by 6cxs2hd6 on 6/16/14, 1:31 PM with 33 comments
by badman_ting on 6/16/14, 2:17 PM
I think one needs to be very careful about this business of "cutting through the bullshit" or whatever. It's easy to turn it into a self-righteous way of talking about whatever you disagree with. You're not just disagreeing, you're scoring a victory for the truth in a world full of crap, etc., etc. Also, it does nothing to analyze why certain social fictions are propagated and continue to function even if no one believes in them. You can just content yourself with thinking everyone is full of shit and stop thinking there.
by lhnz on 6/16/14, 3:06 PM
Trust and authority are currently centralised and because this is the case if you want to belong to society you will have to become more forgiving of bullshit.
Additionally I haven't met a single person yet (and I include myself in this wonderful category) that doesn't believe their own bullshit.
Whenever I hear somebody imply that they're always correct and never believe or act upon anything that can be empirically disproven I call bullshit at that or wonder whether they've ever risked believing and acting upon anything at all?
If you truly despise bullshit then do this: before you point the finger at others realise that you're likely one of them, and that if you really want to lessen it your best chance will be to start with yourself. This is called humility.
How might you do this? Well perhaps before or after you say something, you can turn to others and ask them what they truly think without imposing expectations or qualifications that they must agree with you. And remember even if they respond saying "yes, that sounds right" you could still be wrong and trust me here you will eventually be wrong. You are only human.
If the cognitive dissonance of knowing that you will never be a perfectly rational being is too much for you, then continue believing whatever you want about your intellect and others quackery as the world will not stop you.
I guess we all need our egos [1].
* * *
[1] Our need to politicise and attack the bullshit of somebody with higher status shows our wish to have the injustice of not being the dominant re-evaluated by our group, while our need to attack the bullshit of those with lower status is a strategy to fight off perceived pretenders of our position. Resentment and contempt are after all two sides of the same coin, both used when we don't want to personally act on our feelings.
by mcguire on 6/16/14, 3:09 PM
Is the author trying to imply that irony, sarcasm, and satire are bullshit?
by DanielBMarkham on 6/16/14, 3:10 PM
I'd be very careful with definitions here. Because many human endeavors can be observed and described from many different angles, the wisest course of action many times may be to emotionally disengage and describe one or many of the sides without caring about a discussion of universal truth. This does not make one a bullshitter, although by this definition it does.
by bitwize on 6/16/14, 2:51 PM
by raldi on 6/16/14, 2:14 PM
by RobAley on 6/16/14, 2:13 PM
Anyone who knows what the word means and is shocked by it will surely still be shocked even with the * in. I've never understood what partial censoring, intentionally done so that people can still read the thing, achieves.
EDIT -> Ah, the title has been edited now, it did say "bullsh*t". It's probably a good example of how to derail a potential useful submission by focusing on the wrong details when creating a title.
by Aoyagi on 6/16/14, 2:02 PM
Not religion? Aww...