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posted by martyb on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the We-could-keep-this-up-forever dept.

Aeon has an interesting article on bullshit:

We live in the age of information, which means that we also live in the age of misinformation. Indeed, you have likely come across more bullshit so far this week than a normal person living 1,000 years ago would in their entire lifetime. If we were to add up every word in every scholarly piece of work published prior to the Enlightenment, this number would still pale in comparison with the number of words used to promulgate bullshit on the internet in the 21st century alone.

If you find your head nodding, start shaking it. I’m bullshitting you.

Ha! I knew it!

How could I possibly know how much bullshit you have come across this week? What if you’re reading this on a Sunday? Who is a ‘normal’ person living 1,000 years ago? And how could I know how much bullshit they had to deal with?

It was very easy to construct this bullshit. Once I set out to impress rather than inform, a burden was lifted from my shoulders and placed onto yours. My opening statements could very well be true, but we have no way of knowing. Their truth or falsity were irrelevant to me, the bullshitter.

[...] In his book, On Bullshit (2005), Frankfurt noted that ‘most people are rather confident of their ability to recognise bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it’. However, more than 98 per cent of our participants rated at least one item in our bullshit receptivity scales to be at least somewhat profound. We are not nearly as good at detecting bullshit as we think.

So, how might you – the reader – vaccinate yourself against it? For a non-spiritualist, it might be relatively easy to recognise when Chopra or Oz are concerned less with the truth than selling books or entertaining viewers. But think back to my opening paragraph. Bullshit is much harder to detect when we want to agree with it. The first and most important step is to recognise the limits of our own cognition. We must be humble about our ability to justify our own beliefs. These are the keys to adopting a critical mindset – which is our only hope in a world so full of bullshit.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:28PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:28PM (#709662)

    From an otherwise boring blog, https://mysteriousflow.com/2014/03/05/why-i-write/ [mysteriousflow.com]

    Chicken-Shit, Bull-Shit, & Elephant-Shit

    Fritz Perls (1893-1970) was a flamboyant psychologist who perfected a popular form of therapy called Gestalt Therapy. His honesty about the present moment and his matter-of-fact attitude earned him quite a reputation among his peers and clients. When people talk about present moment and share their experience honestly, Perls considered this genuine communication. This style of communication is very rare, however, and even trained professionals struggle to stay in the present moment all the time. In contrast, he came up with three types of shit that people use when they talk to people: chicken-shit, bull-shit, and elephant-shit.

    The easiest way people avoid any kind of emotional contact is by talking about chicken-shit. Chicken-shit is the small talk about the weather, sports, or any other cliched conversation. Talking about chicken-shit serves a rather important purpose for me since it keeps me safe. I don’t have to risk being vulnerable when talking about chicken-shit.

    Another way to avoid emotional contact is by talking about bull-shit. Bull-shit is the intentional lies I tell for three reasons: I lie to hide the truth and wrong-doing, I lie to protect myself or someone else, and I lie to gain something (like prestige, power, money, sex, etc). Talking about bull-shit also keeps me safe since I don’t have to be vulnerable while talking about bull-shit.

    I’ve heard two explanations for elephant-shit and I like them both. First, elephant-shit is when I talk about everyone else’s chicken-shit and bull-shit. Elephant-shit is when I get together with my friends or family and talk about other people’s drama. Or, more popularly known as gossip. As long as you and I have our neighbor’s chicken-shit and bull-shit to talk about, we never have to be real with one another and talk about what is truly happening between us. The second explanation I heard for elephant-shit refers to the grandiose plans I come up with so I never have to face reality or take responsibility. In other words, I talk about what I’ll do once I win the lottery but I won’t even buy a ticket. Either explanation works for me since they both give another example of how we avoid true connection.

    My memory (from long ago and far away) is that Perls defined elephant shit as talking about gestalt therapy (which he invented)... Possibly in his fun book, "In and out the garbage pail".

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday July 20 2018, @09:46AM (1 child)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday July 20 2018, @09:46AM (#709849)

    Sounds like bullshit to me.

    > Talking about chicken-shit serves a rather important purpose for me since it keeps me safe.

    No, talking about the weather, football, etc lets me engage with someone, especially someone I don't know. Everyone experiences the weather, everyone can enter into a conversation about the weather. I might be able to stage up to a talk about them, like what they are doing on the weekend or how the rain affected their drive home last night. Trying to tie it into some bullshit about "keeping safe" is just crap.

    > As long as you and I have our neighbor’s chicken-shit and bull-shit to talk about, we never have to be real with one another and talk about what is truly happening between us

    No, talking about our neighbours shit is interesting. It has nothing to do with avoiding true connection. WTF is true connection anyway?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @04:35PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:35PM (#709997)

      A line I've always liked:
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

      I mean, when you get right down to it people are boring - it's almost all the just the same handful of stories told over and over and over again with minor variations. Events at least have some real impact on the world, but they're all past-tense - your thoughts and discussion is largely irrelevant.