I’ve been around a lot of bullshitters my whole life, and my immediate reaction is to go “this person is full of shit, not worthy of my attention, kthxbye”
But I’ve noticed that most people when faced with the same person can’t help but try and figure out what makes them tick, or their redeeming qualities, or if even anything can be redeemed. It seems to be a social equivalent of “nerd sniping”; most people just have a very hard time declaring “this person is worth 0 additional seconds of my time” and actually following through.
See also ppl in toxic relationships, who will complain to their friends incessantly about how bad the other person is and how they know they need to get out of it, only to rarely get out of it.
That's easy enough with a bullshitter in your private life.
A professional bullshitter is a different thing and you might not always have the luxury of just walking away and never encountering that person again (or the problems they create).
I think that's what "setting boundaries" is about: Standing your own ground, and decide: "Not worth my time and energy.", yet still believe in the good in people. I think even bad people have something good in them. It's just not healthy to figure it out for me, once the manipulative (or bad) habits have surfaced.
So ceteris paribus, yes, cut off bullshitters. But context matters. If a friend of a good friend is striking me as stupid, I'm going to make damn sure that's what's happening versus me misunderstanding them (or catching them at a bad moment).
I can't stand this. Most people who suck aren't an onion. They just suck. Or there is a nice layer under that, and then beneath that a core of suck.
I think it's important to inoculate yourself against presentation. Like, sure, now we know that Elizabeth Holmes was evil, an we can be binary about it - but would it have easier to be more critical of her rise if we could look past her apparent positive qualities?
Most people aren't like that, a few are.
It becomes a lot less interesting and curiosity invoking when you have such a bullshitter in your life. The interaction becomes "the lied about this, so what did they really mean". For example, my bullshitter will often have car troubles, a dead pet (that comes back to life) or medical issues whenever they don't want to show up to a family event.
I can promise you there's really nothing more deep to understand beyond the fact that they've become overly comfortable with using lies to get what they want.
Same formula across country, culture, time and people keep getting sucked in.
Most people, even toxic people, do have positive qualities.
At the most basic strategic level, it’s vital to recognize this so that we don’t fall for such people in the future. It’s sooooo easy to say “well so and so can’t be too toxic… I mean, they volunteer at the soup kitchen on weekends” or whatever. That’s part of how they (intentionally or unintentionally) lure you in. All very valuable for engineer-types, who may tend to be very literal in actions and their interpretations of others’ actions.
At a more nuanced strategic level, it’s good to recognize that since all people are a mix of positive and negative traits, How can we coexist with such people in cases when we can’t avoid it? It’s simplistic to say “just avoid toxic people” — it’s a good “north star” but is often impossible or impractical. e.g. it’s convenient to say “just cut toxic family members out of your life” and sometimes it’s the right call, but I’ve heard people toss that phrase around like it’s nothing and wow it’s heartbreakingly glib.
I think it’s also valuable for introspective purposes. It’s very easy to fall into the mindset of “well, I’m a good person because of X, Y, and Z” while blinding ourselves to negative ways in which we affect others.
Finally, yeah, sure — I admit it. I like a puzzle. Specifically the puzzle of figuring out if these people believe their own bullshit!
(For the record, I thought this movie was incredible, though HN’s collective “meh” on this thread was expected)
We must be living in very different worlds; in my experience these things are never that black&white.
I do agree that it’s very important to know where your boundaries are in life and stand firm on them; and you don’t need to keep people in your life who are a bad influence. It’s just not as easy to make that distinction as some of the comments itt make it out to be …
I don’t think that is true. I know from myself and many of my friends or family that personalities can change, at times quite dramatically. Sometimes for “good” other times not so much.
And I agree with the OP. In the past I've often been amazed and appalled at how someone can be proven to have lied, and the people around them barely update at all. They just brush it off and keep going back to be lied to again. It feels like the average normie has an extremely high tolerance for lying to the extent they don't feel it's much of a crime at all. Which I guess is why people like Elizabeth Holmes can thrive.
Of course some lies are unforgivable. But it would need to be a pretty big lie for me to go and immediately cut people off.
Also I would argue the people that are obvious in their lying and manipulating aren’t the dangerous ones - those that aren’t obvious, that you don’t spot easily off the cuff are much more dangerous. And I’m 100% certain you also have such people in your life, it’s just unavoidable. And others might look at you and have the same thoughts: “look at this normie who doesn’t realise they are being lied to”
Overall I think there is a lot more nuance to this than you and OP make it out to be.
But I do understand the appeal of simple black/white narratives; they are very attractive. I just hope you treat the people close to you more merciful and forgiving.
Yeah. The person that's constantly bragging about fantasy stuff or reflexively claiming nothing was ever their fault might warrant cutting off because they're tiresome, but they're not likely to undermine you never mind pull off this level of scam because they're so unconvincing, and that might make them more harmlessly amusing than anything else. The manipulative person who's constant spreading false rumours might raise red flags, and definitely isn't someone you want to spend time with once you've spotted that some of their claims simply don't line up. But a large part of why people are often good at covering stuff up even if its the most heinous shit is that they manage to be plausible and likeable most of the time and generally tell the truth on other subjects.
Holmes likely fell into that category, though she didn't exactly downplay her lies in the way someone covering their deep dark secret usually does.
And yeah, in practice whether you cut someone off after learning their deep dark secret probably depends a lot on what it is and how it relates to you (and usually it's more "I'm hiding my affair" than "my billion dollar enterprise supplies fraudulent medical tests")
> like a puzzle... people believe their own bullshit!
Most people do not have this kind of resources.
Holmes is interesting because she's not a freak or a one-off. She's pretty much a generic tech startup CEO billionaire wannabe, finance industry person, and/or familiar political archetype - arguably more extreme than most, but there's nothing truly exotic about the DNA here.
Their statements are usually made in service of a goal, not earnestly-held good-faith opinions. Even if someone is "very intelligent", what makes you think they are giving you access to the fruit of that intelligence? How do you know they aren't using their intelligence to try and manifest an outcome that would be beneficial to themselves, completely divorced from what anyone with their level of access to information could possibly believe (much less someone intelligent)? Sure, they'll tell you some truth if they happen to believe that doing that will reward them. But they'll also tell you that they're deeply committed to your local city when they have a meeting to discuss tax incentives for moving their HQ later that same day or that their plant has a sterling safety record while deliberately burying records of payouts for injuries. The only real difference between this and someone like Holmes is that they have a better level of skill in forecasting consequences.
What this ultimately means is: There is often little value in listening because you end up having to estimate the truth from less-manipulative sources yourself. And if you're going to spend the time and energy to do that anyway, you can skip straight to this step.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone put this into words.
Thank you. A very compelling thought.
I have something like that, but not (just?) for people. When I read (or listen to) something I very often fairly quickly recognize meta signs of bs and go 'kthxbye'. I call it bullshit filter and I am often surprised that some, even fairly intelligent, people can have suprinsingly weak one. As for morbid curiosity towards bs, I have very little. I'm even afraid that being too curious about it might be detrimental so I'm keeping my distance even when I engage somewhat.
Usually they've made a couple enemies. Just gang up with their enemies. If it's a group effort, there's only so much management can do at that point (depending on how much leverage they have). It's all dependent on the specific political situation.
This whole image of them being "well-liked" and socially invincible is just a play. Usually this type of person has made a shit ton of enemies. It may or may not be worthwhile depending on how shitty of a situation you're in, how bad the company's stack ranking and layoff quota is, how attached they are to you, etc
If you can get him fired then go for it. Otherwise, you're only harming yourself by letting yourself dwell on it. As for believing him; when my coworker starts rambling about the time the Navy seals came to him for help, I just say "wow man, crazy". I don't believe him, but neither do I confront it. Why bother? I'm not being paid to call out his dumb lies. This is probably what your other coworkers were thinking.
Conversely, actively complaining about it prevents enabling group thing to form. It helps victims identify the situation sooner, to leave of better protect themselves.
If you really wanna out a liar and come out clean on the other end, it's just so much documentation, emotional decision trees, how to phrase & frame & present things, etc. etc. etc.
Often, the compulsive liar will out themselves, create their own demise, or be enabled and further empowered by a toxic system that rewards such types (which if possible, you'd wanna get out of ASAP because prolonged exposure leaves lasting damage to anyone in such systems).
But, you acted as if there was something wrong with those who dont. And as if there was some higher value in enabling and playing along. I disagree with both.
it's hard to see through at first, but toxic relationships often actively obfuscate the toxicity of the social circle the partner is a--often seemingly lesser--part of ... but that's child play and toxicity or even betrayal on these levels is only "hard" if one loses more than a good conscious decade. in professional lives however, that harm is pretty much irreversible, within a single project's time frame, ... what's lost, practically non-retrievable, non-compensable ...
That whole Holmes story felt dodgy from the start. What she was gunning for was partially (recursively) done elsewhere, successfully. Then the whole Corona bit broke out and I still find myself wondering what the fuck ... but that might be a residue non-actual-conspiratorial-they-are-hiding-aliens kind of thought process that still wants to write one or the other post-they-don't-have-the-capacity-to-tap-everyone's-phone-calls and tor-exit-nodes-are-definitely-mostly-owned-by-the-same-privacy-loving-folks-who-maintain-those-8mil-lines-of-linux-and-other-distros story ...
You have to admit that shutting people out is still a defense mechanism that can backfire.
You're not immune from a skilled sociopath for doing this. They know what you're doing. The moment you turn your back is when they know they can blindside you.
It's the moment they start talking behind your back, shutting you out of conversations, undermining your work, etc. You're a lot more vulnerable when you're out of the loop. You can't assume you're stronger or smarter for trying to take the "high road". There is no high road with these people. They'll ruin everything in any way possible. They have their bases covered.
Like, duh yeah that’s the goal. Do that as much as possible, but a lot of your life is going to involve dealing with these people.
On a slightly deeper level, essentially nobody is 0% or 100% bullshitter. Nearly all of humanity falls into the middle. Even the most literal, level 2+ ASD folks I’ve known were, at a minimum, cagey at times.
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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Blood:_Secrets_and_Lies_in...
https://www.thesocialradars.com/transcripts/TSR-S4-Tyler-Shu...
https://www.thesocialradars.com/transcripts/TSR-S4-Tyler-Shu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inventor:_Out_for_Blood_in...
This is similar to the Musk doc. When everything about the person is already explored real-time in the media, there's no mystery left. There's no drama. It is almost as dull as the subject's personality and almost as vacant as the subject's morality. Hmmm, so I guess in a weird self-referential way maybe it is genius? Nah.
In this case, the attempts are simultaneously tortuous, torturous, and tortious!
> After 3 hours I was just exhausted...