'm an optimist. I have 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.640 always been struck by how much people really care about 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.200 the truth of the matter. I think a lot of 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.799 the time people are pretty bad at seeing past the bullshit, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.600 but they really care to the symbolism of bullshit is 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.680 all wool suit. Don't they have the bull there? That's 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:59.240 my case. They they are tress parents transparent in their bullshit. Um, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.200 do you agree with the statement one of the most 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.480 common features in our culture is that there's so much 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.120 bullshit nowadays? Yeah? Yeah, I agree with that. The government's 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.240 definitely hiding a lot of things from us so that 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:15.279 we don't know about politics everyone. Yeah, it's just everywhere. 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.560 It's so common, like everyone every company is somewhat like 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.680 bullshit something the idea of bullshit and bullshit and can 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.000 seem harmless or even funny. But as a listener of 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.520 this show, you know that BS is often used to 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.600 deceive and confuse in ways that can cause real harm. 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.520 So why do people b s and why is it 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.320 so hard to stop it once it starts. To figure 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.080 this out, I decided to call up a real expert. Hello, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:47.640 I'm John Petric Shelley, Professor of psychology at Wake Forest University. 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:53.400 My specific research has really focused on persuasion metic cognitions. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.160 Were thinking about thoughts that we have and of course 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:04.400 bullshitting and bullshit detection. John runs the Bullshit Studies Lab. Yeah, 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.359 that's an actual thing where he designs experiments to test 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.480 how we're affected by the social world, just basic judgment 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.800 and decision making. Basically, he tries to understand what influences 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.600 people looking at external information and social environments as well 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.040 as our internal biases. But the reason I first got 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.600 in touch he wrote this book, The Life Changing Science 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.559 of Detecting Bullshit. When I first saw that title, I thought, well, 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:34.600 why would he write a book when he could just 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.080 do a podcast? But after I read it, I had 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:43.240 to call him up. I I gotta say, I loved 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.440 your book, not surprisingly maybe given the show, but I 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.040 noticed you draw a distinction between bullshitting and lying, which 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:55.760 seems like an important distinction. Can you just unpack that difference? Yeah? Absolutely. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.560 Bullshitting is often confused for lying, but it's very distinct 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.880 from lying in some very important ways. So when someone 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:10.240 lies to us, the liar is actually concerned about the truth, right, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.760 and their objective is to get us to believe something 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.360 that they don't believe is true themselves. On the other hand, 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.520 the bullshitter, it doesn't really care at all about the truth. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.000 They're not paying attention to it at all. In fact, 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.080 they have no idea what the truth is. It's weird 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.960 to me that anybody wouldn't care about something as important 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.280 as the truth. But John says, there are two major 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.400 motives for bullshitting, and one of the motives is to 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:43.320 be consistent with our actions and what we say. And 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.120 we're also motivated to feel justified by the claims that 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:51.960 we make and our behaviors. And once you publicly state something, 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.360 you get a lot of social pressure added to those motivations. 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.480 As John explained this, my mind immediately jumped to win. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:04.319 After Trump was sworn in on the National Mall, Sean 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.520 Spicer told the world this was the largest audience to 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:12.160 ever witness an inauguration period. It most assuredly was not, 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.800 but the administration wouldn't cave, and then Senior Counselor Kellyanne 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:21.640 Conway doubled down bigly on CNN the following day. Why 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.400 did he do that? It undermines the credibility of the 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.440 entire White House Press Office. Don't be so don't be 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.600 so overly dramatic about it. Chuckle, what you're saying it's 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.920 a falsehood, and they're giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:40.280 gave alternative facts. They definitely didn't care about the real numbers. 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.080 You sent the press secretary out there to utter us 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.319 falsehood on the smallest pettiest thing. I don't think anybody 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.200 can blame that. Look, I actually don't think that maybe 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:52.320 this is me as a polster chuck and you know 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.360 data well, I don't think you can prove those numbers 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.360 one where the others. There's no way to really quantify crowds. 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.800 We all know that you can laugh textbook bullshitting. So 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.520 whereas the liar doesn't believe what it is that they 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.080 say is true, the bullshit, it really has no idea 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:13.680 whether or not it's true. It's very easy today to 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.240 say something that's not very well thought out, that's not 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:22.080 very well informed, and then to feel as though you 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.600 have to support it, right, because now you're going to 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:30.880 sound inconsistent and you're gonna sound stupid for for communicating 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:35.360 something that either we know isn't true or isn't supported 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.839 by the evidence. And it's very seductive once you publicize it. 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.080 So it's it's much better to sort of think collect 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.120 evidence and and and see whether or not well is 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:51.360 is there evidence for against what what my opinion is 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.079 on the issue. But and so I think those are 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.640 sort of two major motives, especially once people start communicating 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.520 their opinions and their beliefs. But the other key distinction 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:06.920 here is that society treats liars differently than it treats bullshitters. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.400 When people lie to us, there's often a lot of 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.240 great negative consequences. You know, we're very unhappy with liars 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.640 when we catch them, yes, exactly. But but when we 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.240 know kind of know someone's bullshitting us, we often assume 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.080 that it's harmless. We pass it off as sort of 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.800 a mild social offense. But this is where we can't 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:32.120 be more wrong. Virtually all of our problems, whether they 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:39.199 be personal, interpersonal, professional, or societal, they appeared to stem 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:45.040 from mindless bullshit reasoning and communications. So what I wanted 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.400 to do was to sort of put something um together 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.880 that puts the problem with bullshitting front and center, and 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.439 to call attention to it and to expose how dangerous 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.520 it can actually be. Right, and I totally agree we 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.080 underestimate the seriousness of the impact of bullshit. And you 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.800 list a number of ways that bs can be damaging, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.880 in some cases life threatening. And you use a scale. 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.439 In the book which I love, John uses the fly index. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:22.679 One fly is harmless, two flies is bad, and three 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:28.120 flies dangerous. So harmless might sound something like, you know, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.160 I could throw a football over a mountain in two 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.480 you know, and you get that eye rolling. And in fact, 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.119 some examples I think of bullshit actually have some benefits. 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.720 We tell children in the summer at the pool, you know, tye, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:46.160 they put a compound in that swimming pool water to 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.400 reveal the presence of urine almost immediately, you know, And 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.440 as every kid knows, that really isn't true. But I 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.440 think that's relatively harmless, and it's, if anything, it's potentially 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.360 useful to the extent that keeps a few is from 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.360 being in the pool. But then I contrast harmless with 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.520 the two fly example of bad bullshit. My favorite example 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.000 of this is did you see her face? Who would 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.600 vote for a face like that? I think that kind 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:19.199 of bullshit it dehumanizes, objectifies women. It suggests that they 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.960 can't be good leaders unless unless they're attractive. I mean, 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.760 what doesn't make much sense. But the three fly example 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.040 might sound something like this. You know time, I can 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.680 text while driving without any problems, and and you know what, 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:40.199 everyone does it, and so I don't see the problem. Okay. 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.240 My response that is no, no, no, but no. Not 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.360 only are these things not all true, but they are 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.360 able and likely to cause harm and injury to oneself 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.320 and others to the extent that that you actually believe 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.400 it is true. And so to say something like that 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:03.560 just completely neglects true your established knowledge and genuine evidence. 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.440 That would be the more dangerous form of bullshit. Why 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.640 are we so vulnerable to b s? Why don't we 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:16.760 all have better BS detectors? There are two primary reasons 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:21.520 for why people are not generally good at the discerning 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.160 bullshit from the good stuff. First, most people believe that 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:31.640 there somehow immune to bullshit, and actually research suggests that 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:36.160 the most confident people are often the most likely to 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.120 be duped by bullshit. That's why one of the reasons 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.920 I really love this new show on Netflix Bullshit The 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:48.960 game show with with Howie Mandel. Let's play so that 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.160 the main contestant is supposed to either answer questions correctly 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.640 or to convince one of the three challengers that their 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.240 incorrect answer is actually correct, and if they can either 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.520 answer correctly or convince one of the three challengers that 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.040 they're incorrect answers correct, then they can move on to 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.040 the next stage and ultimately win a million dollars. But 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.600 what's interesting is when they bring on each of the 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.400 three challengers, each one of them talk smack about how 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.760 good they are detecting BS. Right then the show proceeds 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.760 and you can see how miserable most people are at 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.200 actually detecting it. A lot of us have overconfident but 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.600 underperforming BS detectors, and John says there are a few 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.720 reasons for this. I mean, the research in in Cognitive 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.600 Psychology by Janet Metcalf has shown that people do not 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.760 study subjects they feel they've already mastered. They stopped, you know, 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.320 they go onto something else. And and then the second 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:53.160 reason is that even before we suspect we might be 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:57.119 exposed to bullshit, we failed to ask the right questions. 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.000 We failed to ask, well, what exactly is the claim? 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.360 And then another question that's that's hardly ever asked is 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:09.359 how does this person know that this claim is true? 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:11.880 So if you ask someone how how do you know 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.480 what you're saying is true ty. You know, most people 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.880 will will tend to be surprised because that's not a 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.880 common question to ask, and then they'll take a few 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.640 steps backwards and they'll already start to kind of clean 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.040 up their first answer, you know, let me give you 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.280 some of the qualifiers, and and then when you you 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.280 narrow back down, it's really good to ask how might 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:41.200 the claim be wrong? People tend to answer the how 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.840 do you know it's true? Only with confirming evidence, So 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.640 you have to directly ask people and nudge them to 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:52.160 consider the ways in which the claim might be wrong 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.760 and just to draw a line under this for the audience. 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:01.520 You make the distinction between why questions and how questions 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.520 in the book and your thesis is that why questions 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.400 are a little easier to slip out of than how questions. 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:15.760 How forces somebody to really bring evidence into the conversation. Yeah, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.639 usually when you ask why questions, you kind of get 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.879 a value laden, sort of a heady, abstract response. But 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.080 when you focus people on how, it tends to elicit 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:33.199 a more concrete response where they, maybe even for the 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.200 very first time, take a few steps back and say, Okay, well, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.880 what what are the actual reasons to have this opinion 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.080 or this belief, and then you can make a better 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.479 decision as to whether or not you're really buying what 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:50.000 it is that they're selling. Right in the book, you 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.439 you coined a term which I really liked, which is 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:56.600 bull ability. I assume it's a comparison to gullibility. Yeah, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.160 this is This is a word that I made up. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.960 So a gullible person is likely to believe something, you know, 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.960 despite the signs of dishonesty. Somebody who's especially bulletble, we 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.200 would say that, well, they tend to be a relatively 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:17.760 lazy thinker who doesn't even care about the signs of dishonesty. 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.320 And one of my favorite examples of this has to 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.000 do with a clip that sixty minutes aired in two 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.639 thousand seven of Bernie made Off kind of sitting around 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:33.239 and recruiting new investors and his hedge fund, and one 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.840 of the things he said was, I'm very close with 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:37.640 the regulators, so I'm not trying to say that they 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:39.920 can't you know that what they do is bad. And 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.560 he was talking about the sec You know, in today's 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:48.800 regulatory environment, it's virtually impossible to to violate rules. When 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.520 this is something that the public really doesn't understand. But 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.200 you it's impossible for you to go into for a 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.200 violation to go in detected, certainly not for a considerable 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.520 periodyt of talk it. It's impossible for a violation to 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.639 go undetected, you know, certainly not for a considerable period 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.520 of time. Right, Well, that clearly wasn't true. I mean, 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:16.520 made off proved that for eighteen years, made off truly 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.960 as a cautionary tale. Everyone was investing and made off, 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.520 so no one really thought to look at the facts. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.320 And this is where things get sticky. Even people with 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.040 the most discerning minds want to belong. And when John 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.960 brought up a study done in the nineteen forties, I 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.840 realized that this desire can be even stronger than our 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:39.760 sense of right and wrong. The experiment was conducted by 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:44.880 the psychologist Solomon Ash. He brought in one participant for 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.720 a number of trials. This one real participant would be 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.760 joined by a handful of assistants or confederates posing as 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.960 other participants, and they would set it up such that 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:01.120 the actual participant always thought they were late to experiment, 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.280 and there was one seat open, and each trial in 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.760 the experiment just consisted of a very obvious answer to 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.760 a question. They were shown a line of a certain 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.040 length and then presented with three other lines labeled A, 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.320 B or C. And one of these lines was exactly 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:25.000 the same length as the original line. The other two 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.159 mismatches were completely wrong, very obvious. And what would happen 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.639 is the first four or five confederates working with the 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:39.560 experimenter would start to respond incorrectly intentionally to these trials, 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.640 and the actual participant would look dumbfounded and be like, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:49.000 what in the world's checking their glasses and kind of squinting, 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.560 and and they knew that the response that was verbally 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.240 given by the other confederates was wrong. But what Nash 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.719 found was that people tend to feel pressure to go 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:04.320 along with the group. In other words, even when the 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.919 real participant clearly saw the wrong answer being given by 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.960 everyone else, they still went along with it. They did 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:13.920 not go along with the group when they had a 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:17.639 chance to respond privately, but when they had to respond publicly, 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.840 they tended to go along. They tended to conform to 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:25.000 the group. So what is that about, Well, especially when 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:29.520 situations are ambiguous, you can even magnify this difference. When 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:34.080 it's not clear what the the The answer is people 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.520 conform to the group. Even more so, we tend to 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.040 think that the group knows something that we don't. But 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.880 what's wilder to me is that even when the other 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.880 people in the group are complete strangers to us, our 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:50.880 fear of group projection can cause us to override indisputable facts. 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.960 All of the participants were complete strangers, but they were peers, 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.040 And you know, if you get peers together, even peers 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.879 that you don't know personally, there's that general sense of 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.399 pressure to go along with the group because there's a 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.400 fear of being rejected, a fear of being avoided. It's 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:14.879 much more impactful than most people would believe. So what 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:19.160 does this say about the proliferation of BS in our society? 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.480 Even when we see it, it's hard to call it out. 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.800 The Ash experiment is like the snowflake on the tip 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.720 of the iceberg of harm that can be done when 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.399 people go along with bs that they privately disagree with. 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:37.960 I'm guessing that this is part of why whistleblowers that 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.760 high BS companies are so few and far between. How 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.359 can we expect to fight the rising tide of real 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.240 BS when it's so hard for us to call BS 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.159 on the length of an arbitrary line. How can we 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.679 trust anything or anyone if this is the default setting 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:57.840 on our internal BS detector. Answers to these questions and 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:15.960 more right after the break. All right, so now we're 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:19.000 pushing into just another area of interest for us. There 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:22.760 have been a lot of many assertions in the media, 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:27.879 in particular that we're actually experiencing a crisis of trust 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:30.800 in the world, especially among young people. First of all, 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.520 have you have you seen any of those assertions and 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:37.800 do you agree, and if so, do you feel like 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:41.440 BS is one of the culprits I I do think 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.639 are late millennials and Gen zs. They I mean, they 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:49.560 grew up hearing about concerns with the environment. Even I 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:54.159 sort of our late generation exerts, you know, we grew up, 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:58.040 you know, concerned about greenhouse gases and aerosol spray cans 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:00.919 and things like that. And I think it's developed a 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:06.800 more socially conscious group than than ever before. And I 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:09.359 think there's a little bit of evidence that tend to 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.760 have a better memory for bullshit and lies. I mean, 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.680 this sort of the underpinnings I think of cancel culture, 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:19.400 um I think there are some benefits to it. I mean, 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:23.240 what we would usually call that in social psychology is accountability. 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:26.520 When you have to justify, you know, you have to 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.880 justify your beliefs in your opinions. People tend to uh 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:34.680 feel feel that social pressure and they don't bullshit as much. 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:39.160 You know, if if someone like Nike President and CEO 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:43.359 John Donahoe or Phil Knight, you know, again, if they 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:47.040 say we're gonna address the carbon footprint problem by doing this, 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:52.120 We're gonna address sweatshop problems by doing that. If they 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.080 don't do it, you know, there's a major base of 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:57.320 the consumers that are not going to be happy and 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:02.320 they'll cancel them. It's basic accountability, but I think it's 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:05.639 one of the major things that is going to combat 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:10.879 the unwanted effects of bullshit. Yeah, we completely agree. I 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:14.040 think that's a good segue point to some some questions 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:16.359 that I have that directly relate to the work that 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:19.879 we're trying to do on this podcast, because you know, 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:24.840 our show was was born out of reflections on the 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:27.920 attack on the US Capitol and the role that bullshit 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:32.080 as we define it played in its specifically fomented by 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:35.680 by our friends at Facebook. You know, they claim that 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:38.320 their purpose as a company is to empower all of 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:40.680 us to build community and bring the world closer together. 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:44.920 And meanwhile, what they're really doing is feeding us deceptive 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:49.359 and polarizing content that clearly in some cases whips us 0:25:49.359 --> 0:25:53.159 into a violent frenzy. And so it's that gap between 0:25:53.200 --> 0:25:56.159 what they say they stand for and the actions that 0:25:56.200 --> 0:26:00.440 they're actually taking that we define as bs on a show. 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:03.919 So what do you think of our definition, because in 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:06.920 some ways it seems very much the same. I sense 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:11.199 a kinship with your work, but is it in some 0:26:11.240 --> 0:26:15.000 ways different? I think what what you are actually hitting 0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:19.280 on is is a special case of bullshit. In most cases, 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:22.640 I think you're hitting on what we call pseudo profound bullshit. 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:27.879 Pseudo profound bullshit or flowery, catchy language that can be 0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:32.960 hard to decipher. Is everywhere in the marketing landscape, and 0:26:33.080 --> 0:26:37.280 one a company's purpose is treated as marketing, it can 0:26:37.320 --> 0:26:41.639