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The only sentence that confused me is this one: > 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seeking person. I'm not a native English speaker, so I mig

The only sentence that confused me is this one: > 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seeking person. I'm not a native English speaker, so I might be wrong, but I'm reading this as "the future will more likely reveal the truth to those who are open-minded" which seems to be too profound to be bullshit. Of course, "irrational fact" is an awkward way to refer to false beliefs, but awkwardness≠bullshit.

droopyEyelids 8y ago
Awkwardness, vagueness can equal bullshit because it is a blank slate you project your own meaning over. The one that tripped me up was “imagined pain hurts not less because its imagined” Is that saying people who suffer psychologically actually suffer? Or should i take it at face bullshit value?
solarkraft 8y ago
But a belief isn't a fact.
- sophistication 8y ago
  That's why I described it as "awkward". It could even be poetic, an ellipsis of "irrational facts [that people believe in]", or an elliptical reversal of "facts [that people] irrational[ly believe in]".
dingaling 8y ago
You did better at an interpretation than I did as a native English speaker. I just parsed it as a string of unrelated words. Basically if I couldn't understand and agree with or accept the statements at first glance then I considered them bullshit. It was an accurate result except for statement 5 with which I agreed.
throwaway080383 8y ago
Yeah I only labeled it as bs because "irrational fact" makes no sense.
azeirah 8y ago
It's the bs sentence that came closest to having meaning to me. I thought of something similar; "Only by looking into the future will you find inconvenient/perplexing/complex/weird/unbelievable/seemingly paradoxical/unwanted truths/facts" Where the "irrational fact" is very open to interpretation, however. I did mark it as bullshit though, it's way way way too open to interpretation. It could be poetry, if presented in a reasonable context, I suppose.
thaumaturgy 8y ago
Vague and awkward wording is a signature of bullshit artists like Deepak Chopra. They word it that way on purpose, for exactly the reason that it worked on you: people will struggle to find meaning in it until they find an interpretation that works for them, and then they'll feel like their interpretation offers them some kind of insight. Metaphors are written to be interpreted more narrowly. It's ... the difference is like going to an art museum, and on one wall, you have a painting featuring something recognizable as a person carrying a glass of water in a desert, and on the opposite wall, you have a blank canvas. There are multiple ways to interpret the painting of the person in the desert, and it'll have slightly different meanings to different people, but most of those will follow a similar theme. That painting has content. The blank canvas is intended for people to stare at it and invent their own meaning. It has no content. It's bullshit.
- sophistication 8y ago
  I gave it a 6/10 bullshit rating on my own scale. I agree that metaphors in proverbs are never as vague, so yeah, it's bullshit. It might pass as a poorly translated proverb in a Chinese fortune cookie.

droopyEyelids 8y ago

Awkwardness, vagueness can equal bullshit because it is a blank slate you project your own meaning over. The one that tripped me up was “imagined pain hurts not less because its imagined” Is that saying people who suffer psychologically actually suffer? Or should i take it at face bullshit value?

solarkraft 8y ago

But a belief isn't a fact.

sophistication 8y ago
That's why I described it as "awkward". It could even be poetic, an ellipsis of "irrational facts [that people believe in]", or an elliptical reversal of "facts [that people] irrational[ly believe in]".

dingaling 8y ago

You did better at an interpretation than I did as a native English speaker. I just parsed it as a string of unrelated words. Basically if I couldn't understand and agree with or accept the statements at first glance then I considered them bullshit. It was an accurate result except for statement 5 with which I agreed.

throwaway080383 8y ago

Yeah I only labeled it as bs because "irrational fact" makes no sense.

azeirah 8y ago

It's the bs sentence that came closest to having meaning to me. I thought of something similar; "Only by looking into the future will you find inconvenient/perplexing/complex/weird/unbelievable/seemingly paradoxical/unwanted truths/facts" Where the "irrational fact" is very open to interpretation, however. I did mark it as bullshit though, it's way way way too open to interpretation. It could be poetry, if presented in a reasonable context, I suppose.

thaumaturgy 8y ago

Vague and awkward wording is a signature of bullshit artists like Deepak Chopra. They word it that way on purpose, for exactly the reason that it worked on you: people will struggle to find meaning in it until they find an interpretation that works for them, and then they'll feel like their interpretation offers them some kind of insight. Metaphors are written to be interpreted more narrowly. It's ... the difference is like going to an art museum, and on one wall, you have a painting featuring something recognizable as a person carrying a glass of water in a desert, and on the opposite wall, you have a blank canvas. There are multiple ways to interpret the painting of the person in the desert, and it'll have slightly different meanings to different people, but most of those will follow a similar theme. That painting has content. The blank canvas is intended for people to stare at it and invent their own meaning. It has no content. It's bullshit.

sophistication 8y ago
I gave it a 6/10 bullshit rating on my own scale. I agree that metaphors in proverbs are never as vague, so yeah, it's bullshit. It might pass as a poorly translated proverb in a Chinese fortune cookie.