Without reference to either person, I think this is essentially a misunderstanding of Frankfurt’s analysis: On Bullshit is about expressing sentiments without caring about their truth value, i.e. the concept of a “bull session.”

Both Altman and Zitron are the opposite of Frankfurt’s bullshitter, because they both appear to evince genuine care for the truth value of their position.

(Frankfurt is very subtle about this, in that he distinguishes the kind of performative lying you’re suggesting as distinct in moral and rhetorical content from bullshitting. The liar wants you to believe a specific thing; the bullshitter wants to regale you.)

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getnormality 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Bullshitting is where you don't care about whether what you say is true. Your goal is to influence a certain way of thinking or feeling, and you just say stuff that you think will cause that in other people. Appearing to care about truth is not opposed to that, it's part of it.

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woodruffw 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t think these mental states are in evidence for either of them. I think they’re both credibly earnest in their views.

(Frankfurt’s characterization of the bullshitter rests on not just the truth value being absent, but also on the bullshitter’s misrepresentation of what he’s “up to.” I don’t feel that either Zitron or Altman is misrepresenting what they’re getting up to.)

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getnormality 3 hours ago | parent [-]

So, you don't see how someone could both be "credibly earnest" and misrepresenting what they're up to?

Do you think misrepresentation has to be consciously deceptive? That it feels insincere to the person doing it?

	▲	woodruffw 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, the point of Frankfurt’s bullshitter is that we know they’re bullshitting (or more expansively, Frankfurt gives us a set of criteria to test them against). We know they don’t care about the truth value of their statement, only that they are misrepresenting themselves because of a hidden “enterprise.” But there’s no such unknown enterprise in either’s case, and neither appears to be misrepresenting themselves (to my point about appearing earnest). Maybe that latter part is itself deception, but without the former they would fall into Frankfurt’s classification of a “liar” instead. (I have to admit a bias when it comes to Frankfurt: I don’t think On Bullshit is that convincing. In particular, I think Frankfurt doesn’t do a good job of motivating the connection between bull sessions and bullshit in his strong sense, and many of his examples - like the Pascal/Wittgenstein one - don’t demonstrate misrepresentation either.)

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ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Both Altman and Zitron are the opposite of Frankfurt’s bullshitter, because they both appear to evince genuine care for the truth value of their position.

I can't really judge Zitron, but when it comes to Altman, I have absolutely no idea how you arrived at that assessment. In my view, he's clearly dishonest. I’ll remind you of his attempt to use government intervention to erect barriers to market entry for his competitors. Or his claims about AGI being just around the corner—claims that haven’t come true so far and were clearly aimed at investors. I’ve never heard a single statement from this man that struck me as honest.