Lovely. An anti-bullshit manifesto that talks about "experiences" and "the rise of" various things. I'm sold.
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Death to Bullshit
41–50 of 217 posts
Re: Death to Bullshit
#42One person's "bullshit" is another person's "positioning", and positioning is arguably one of the most important communications skills for founders.
I sympathize with the author but I'm not really sure what to make of this.
Re: Death to Bullshit
#43As much as I dislike some of the current trends (and I do digital media for a living mind you), I do have to point out that this stuff wouldn't be done if it didn't work. Ultimately this implies that there are enough people out there who engage with or...dare I say...want...the bullshit, that their collective voice outweighs those that do not simply by the fact that those are often the users who click ads, share thin…
The problem is that bullshit is a negative externality. It's cognitive pollution. Those who clutter the world with bullshit reap the rewards of nabbing the suckers who respond to it, but don't pay the costs of imposing those cognitive loads on everyone else. That leads to more bullshit than would be economically efficient. Take a simple example like billboards. If billboard advertisers had to pay every person whose l…
Thanks for putting into words what I've felt inchoately for years.
Re: Death to Bullshit
#44in the list of BS items, have to disagree a little with inclusion of "captchas, QR codes"
..these seem useful. I must be missing some nuance re their bullshittyness - can anyone elaborate?
Re: Death to Bullshit
#45Perhaps it's a solved problem. Must it be framed as a binary thing where there's either bullshit or no bullshit? What if there's a middle ground: those who find bullshit interfaces and/or bullshit content abhorrent use tools to improve it or completely avoid it, while those who aren't the wiser continue to go along with it?
You want to argue that bullshit content is what's keeping people uninformed? I say no, it takes a certain innate sense to rise above the natural flow of misinformation. Some people can only be guided by rhetoric - they make their decisions based on consensus in their local network and too easily trust people who claim to stand for it.
What we have is a war: between those who guide the senseless and those who exploit them. Take your pick.
Re: Death to Bullshit
#46This page talks mostly about interface bullshit, but people are also tired of content bullshit. To paraphrase from Harry Frankfurt, this is content produced not to conceal truth, but without regard for for it whatsoever. If to lie is to murder truth, to bullshit is to manslaughter it. Producing bullshit is more profitable because it still attracts eyeballs (and therefore ad revenue), but is much less costly to produc…
> If to lie is to murder truth, to bullshit is to manslaughter it.
I believe "manslaughter" and "murder" should be switched around here.
IIRC, Harry Frankfurt argued that bullshit was worse than lies, since it corroded this simple but for-society-to-function-in-the-long-run incredibly important distinction (or aspiration).
Re: Death to Bullshit
#47see also, the book, "On Bullshit" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit ) This book should have a spot on everyone's desk in hard copy. Use it as a coaster, walk around with it in the hallways, take it to meetings. No need to preach from it though - its very presence will be enough of a sign to others re: your tolerance levels of the amount of bullshit stinking up the current situation. EDIT: BTW, I do indeed h…
I bought it on your recommendation. It had better be good, otherwise I will come back to haunt you.
Re: Death to Bullshit
#48Lovely. An anti-bullshit manifesto that talks about "experiences" and "the rise of" various things. I'm sold.
It's true: a lot of bullshit could simply be eliminated with plain English. And the technology field (from development to design to UX) is overflowing with inflated writing and unnecessary jargon in articles, blog entries, design guides, and documentation.
A specific example relating to UX: I always point people to this gov.uk design guide as an excellent example of clear writing that is easy to understand. It's not perfect, but it avoids being too wordy and I think it's a good example to emulate
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/user-centred-design/resour...
Re: Death to Bullshit
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I haven't seen enough of them in the wild to get annoyed by them? The use case seems to be to refer someone who sees a poster or other printed work to a URL, and when I've seen QRs used for that it has seemed reasonable. Are you seeing them in some other, less reasonable context?
I haven't seen a QR code that wouldn't lead to a plain online ad for a long while. Their other, "sincere" uses have diminished most likely because there are always more reasonable alternatives, such as a short and memorable brand/trade name that can be easily found online if needed. QR codes are really just an awkward way of collecting "clicks" so to say, and they require too much effort for that (take out your phone…
It's probably worth distinguishing between QR Codes used for advertising, vs other uses.
For example, I print QR codes on the back of my business cards containing a VCard record, to make it easier to import them into an address book if needed. Or at home, I have a QR code that automatically populates credentials for my WiFi network when guests come over. It's also the easiest way to add a TOTP code to Authy or Google Authenticator.
I like to think these are reasonable uses.
Re: Death to Bullshit
#50Can't say how effective this campaign can be, but I'm glad QR codes are now officially included in the list of bullshit. Can't agree more.
Are QR codes still a thing? Or were they ever a thing? Dunno, my brain seems to filter them out automatically, I rarely notice them.
I just used one to board a plane. It worked well, that's no bullshit.