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How To Detect Bullshit
There is little question that bullshit is a real and consequential phenomenon (especially popular in the financial markets and central planning arena). Indeed, as the following scientific study finds, given the rise of communication technology and the associated increase in the availability of information from a variety of sources, both expert and otherwise, bullshit may be more pervasive than ever before. Despite these seemingly commonplace observations, we know of no psychological research on bullshit. Are people able to detect blatant bullshit? Who is most likely to fall prey to bullshit and why?
The following scientific paper explains... (click image for link to PDF)
As the authors conclude,
Bullshit is a consequential aspect of the human condition.
Indeed, with the rise of communication technology, people are likely encountering more bullshit in their everyday lives than ever before.
Profundity ratings for statements containing a random collection of buzzwords were very strongly correlated with a selective collection of actual “Tweets” from Deepak Chopra’s “Twitter” feed (r’s = .88–89). At the time of this writing, Chopra has over 2.5 million followers on “Twitter” and has written more than twenty New York Times bestsellers. Bullshit is not only common; it is popular.
Chopra is, of course, just one example among many. Using vagueness or ambiguity to mask a lack of meaningfulness is surely common in political rhetoric, marketing, and even academia (Sokal, 2008). Indeed, as intimated by Frankfurt (2005), bullshitting is something that we likely all engage in to some degree: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share.”
One benefit of gaining a better understanding of how we reject other’s bullshit is that it may teach us to be more cognizant of our own bullshit.
The construction of a reliable index of bullshit receptivity is an important first step toward gaining a better understanding of the underlying cognitive and social mechanisms that determine if and when bullshit is detected.
Our bullshit receptivity scale was associated with a relatively wide range of important psychological factors. This is a valuable first step toward gaining a better understanding of the psychology of bullshit. The development of interventions and strategies that help individuals guard against bullshit is an important additional goal that requires considerable attention from cognitive and social psychologists. That people vary in their receptivity toward bullshit is perhaps less surprising than the fact that psychological scientists have heretofore neglected this issue. Accordingly, although this manuscript may not be truly profound, it is indeed meaningful.
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One wonders just how high the average investors' Bullshit Receptivity Scale is to The Fed's or The ECB's or The BoJ's bullshit... profound or not!
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Everything is propaganda now.
For a start.......all advice from governments is total BS......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/12/road-to-ww3-time-to...
There's lots of bullshit scam artists on tish site trying to push tehir 0ldc0in.....
Excellent article
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-01/collapse-us-manufacturing-spark...
Buzzwords indicative of bullshit:
global warming
climate change
sustainability
religion of peace
...for the children
Also anything posted under a psuedonym (such as "Tyler Durden" or "George Washington" is automatically bullshit.)
The California shooting is starting to turn into a massive cover up...
I notice for example there is absolutely zero discussion in MSM about why with all of the spying these people were not flagged. Of course that assumes that the MSM story about who these people are is generally true, which I don't assume. But even if it were, you'd think this would be a pretty good example that mass spying doesn't work, and is not worth the erosion of liberties associated with it. But of course crickets, except from the likes of Trump who says that more monitoring is needed.
Yes, but this is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the level of captial/resource mis-allocation and mal-investment all this monetary fraud has been driving.
Just wait.
''A large and influential section of the British press was working to the rabid agenda of the Ruling Elite in poisoning the minds of a whole nation. Penetration of politics, the press and education was the formula Milner had inherited from Cecil Rhodes. The press was to play a key role in a propaganda drive that was sustained right up to, and throughout, the First World War(insert GWOT). If The Times was their intellectual base, the popular dailies spread the gospel of anti-German hatred to the working classes.''
http://ancresearch.blog.co.uk/2013/09/16/warmongers-newspapers-16403461/
The ultimate failure of electronic surveillance is that folks who conspire and then actually go out and DO something - tend to TALK with each other - using WORDS - that come out of their MOUTHS. They don't necessarily call, email, text, tweet, or post everything they plan on doing on FB, etc.
All ZioNazi Scripted BULLSHIT!
Sandy Hook Shooting A TOTAL HoaxJames Fetzer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUDqRJK9Vd8
S.S.D.D. !The shooting or the psyop ?
Getting tired of your liberal bullshit Bill.
So you think the killing of 14 and injury of 21 is some massive conspiracy and never happened?
Is that what Bill said?
How to detect bullshit??!!!!! bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha Is this a trick question!?
EASY! Is the other person a) flapping his gums, b) running off at the keyboard or c) engaged in any other form of "idea" conveyance?
If a), b) or c), then its BS. Otherwise, oeprating under the simple premise of "Most people are mostly full of shit most of the time"
will keep you away from a ton of grief.
Please, if you want to talk about bullshit talk about the biggest scam of all; a select group of people with the power to create money out of thin fucking air with no real work (no real collateral) that you must accept in exchange for your labor (real work).
Seems to me many people are accepting bullshit all the time...
no matter, such "let the majority eat cake" monetary exeriments have been tried before, this one will end the same way.
I think most people are stuck living paycheck-to-paycheck (due to excessive spending) and have given up on achieving anything more than they already have in life (hence attention to pro sports, TV, etc).
They don't actively accept bullshit; they just ignore it, keep their head down, and try to survive. Probably overlaps heavily with "useful idiots" as far as categories go.
(Nothing wrong with being useful idiot, but i hate it when they vote to take what I earned by hard work).
If you're equating money (fiat) w/ BS, and if you have some that you'd like to give away,
I would definitely take bullshit off of you!
Work is the definition of money because money can not exist with out work.
"Seems to me many people are accepting bullshit all the time..."
Exactly!
It takes only 5 minutes with my sister-in-law to detect blatant bullshit < of course, I'm always expecting it >
Question More: Study shows link between stupidity & bullsh*t
Published time: 3 Dec, 2015 17:21 | https://www.rt.com/news/324632-research-stupidity-bullshit-link/
Scientific evidence has emerged that questioning more is a sign of intelligence.
Researchers at Canada’s University of Waterloo presented their new research paper "On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullsh*t", which revealed that people who find statements like "rejuvenation is a constant, joy requires exploration" to be profound are less intelligent.
"Bullsh*t, in contrast to mere nonsense, is something that implies but does not contain adequate meaning or truth," says research team leader Gordon Pennycook.
Through a series of five tests, Pennycook generated a number of statements using the New Age Bullsh*t Generatorwebsite as well as tweets from Deepak Chopra. Three hundred participants were then asked to rate their profoundness using the "Bullsh*t Receptivity (BSR) scale."
Gizmodo has an article from 4 days ago: "
Study: Some Deepak Chopra Tweets Are Indistinguishable From Bullshit"Philosopher Carlin on "Stupid Bullshit": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3VNBBUp2Cw (3:49)
Carlin on Religious Bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE
Corporate Bullshit Generator: http://cbsg.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/live or http://bullshitgenerator.blogspot.com/
I say bullshit
Beat me to it by that much. Is there such a thing as a bullshit double negative? Bullshit-bullshit is in fact truth, but bullshit is just bullshit?
Still, the whole works is just a stinking load of bullshit anyway...
This is a tell tale sign from southpark...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhSvQLweKD4
Bullish!
excellent article. i was born with PPBSR,(Pseudo-Profound BullShit Receptivity), and i can tell you right now with a straight face that it has been a curse for 66 years! how does a young child grow in this world when the will to dodge flung BullShit from every direction wears their moral compass down. the government is BullShit, the Educational System is BullShit, Your Job is BullShit, your friends spew forth BullShit, Entertainment is BullShit, YOU start BullShitting because of the overwhelming weight of not conforming! (the only upside to this dreaded condition was maybe backsliding a smidgen to BullShit my way into a little nookey, no?)....and maybe my golf game..
and furthermore, i sit here, soul bared, with a Mickeys Malt and a half pack of Kool Filter Kings at my desk(old sewing machine), in recovery from my Legal Disability($783.46/mo). Recovery from the BullShit syndrome was a long and hard fought battle, and i'm here through no fault of my own. my therapist has run me through the gaunlet of drugs, hynotism, Andy Griffith of Mayberry re-runs, and miley cyrus flash cards. thirty straight days of Lysergic Acid did the trick, along with a steady stream of Moody Blues' "Timothy Leary is Dead" and a near lethal dose of tar opium to bring what was left of me back from the NetherLand. you too can whip your bullshit. i'm living proof......have a pleasant weekend.
+1000
Now I have a diagnosis I can Believe in!
excellent recovery Sgorem, there is no doubt the healing properties of the lysergic .... that's why the Usurpers in Power now criminalized it so intensely. They know their heads would be on pikes if the people had the PurPle HazE Window Pane ... a MicroDot Medical Wonder ....if you don't already have, pick up a copy of Leary's Psychelic Prayers book ... and get on psychedelicsalon.com podcasts for free !!! the single greatest thing we can do is to get psychedelics available to humankind again - DEA on receivership ASAP
You should run for president. You clearly have the best qualifications for the job and might already have a corner on the zipp-head vote. Hell I'd even vote for you, but my support ain't worth jack squat. Alls I ever seen is a book once. I Like me some pictures.
Business: begins with "B" and ends with "S." Oh, it's a great time to buy a home!
Henry Fonda supports bullshit --http://www.anyclip.com/movies/on-golden-pond/bullshit/#!quotes/
A few things that ZH readers should know(and the folks at home),
25 Rules of Disinformation
and
8 Traits of The Disinformationalist
These techniques are used by many of the Trolls that visit us.
Bullshit is easy to detect. If you cannot support your point with hard proven facts, usually in writing...it's bullshit.
There actually is a book "On Bullshit". It basically takes a philosophical look at the relative evil between a liar and a bullshitter. The conclusion is that a liar is worse. A liar knows the truth and purposely states a non-truth. A bullshitter distorts and twists the truth but can't tell the difference anymore between truth and non-truth. Kind of a half truth guy that leads you to a conclusion that the full truth wouldn't lead you to. Augustinian truth versus Jesuitical truth if you will. Interesting. Much easier to pass a Jesuitical test of truth than Augustinian.
I clearly have phases of too much time on my hands. I once read a book titled "Salt". At times I think I'm morphing into Cliff Claven.
A bullshitter distorts and twists the truth but can't tell the difference anymore between truth and non-truth.
Kind of like 95+% of the American population, right? I guess what that means is most people in the USA are full of shit . . . . .
I'd go with no critical thinking - kind of filled with shit but being told and accepting it's steak. See Nakki above - good one
Common sense is an excellent bullshit detector.
Unfortunately sensible people aren't all that common these days mate.
Watch Obama's lips?
".. it is all fraudulent, all of it, everywhere, up and down, East and West. The movies, radio and state and books and TV — all of them are fraudulent; and the foundations and universities and scholars, they are all fraudulent too; and the executives and the financiers … and the Commissars and the Krushchevs and the Mao Tze-tungs, they are fraudulent equally; it is all a great game; and there are two dangers in this great game: first, the fraudulent people come to believe their own lies, they come to have faith in their fraud; and second, underneath it all, because people are fundamentally good, they come to realize that we live in lies and the people get angrier and angrier and they may explode."
Theodore White
Jimmy from South Park can spot bullshit, thats why the ads want him dead.
"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?"
"Ignorance is bliss." Cypher
We're all just chimps who like to believe that our shit dont stink and in the end, does knowing its all bullshit change anything anyways. 99% of humanity just trying to have a good life a family and hope that the psychopathic running the world dont blow it up.
don't be so harsh. even if it is true humans may be the stupidest animals ever evolved we have the unique ability to create our own reality, our own unique delusion. who has a better grip on reality, someone who is truly on a lifelong acid trip or the guy who has to constantly affirm he is sane? has a grip on reality?
bullshit was the foundation of teaching my kids that they didn't need to lie. lol. bs makes the world go 'round.
That Deepak guy is a profound bullshitter and he is great at using flowery language and ends up saying nothing at all; however, strict materialism can be a trap too. Shouldn't we question both?
Where would Standford Research Institute and the US military's decades long (yes, it was funded for decades) and partly unclassified remote viewing program be if they listened to strict materialism. Well actually we know where they would be, behind. The program was started because the Russians beat us to it by nearly a decade and it's success was more than well documented. One of the creators of the highly successful program gave this interesting talk just before he died... for those that have figured out everything... don't bother.
Ingo Swann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHH5PBS2H_I
I read this bullshit theory the other day to amuse myself for a few hours. You can condense detecting the "Pretense of being profound" into style/hype over substance. IE anything that looks and sounds superficially important but on close inspection contains nothing. FIAT money is a good example. Fractional Reserve banking is another and just about every sentence uttered in the msm.
Isn't there an app for that for your iphone? .... Did a quick search and there is. Also ebay has old cold war milspec handheld ones - http://img.allw.mn/content/vm/a8/w4m7lz97.jpg
These days it's harder to detect bullshit than a preacher's dick in a cow's ass.
Over the top? Am I posting on the incorrect blog site? Didn't think so.
Bullshit...or not?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O2yVZCVLK3E
you maniacs, it's OBVIOUSLY BULLSHIT because it wanted me to watch a 30-second advertisement with no "skip this" option. I stopped trying to watch 3-seconds into the ad as obviously the ad is marketing bullshit which means the video that follows is 100% bullshit too.