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Bullshit

stoa.org.uk

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Re: Bullshit

#31

Post by bradleysmith »

autokad wrote: post #11
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 m…

I'd say Aoyagi was really just expressing disdain for not including religion on the list. Saying he/she was 'preaching the truth' seems a bit far-fetched. He/she asked a question about something not being included: "not religion?", and expressed vague dislike (in an obviously subjective way): "awww"

He/she didn't really make any statements of what truth is. Only what his/her opinion of a missing element of the article was.

He/she did set off a heap of reactions though, which is interesting to me. I've noticed how much more religion-friendly, or at least religion-neutral HN has become over the past year. That is a positive thing, in my opinion.

Re: Bullshit

#32

Post by jdmichal »

autokad wrote: post #11
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 m…

Of a particularly relevant note here is agnosticism [1], or the viewpoint that there are certain things that are simply unknowable to humans. The implication being that humans can neither confirm NOR deny the truth value of the statements. Metaphysical statements often fall into this category. And hence, you can also have agnostic theists [2] and agnostic atheists [3], who both recognize that they are taking a stance on an unknowable truth value. Some would then define this as the very essence of the word faith, but I would like to at least point out that both sides are subject to the same definition.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

Re: Bullshit

#33

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

raldi wrote: post #4

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

As to why I submitted that way:

I couldn't recall the norms here. I figured a mod could always un-G-rate the title (as they did).

Plus, I felt a little uncomfortable because the title "Bullshit" could seem link-baity (although the content is worthwhile) so I felt better submitting it "toned down".

Those are my stated reasons. Of course you may call bullshit.

Re: Bullshit

#34

Post by fit2rule »

dragonwriter wrote: post #23
fit2rule wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion is bullshit for bullshits sake. Is religion not the only place where bullshit is acceptable, nay .. even required .. and that people know that before they get involved in one?

> Religion is bullshit for bullshits sake. I'd rather strongly disagree with that. Because it appeals to a form of justification which makes verifiability in any decisive sense largely impossible, it is a fertile venue for "bullshit" (in the terms used in the article) -- and for the same reason, for "liars", which the article distinguishes -- but it is not, either in principle or in practice, either exclusively bulls…

I think the point is that once a religion stops being bullshit, it becomes a science.

Re: Bullshit

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

fit2rule wrote: post #34
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religion is bullshit for bullshits sake. I'd rather strongly disagree with that. Because it appeals to a form of justification which makes verifiability in any decisive sense largely impossible, it is a fertile venue for "bullshit" (in the terms used in the article) -- and for the same reason, for "liars", which the article distinguishes -- but it is not, either in principle or in practice, either exclusively bulls…

I think the point is that once a religion stops being bullshit, it becomes a science.

That simply doesn't work with the definitions in the article. If you are using BS to mean anything that's not taking an exclusively empirical approach to explore exclusively questions of objective fact -- which its pretty clear that some people do -- then, sure, that's tautologically true. But that's a completely different definition than is used in the article, so its not relevant.

Both truth telling and lying (both of which the article distinguishes from BS), as defined in the article, are quite possible in domains where the questions aren't subject to scientific exploration. Whether those domains are meaningful is a philosophical question orthogonal to the truth/lie/BS distinction that the article makes, though.

Re: Bullshit

#36

Post by Swizec »

mistermann wrote: post #17
wavefunction wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

I've always argued Amdahl's law when people tell me I should recycle. When that doesn't work, I start talking about job creation.

Yes, it's a disgusting job. But I imagine for the growing unemployed population back home in Europe that's still better than starvation.

Furthermore, I really really don't have room for three to four different garbage cans in my tiny apartment.

Re: Bullshit

#37

Post by voteapathy »

lhnz wrote: post #22

A lot of what people call bullshit is necessary social grease/grace [0]. 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 alway…

Oddly enough, On Bullshit is itself bullshit. Half of the essay is just a line by line elaboration of Oxford English Dictionary definitions.

Re: Bullshit

#38

Post by mreiland »

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...

I dislike fasterisking.
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