^ Calling bullshit on this too. Reverence for so-called “common sense” goes back to America’s original sin: Thomas Jefferson’s ridiculous idea that a rural agrarian nation spanning coast-to-coast will magically create a brilliant citizenry capable of bringing true Democracy to the unwashed savages killing each other in the cities. Like somehow getting some dirt under your fingernails will make you Stu from Stephen King’s The Stand (“Country don’t mean dumb”). Pick up a book: even Will Rogers read the newspaper.
1 Like
Came to drop off the link to Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things; an oldie but a goodie.
2 Likes
I forgot my copy of this book in my desk at the office of a former employer of mine. I was saddened by the loss, but was eventually comforted when I remembered that they needed it more than I did.
Maybe if we embrace bullshit, rather than dismissing it, we have hope. To bullshit is to be human. In some respects it may be the only way most of us can survive modernity. Bullshit is the language we use to fill in the gaps we can’t afford to acknowledge are within us.
Is bullshit about belief and self comfort, or about survival?
i believe that “I bullshit, therefore I advance” could be labeled as one of the great axioms of our time.
1 Like
At no point should bullshit actually substitute for doing the work needed. However, in this day and age, more people seem to be adept at laying it on with a verbal shovel (and dodging fallout), rather than actually doing what should be done.
2 Likes
Sounds like a course I took in seminary… 
3 Likes
Someone definitely needs to take issue with the mystifying current paradigm, wherein the editor of the Wall Street Journal says that when Trump tells a boldfaced outright lie, his newspaper will say only that it is “questionable” or “challengeable.” EVERYTHING, in some regard, could be described as “questionable.” Anything at all can, (apparently) be seen as challengeable. These weasel adjectives have nothing at all to do with the veracity of a given declarative statement, and I highly doubt that establishing its specific veracity is beyond the capabilities of a modern media giant.
1 Like
After hearing an conservative Christian advocate on Premier Radio’s “Unbelievable” show say there was no possible ethical scandal whatsoever that would dissuade him from voting for Trump, I have to agree that it will take more than teaching liberals to spot and argue against BS to make a difference.
3 Likes
I’ll call your “Why People Believe Weird Things” and raise you “How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, 7th edition" by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn” - it is a much better book, but unfortunately priced for the educational market, aka rip off pricing. 
1 Like
Finance is a form of institutionalized bullshit. The version sans wishful thinking is called “mathematics”.
Seems like you are thinking of economics, the dismal science.
2 Likes
Finance and economics (as they are usually understood) are both based upon projecting similar games as being universal truths.
Hmm…Donald Trump, financial genius.
Yeah, there might just be something to what you are saying…
…can’t wait to see what he’ll do for the national economy.
3 Likes
Knowing your values and navigating through bullshit using your own special brand of it can get results. In essence, sometimes you have to bullshit a bullshitter to get them out of the way so your work can be done.
People that lay on the bullshit with a shovel but do no work should be celebrated. It means they are foolishly leaving opportunity on the table for the rest of us to take advantage of. I welcome it 
2 Likes
I just read a short article about the fact that computer literacy is taught as part of Common Core (grade school in the US), but most teachers emphasize internet learning less than math and language skills. Hopefully as we see more of what’s behind the curtain, younger kids will be taught how to assess what’s true. Right now teens apparently have no clue how to go about finding legitimate news sources and even identifying broad satire sites is something they can’t do.
2 Likes
Had to look it up: Esau Scrip and the Shoe Room.
OMG.
1 Like
People that lay on the bullshit with a shovel but do no work should be celebrated. It means they are foolishly leaving opportunity on the table for the rest of us to take advantage of.
If you are working for me, it means the opportunity for me to fire you. Srsly, you might choose to admire someone who is able to slide through life on the gift of gab alone, but usually there is collateral damage when your associates have to pick up after you.
1 Like
