Sorry for the delay between episodes but Randal and I have just been freed from an El Salvadorian prison after Border Security found episodes of the Nonsense Dialogues in our phones. This experience may have influenced the topic of this podcast where we explore the psychology behind why people believe obvious lies, using Donald Trump as a starting point. Yes dear listener, we have succumbed and have been sucked into the Trump Maelstrom. Thankfully, we soon leave him far behind and rather than the usual approach of examining the pathology of liars, we take an audience focused approach to understand why do people believe lies.  We discuss the cognitive processes that lead to belief, the influence of followers, and the role of authority and credibility in shaping perceptions. We then provide the public service of providing our listeners with strategies to resist being influenced by bullshit. We discuss the need for empathy, rapport building, and shared goals in persuasion.  We propose, perhaps unsurprisingly,  scepticism as a method to counter the lies and bullshit that surround us all in an informational miasma. Being good evidence based practitioners, we are seeking feedback from our audience on our podcasts. So please tell us all the things we are doing well as well as pandering to your innate drive to criticise the work of others. We may listen and adjust or we may just continue to be ourselves and do things our own way, dammit.

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