Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bullshit

stoa.org.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 38 posts

Re: Bullshit

#11

Post by autokad »

Aoyagi wrote: post #2

>Advertising, Public relations, Political propaganda, Education, Love, sex and romance, News media, Technology, Business, Art, Medicine Not religion? Aww...

some people in religion are bullshitters, some are liars, and some are truth tellers.

the real bullshit comes in with people like you who pretend your preaching the truth but you really know nothing about it. your just a bullshitter.

see, if you truly believed in science, which could be coined as the pursuit of truth, you'd simply stick to saying some elements of a religion are true, some are false, and some if not many cannot be known/discovered.

you'd probably sit there and complain if someone said something that blanketed an entire topic, while you do the same to religion. and i would guess you'd probably call yourself scientific. again, i think this is the epitome of bullshit.

Re: Bullshit

#12

Post by [deleted] »

gregd wrote: post #8
raldi wrote: post #4

Why is "bullsh*t" considered less objectionable than "bullshit"?

I never understood this type of logic. We all say "bullshit" when we read the title, not "bullshstart" or "bullshasteriskt". They're just f*cking words...

[deleted]

Re: Bullshit

#13

Post by wavefunction »

badman_ting wrote: post #6

Yeah, Penn & Teller started out debunking psychics and so on -- then they decided gun control and recycling are bullshit too. 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.,…

I'm interested in their conclusions that gun-control and recycling are bullshit.

Was this a political thing for them, that they don't support these behaviors politically and so concluded after "examining" the resulting effects that behaving in this way (controlling guns or recycling) don't have the claimed effects?

Re: Bullshit

#14

Post by claar »

Aoyagi wrote: post #2

>Advertising, Public relations, Political propaganda, Education, Love, sex and romance, News media, Technology, Business, Art, Medicine Not religion? Aww...

Here we go. In the last year since moving here from Slashdot/Reddit, I've seen such a more sophisticated and thoughtful community.

Thanks for proving that mindless unkind criticisms of misunderstood communities is alive and well at HN as well.

Re: Bullshit

#15

Post by badman_ting »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
badman_ting wrote: post #6

Yeah, Penn & Teller started out debunking psychics and so on -- then they decided gun control and recycling are bullshit too. 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.,…

I'm interested in their conclusions that gun-control and recycling are bullshit. Was this a political thing for them, that they don't support these behaviors politically and so concluded after "examining" the resulting effects that behaving in this way (controlling guns or recycling) don't have the claimed effects?

Yes, basically. It's ok to call the woo-woo stuff bullshit, I don't care about alien abductions and crystals. But to take that and then apply it to gun control and so-called "environmental hysteria" (their phrase) is no good, I say.

I mean, shit, they called the episode "environmental hysteria" and they pulled the old "dihydrogen monoxide" thing. In so many words: We found some dumb people that care about the environment, therefore if you care about the environment you're dumb.

Re: Bullshit

#16

Post by jiggy2011 »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
badman_ting wrote: post #6

Yeah, Penn & Teller started out debunking psychics and so on -- then they decided gun control and recycling are bullshit too. 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.,…

I'm interested in their conclusions that gun-control and recycling are bullshit. Was this a political thing for them, that they don't support these behaviors politically and so concluded after "examining" the resulting effects that behaving in this way (controlling guns or recycling) don't have the claimed effects?

I haven't watched the show in a long time (is it still on air?) but based on what I remember a rhetorical technique used was to cherry pick who they used as experts to advance different sides of the argument.

If I remember rightly they did something on environmentalism where they mostly interviewed unwashed hippies rather than environmental scientists.

Re: Bullshit

#17

Post by mistermann »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
badman_ting wrote: post #6

Yeah, Penn & Teller started out debunking psychics and so on -- then they decided gun control and recycling are bullshit too. 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.,…

I'm interested in their conclusions that gun-control and recycling are bullshit. Was this a political thing for them, that they don't support these behaviors politically and so concluded after "examining" the resulting effects that behaving in this way (controlling guns or recycling) don't have the claimed effects?

My anecdotal understanding of recycling is that something like 90% (????) of waste is industrial, so any consumer efforts to recycle are largely futile in the big scheme of things (not sure if that was their angle, also not sure how much truth there is to it).

I'm of the opinion that most strong advocates of recycling also aren't aware of these numbers, and more importantly, don't care, but maybe I'm wrong on that (but I doubt it from most of the conversations I've had).

Re: Bullshit

#18

Post by rail2rail »

badman_ting wrote: post #6

Yeah, Penn & Teller started out debunking psychics and so on -- then they decided gun control and recycling are bullshit too. 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.,…

Don't forget one of my favorite Bullshit episodes: Lawns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx9jKv6pgP8

(nsfw)

Re: Bullshit

#19

Post by falcolas »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
badman_ting wrote: post #6

Yeah, Penn & Teller started out debunking psychics and so on -- then they decided gun control and recycling are bullshit too. 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.,…

I'm interested in their conclusions that gun-control and recycling are bullshit. Was this a political thing for them, that they don't support these behaviors politically and so concluded after "examining" the resulting effects that behaving in this way (controlling guns or recycling) don't have the claimed effects?

Recycling - because most popular recycling (plastics in particular) was propped up by government subsidies, not viable businesses on their own. Plus, the energy savings (again, for plastic recycling) were nonexistent.

Gun Control - I don't remember the arguments there, other than specifically arguing against most popular arguments against the second amendment.

Post reply on HN