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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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @12:16AM (6 children)
Another stupid Aristarchus submiss......
....no, I B.S!
THIS is a good submission, or at least a better (much better) submission than the usual for you (although the far right is as full of b.s. as anything else).
Good submission, front page posting...priceless!
As per the story, I am usually very sceptical (drives my wife nuts...) and so don't watch Oprah/Oz or the ilk of reality TV (I point out the fake stuff like "oh yeah, the skidoo fell through the ice JUST where the camera was able to catch it...how coincidental.").
As I was reading the submission I was already calling bullshit. There has always been bs everywhere there are people.
Or am I full of bs?
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @12:38AM (2 children)
Full? Maybe not. But at least 90%, as per Sturgeon's law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @01:11AM (1 child)
That's why I crap so much!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by pvanhoof on Friday July 20 2018, @12:55PM
Makes me wonder how so much of a bull's shit got into you.
(Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Friday July 20 2018, @01:49PM
This. A million times this.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 20 2018, @04:04PM (1 child)
After hearing what Oprah / Oz / Phil spout, it's so much better to just chock them into the same camp as Jerry Springer and ignore everything they have to say, do, or show. Reality TV comes in many flavors, but generally they're drama for drama's sake. I have plenty of Drama in my own life, thanks. Talk Shows sling forth the BS like no other, except maybe mainstream News.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @04:14PM
Yeah, except i like one thing about Dr Phil: he calls em as he sees em. Sometimes people don't need coddling by psychiatrists and doctors: sometimes they just need to be told to get the shit out and do something about their lives.
Like the lady i know: decides she wants to sit at home and be on disability. Her doctor gives her a prescription for medical marijuana and she's pissed because she wanted the good stuff so she could get high.
Nothing wrong with her, she's just decided she doesn't want to work anymore and sit around and get high. She's got a kid going to college: she's trying to talk him into just going on disability too. She's a sad fuck and she needs her doctor to just tell her that.
HER OWN BROTHER calls her "a piece of crap".
But other than Dr Phil calling it as he sees it, yeah... no use for any of them.
Oprah for President ... fuck no! She takes bribes in order to push your book in her book of the month club, she'll take bribes to push your political agenda... the U.S. does not need more of that shit, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---