The crucial difference between bullshit and lies

HostI was thinking the other day about how much it stings when you catch someone in a lie. It feels like they’ve gone out of their way to trick you. But then there’s that other thing, you know, when someone is just talking and you can tell they don't even care if what they’re saying is true or not. They’re just... talking.

HostIs there actually a real difference there, or are we just splitting hairs between two types of being dishonest?

GuestIt feels like the same thing on the surface, but there's a massive gap in how they work. Think about it like a thief. If you want to rob a house, you have to know exactly where the jewels are kept. You have to care about the layout of the rooms and where the locks are. A liar is actually stuck to the truth in that same way. To tell a good lie, you have to know what the facts are so you can point people in the opposite direction. You’re trying to lead them away from one specific spot, which means you still have to know exactly where that spot is. You're tethered to the truth even while you're trying to break the rules.

HostSo you're saying a liar actually has some kind of weird respect for the facts? That sounds a bit like giving them too much credit. They're still trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

GuestWell, it’s not respect in a nice way, but it’s an acknowledgement. The liar knows the truth has power. They know the facts are the boss, and they have to work hard to bypass that boss. If they didn't care about the facts, they wouldn't even know which way to point their lie. They have to be a bit of a craftsman to make the lie fit into the world. But the bullshitter is doing something totally different. They aren't trying to hide anything in particular. They’ve just stopped looking at the map entirely. They might happen to say something true, or they might say something false, but to them, it really doesn't matter. They aren't trying to subvert reality; they’ve just left the playing field.

HostBut if they aren't trying to hide a fact, why are they even talking? What's the point of saying things that might be true or false if you don't care which one it is?

GuestIt’s a performance. That’s the heart of it. The bullshitter isn't trying to describe the world as it's; they’re trying to build a certain image of themselves in your head. They want to sound like the kind of person who knows what they're talking about, or they want to seem witty or important. So they use whatever words will get that job done. This is why it often feels kind of flowery or vague. They aren't trying to tell you what happened at the meeting; they’re trying to sound like the sort of high-level thinker who attends those kinds of meetings. The words are just a tool to make them look good, and the relationship those words have to what actually happened is just... beside the point.

HostOkay, I see that. It's like they're just trying to create a vibe. But I still feel like I’d rather deal with someone who's just being a bit full of it than someone who's looking me in the eye and telling me a flat-out lie. The lie feels more personal, doesn't it?

GuestIt does feel more personal, but in the long run, the person who doesn't care about the truth at all is way more dangerous for the rest of us. Look at it this way. A lie tells us that the truth is important enough that it needs to be covered up. Even when someone lies, the truth is still there as a standard. It’s the gold bar kept in the vault, even if someone is trying to swap it for lead. But when this kind of indifference becomes the norm, the whole idea of the vault starts to vanish. If everyone is just performing and nobody cares about what’s actually happening, the very idea that there's a truth to be found starts to rot away.

HostSo the liar is like a rebel who still follows the laws of physics, but the other person is trying to tell us that gravity doesn't even exist if it gets in the way of a good story.

GuestExactly. One person tries to break the rules while the other person says the rules don't even matter. When we stop caring if things are true or false and only care about how they make us feel or how they make the speaker look, we lose the ground we’re standing on. You can eventually find a lie out and fix it, but it’s much harder to fix a world where people have forgotten why the facts were important in the first place. That loss of a shared reality is a much bigger threat to how we live together than a few people telling tall tales to hide their mistakes.

HostIt's the difference between a thief who wants the jewels and someone who doesn't even care if the safe is empty as long as they can convince everyone they have the key.

GuestIf we lose the sense that the safe even needs to hold something real, we’re just left with a room full of people pretending to be experts.

HostThe safe might be empty, but we're all still standing around talking about how shiny the gold would be if it were actually there.