14 ms·

Empty and Misleading Communication Takes over Organizations (2020)

188 points by fagnerbrack 5y ago

danielrpa 5y ago
When I was in college, I used an automated bullshit generator to create some "feedback" (a buzzword on its own!) for an article in a fancy business magazine. These "reader feedback" comments were supposed to be high quality, so they were only accepted by email and were reviewed in-house. My "feedback" was published on their website!
kthejoker2 5y ago
A simple 2 by 2 matrix: Things which are true and everyone wishes were true = basic facts and useless pap ("one of our values is honesty") Things which are not true but everyone wishes were true = Frankfurtian bullshit and cognitive bias Things which are true but people wish were not true = the actual reality against which you wage war through strategy and tactics ("our customers care more about UX than security", "our competition has better IP", etc.) Things which are not true and everyone wishes were not true = scapegoats and wasted energy (it's hard to prove a negative) Make sure for your personal life, company, organization, whatever, that you operate as much as possible in the 3rd quadrant.
fagnerbrack 5y ago
The best parts IMHO: > One informant told [...] that his job involved ‘characterizing the reality of a situation with any description that is necessary to make that situation more palatable to some group that matters . . . Everyone knows that it’s bullshit, but it’s accepted. This is the game’ (Jackall, 1986, p. 145) and > the effort they need to put in to refute bullshit is often of an order of magnitude greater than what is required to produce the bullshit in the first place (Brandolini, 2014)
- hanniabu 5y ago
  That second one is exactly why misinformation has so easily taken hold.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Quantity is a Quality of its own.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - throw10920 5y ago
    And false claims of misinformation! It's far easier to falsely claim that something is misinformation than it is to refute the claim and show that it is in fact reasonable or factual. We're in a misinformation bull market!
- rq1 5y ago
  >> the effort they need to put in to refute bullshit is often of an order of magnitude greater than what is required to produce the bullshit in the first place (Brandolini, 2014) So P != NP?
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    I had a similar thought: time for a bullshit-powered cryptosystem?
    - Majromax 5y ago
      Isn't that just cryptocurrency?
throwaway81523 5y ago
Non-shortened title: Playing the Bullshit Game: How Empty and Misleading Communication Takes Over Organizations Author: André Spicer Date: June 4, 2020 Abstract: Why is bullshit so common in some organizations? Existing explanations focus on the characteristics of bullshitters, the nature of the audience, and social structural factors which encourage bullshitting. In this paper, I offer an alternative explanation: bullshitting is a social practice that organizational members engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity. When the practice of bullshitting works, it can gradually expand from a small group to take over an entire organization and industry. When bullshitting backfires, previously sacred concepts can become seen as empty and misleading talk.
- cgio 5y ago
  Is this abstract intentionally ironic or not? Bullshit in this include “social structural factors”,“part of a speech community”,”practice of bullshitting” “bullshitting backfires”. Is there any principle that “any critique of language is self referential”?
  - danaris 5y ago
    There's a big difference between jargon, which may be opaque to someone outside the field, but is genuinely communicating something important to someone within it, and buzzwords, which are largely bullshit designed to sound like important jargon.
    - cgio 5y ago
      My jargon is your buzzword and the other way around. Qualification of importance and information content is subjective and contextual. Will one side or the other choose who the bullshitter is, or will both sides realise everyone is bullshitting to some extent as a social signalling tool. I gave a few quotes above from the author that would be inspiring for many a buzzword slingers.
      - 5y ago
User23 5y ago
The seminal text referenced in the article is a short, poignant, and enjoyable read: On Bullshit[1]. [1] http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_...
keyle 5y ago
No idea how this article pleases my soul. I'm surrounded. "Bullshitology" ... "disconnected from normal standards of truth such as logic, clarity and evidence". Words to my soul. I even have a bullshitometer, and I know how much they're in trouble or have no idea what they're doing, based on a simple k/vv ratio ;) (keywords per verbal vomit). Late or overdue projects tend to have meetings with k/vv blowing off the roof. For this I introduced the k^2/vv ratio. Hey if you're still reading, first, I feel your pain, second, might as well have fun.
- onion2k 5y ago
  The important thing to remember is that everyone does this. You have your bullshitometer, but so does the person you're communicating with. They're looking for the k/vv ratio in what you write too. And while you might believe you're writing clear, succinct messages with Just The Facts, they're seeing bullshit flammery excuse-making wrapped in technical jargon to hide your incompetence. Everyone believes they're a good communicator because no one is capable of judging their own writing. To hold that against them is unkind, just as it'd be unkind for someone to hold your comms against you.
  - keyle 5y ago
    So much yes! What? Are you saying my k/vv needs to be discounted by a hidden ratio called blackhole understanding, bu, for my inability to uplift my knowledge convergence with the ephemeral business strategy? And so it is, (k/vv)^PI/bu Thank you sir.
  - trhway 5y ago
    That reminds about those Elizabeth Holmes' affirmations recently mentioned here - there was something like "I will call out BS immediately" yet there was no affirmations wrt. being called out on BS.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Bullshit is not the same as "bad communicator" and is not the opposite of "clear" and "succinct". On the contrary, I would say that an expert bullshiter displays very good communication (and usually political) skills. Bullshit is to purposely mislead or say things that actually don't convey anything, e.g. in order not to commit to anything or to leave wriggle room for later.
Animats 5y ago
"I will argue that bullshitting is triggered by a speech community with many conceptual entrepreneurs, significant amounts of noisy ignorance and permissive uncertainty." Right now, "metaverse".
LittlePeter 5y ago
Online bullshit detector: http://www.blablameter.com/ http://www.blablameter.com/ When ran on the abstract of this article: Bullshit Index :0.7 This reeks. I bet you're a PR-Expert, Politician, Consultant or Scientist. If there is a message, it's unlikely it will reach anyone.
- taffronaut 5y ago
  That is awesome. I ran the abstract of something I am writing for our marketing peeps and got: Bullshit Index :0.47 Something's getting a bit fishy. You probably want to sell something, or you're trying to impress somebody. It still may be an acceptable result for a scientific text. i.e. it's assessment was pretty much exact.
- sixstringtheory 5y ago
  I’d love a GitHub Action that runs all changes to docs etc through something like this!
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Clearly the bullshitometer is bullshitting. 88 points currently, the message has reached HN frontpage. It even reached me, a major bullshitter. When i ran my own comments through it they come up with extremely low scores. I call bullshit
- pintxo 5y ago
  We need a browser plugin for this.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
One phrase I really can't stand is, "Out of abundance of caution". I have an abundance of "shut the fuck up" for anyone who uses it. Although I'm not sure what a good replacement is. In the nonfiltered world it'd be "Because we're worrywarts".
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  I see a business opportunity here: business communication tailored to personal sensitivities: You will received bullshit that is personalized and tailored to your stated preferences
  - bopbeepboop 5y ago
    That exists — it’s called a “manager” and comes with command-and-control functionality too!
  - theduder99 5y ago
    Yes here are my new preferences regarding email comms and if you don't follow them I may experience emotional trauma: 1) responses should never include the word 'no' or any negative word. 2) responses should always include the phrase 'yes sir, thank you sir, you are an amazing inspiration to the team and I hope to be like you someday'
- roenxi 5y ago
  There are lots of situations where being very cautious is objectively the best idea - so it is a mistake to categorically reject caution. Being excessively cautious is a mistake when the stakes are low and the benefits outweigh the risks. It is also a mistake when a decision needs to be made and no new information is going to arise. But that is contextual. It is sensible when dealing with situations where mistakes are easy to make and costly to recover from.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    I don't disagree. "There is currently a high risk of flooding. Out of an abundance of caution we have shut down our subway system.". It's the appropriate amount of caution, but that phrase just grinds my gears. It makes the user sound like they want to overemphasize the fact, like saying "Oh we care soooo much." (without any sarcasm)
dlkf 5y ago
> In this paper, I claim bullshitting is a social practice. I will argue that in particular speech communities people are encouraged to play the language game of bullshitting, and when it is played well it can bolster their identity. This is a very ironic sentence.
- marcellus23 5y ago
  How so?
cblconfederate 5y ago
> Why is bullshit so common in some organizations? Because it works
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Specifically because it communicates belonging ("fit") and facilitates status plays. Worst case it's meaningless filler - the equivalent of looking busy while doing nothing. Best case someone important may be impressed. It's important to remember the downside is on not bullshitting and sticking to facts and metrics. In many orgs, neither will win friends and influence people.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Because the organization doesn't live or die (immediately) based on interactions with the real world. It can continue on autopilot for a while while the leaders/staff play their game of pretend. Such things don't continue forever, though. Such organizations are eroding their future.
tremon 5y ago
Very enjoyable article, but I do wonder if the conceptual entrepreneurship displayed in the section "De-escalating bullshit" is ironic by intent or merely by circumstance.
chiefalchemist 5y ago
> In this paper, I offer an alternative explanation: bullshitting is a social practice that organizational members engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity. When the practice of bullshitting works, it can gradually expand from a small group to take over an entire organization and industry. When bullshitting backfires, previously sacred concepts can become seen as empty and misleading talk. This is Culture. Bullshitting is an example of the means to a bad ends. The ends being Culture. While a rewards system helps, the ultimate enabler is cronic denial.
Borrible 5y ago
So, it's a bunch of Narcissus clones/clowns bragging about themselves and each other in Echo's chamber and the applauding audience refuses to admit, the emperor is naked? Because they are not just afraid to look dumb, but actually love the play? Nothing new under the sun, eh? Boys will be Boys. Until reality bites. On a more serious note: "Communication is improbable", Niklas Luhmann, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy "Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur", Latin phrase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundus_vult_decipi%2C_ergo_decipiatur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundus_vult_decipi%2C_ergo_dec... "Nothing is true, everything is permitted", Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra "Facts and events are infinitely more fragile things than axioms, discoveries, theories, which are produced by the human mind." Hannah Arendt, Truth and Politics, The New Yorker 1967
- wppick 5y ago
  Also: "There is no truth, there is only consensus"
wayoutthere 5y ago
I peddle in this trade. Honestly, most of corporate America speaks in bullshit. So I use bullshit to sell them things they don’t need, then more bullshit to convince them it was a resounding success. It pretty much works every time until you get a super-demanding client, at which point I fire them as a client and move on to easier targets. Why shouldn’t I go in and get mine? We’ve built an economy that prizes looking competent over actual competency, and I’m just taking advantage of that. I have zero loyalty to the demons in the money pit, and in fact ripping them off is an existential coping strategy in many ways. That the system rewards this behavior is basically the point. All I’m doing is making America work for me. This attitude is becoming pretty prevalent; I’ve started dubbing it corpo-punk since it’s a bunch of white collar workers causing chaos through deliberate incompetence and bad-faith efforts in corporate America.
- danaris 5y ago
  Who, exactly, are you trying to convince that what you're doing is OK?
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Nobody; morality in the business world is for losers.
- arpyzo 5y ago
  I do the opposite. I refuse to peddle in this bullshit. I am that super-demanding client. It's a struggle, but I do well. Not as well as the bullshitters, but well enough to satisfy my family's needs and desires. The peace of mind of knowing that I'm doing my part to make the world a better place is priceless, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Honestly I feel the same — bleeding corporations of the resources they need to extort people out of their money is making the world a better place. Praxis takes many forms.
2-718-281-828 5y ago
Few months ago I was asked by a colleague to contribute an inspiration for a company development workshop. Frankly speaking - I am pretty damn disillusioned by now and couldn't come up with anything meaningful. He insisted, so I googled specifically for "coporate buzzwords" and came up with this: "Further establishing a welcoming and diverse work environment encouraging synergy and collaboration by committing to a common set of strategic goals." That statement was unanimously received very well and nobody realized that this is basically just sarcasm in action. Practically speaking my colleagues are all very smart (academics, PhDs all over the place) and should be able to detect bullshit bingo. At the bottom line though whether or not to go actively and motivatedly along with this ... bullshit makes a very practical difference with regard to boni. So, I don't know. Maybe it's me who's the idiot. In short: Bullshit bingo'ing is also often quite lucrative.
- wallaBBB 5y ago
  "Weird Al" Yankovic - Mission Statement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
  - setgree 5y ago
    I loved this! And the fact that I was parsing its lyrics for meaning suggests I’ve become too immersed in the culture for my own good
  - sidewndr46 5y ago
    As a long time fan of Weird Al, I've always been impressed with his knowledge of culture specifically outside his own domain. Making satire of Prince & Eminem is straightforward, they are basically his peers. What I'm impressed with is how does he get the insight into things like corporate America? Other songs like "It's all about the Pentiums" are satire, but they are accurate satire of a very early, nascent culture. It's rare that an entertainer can gain so much insight into things outside their own field.
  - dgb23 5y ago
    "Paradigm shift" cracked me up!
dandare 5y ago
The paper itself, 4th paragraph of the Introduction chapter: > speech community [...] conceptual entrepreneurs [...] noisy ignorance [...] permissive uncertainty [...] surface-level agreement Am I uneducated or is the author trolling?
- chillingeffect 5y ago
  Nah these are jargon but concerned w communicating truth. I find 'speech community' esp. Illustrative. These are the 'idea people' who talk all day instead of rolling their sleeves up. Not as bad as bullshitters tho.
  - dandare 5y ago
    I am not sure, I googled https://www.google.com/search?q=%22permissive+uncertainty%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22permissive+uncertainty%22 and most of the top results refer back to this paper or similar website talking about bullshitry. But maybe I am wrong and this is a real professional jargon of a real profession.
- DharmaPolice 5y ago
  I think there's probably a difference between specialist terminology (i.e. jargon) and the type of bullshit that they're talking about (although the distinction isn't always obvious). If I say "I couldn't SSH into the host - which I thought was because of a rule change on the firewall. Turns out that the IP I had been using was the reverse proxy address and not the backend server itself." that might sound like bullshit to a non-tech but if you're familiar with those terms/concepts then the sentence is fairly easy to understand. Not so with some of the bullshit this paper is talking about. It's also about the target audience. This is an academic paper written for an audience who will understand immediately what speech community means. A lot of the more irritating forms of corporate bullshit are distributed quite widely.
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Perhaps via Baudrillard, the author is identifying bullshit as a way to make us believe that the rest is real?
dandare 5y ago
Almost every top management memo be like (random snippets from my inbox): > "I’d like to echo XXX’s sentiments about the opportunities this organizational change creates.." > "YYY has been integral to the growth and success of the Y team. Her tireless passion has been a source of great inspiration and she will be greatly missed - thank you so much YYY! With YYY's departure, we are very fortunate to see one of our very own exceptional leaders..." > "You’ve heard us talk about our focus on reaccelerating our new business growth in fiscal year 2022, and while last year was challenging on many fronts, your continued focus on supporting each other, our customers, and our communities enabled us to successfully weather the storm and set ourselves up for a strong FY22 and beyond." > "From day one, XXX has been a driving force in helping ZZZ become the unquestioned HHH industry leader and a true visionary for the future of work. Along the way she has played key leadership roles across ..."
motohagiography 5y ago
> This distinction is captured by Frankfurt (2005) who argues that a liar is concerned about the truth, but attempts to replace it with falsehood. In contrast, the bullshitter is unconcerned with the truth and speaks with no reference to it. The bullshitter falls short of lying because they make use of insincere and misleading statements rather than outright falsehoods. Recent psychological work has found that established measures of everyday lying are sufficiently distinct from bullshitting. I'll tell you what it really is: it's banal nihilism. We have this idea that nihilism is a kind of militant anti-truth, but it mainly manifests as a lack of conviction about anything altogether. When there is no fixed truth, and your survival depends on aligning to narrative, ("getting it" as they say) the abstractions you use become divorced from anything concrete that could be interpreted as a forcing function on the perceptions of the people you are speaking to. The article underestimates the consequences of it, and we can say "ha hah, only bullshit!" but it's much, much more pernicious than that. Someone who is enthusiastically fluent in bullshit can be trusted to be just as enthusiastic about destroying ecosystems, livelihoods, cultures, and peers, because instead of feeling existential dread at meaninglessness, they find security in it. It's difficult for most hackers to imagine that the dim agreeable affect of a middling project manager or adjunct eating lunch at their desk as barely concealing an abyss of rage and shame - one that is only relieved by tiny acts of passive sadism, but that's literally people everywhere. The term for them was "Little Eichmanns," because the whole point of Eichmann was that nobody would ever have thought him capable of being the architect of mass atrocities, but he is the prototypical example of the "stupid and dilligent," who can be relied upon at scale to substitute compliance and bullshit jargon for meaning. Source: banks, government, unicorns, and other institutions.
- marktangotango 5y ago
  > prototypical example of the "stupid and dilligent," I think stupid is too strong here, and misleading even. It allows those who are clearly not stupid from realizing they can fall into the same behavior. Simply not caring is sufficient.
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Indeed I would walk that wording back a bit, it was a riff on an oft-quoted famous quip about military officers: “I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90% of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief." This "clever and lazy" group is distinct from the low cunning of the archetype I was referencing, but I stepped out of the boundaries of being charitable. Your criticism is legit, and I prefer to be held to that higher standard of kindness. Cheers.
djbusby 5y ago
Explains so many government agency employees.
vanusa 5y ago
This explains a whole lot of things -- like for example how I once heard a certain engineering director explain, with a straight face, how one cloud platform was more "agile" than other. By which he meant (as he explained) "has a more user-friendly toolchain". Which is of course a perfectly valid criterion for preferring one platform over another. But no, he had to say "agile". Which by now of course has become completely meaningless, other than to mean vaguely "good". And as the article points out, a speech signal: a way of indicating "I'm an engineering director (or product evangelist, whatever) now, and one of the ways I maintain that slot in the status hierarchy is by using lingo you don't dare challenge me on, and certainly not to my face. Even though most everyone knows it's basically bullshit." Before I read the article, I found his choice of words quite perplexing. But now it makes perfect sense.
- wppick 5y ago
  Yes the definition they give for bullshitting is: "According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, bullshit is an informal vulgar term which means ‘to talk nonsense, especially with the intent of misleading or deceiving’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines bullshit as ‘to talk nonsense or rubbish’ and ‘to bluff one’s way through something by talking nonsense’" And the word bluff is a more apt definition for these situations. It is essentially a bluff like in poker. Where the situation is "I might not know what I'm talking about because I'm using vague obfuscated language, but calling me out on it might point out that I don't know what I'm talking about, or it might make you look like you just didn't understand" especially if the audience in also uninformed it can be spun either way
fnord77 5y ago
> Pascal said ‘I feel like a dog that has been run over.’ Wittgenstein told his friend ‘You don’t know what a dog that has been run over feels like.’ Although the philosopher’s response is unfriendly in the extreme, it does make a logical point. Strictly speaking, a human can’t know what a run-over dog feels like. That's not a good example of "Bullshit". It's a colorful metaphor based on what we would imagine the dog feels like.
- earleybird 5y ago
  Pretty sure Wittgenstein was trolling his friend. But a clever man would have known. . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMz7JBRbmNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMz7JBRbmNo

188 points by fagnerbrack 5y ago

When I was in college, I used an automated bullshit generator to create some "feedback" (a buzzword on its own!) for an article in a fancy business magazine. These "reader feedback" comments were supposed to be high quality, so they were only accepted by email and were reviewed in-house. My "feedback" was published on their website!

kthejoker2 5y ago

A simple 2 by 2 matrix: Things which are true and everyone wishes were true = basic facts and useless pap ("one of our values is honesty") Things which are not true but everyone wishes were true = Frankfurtian bullshit and cognitive bias Things which are true but people wish were not true = the actual reality against which you wage war through strategy and tactics ("our customers care more about UX than security", "our competition has better IP", etc.) Things which are not true and everyone wishes were not true = scapegoats and wasted energy (it's hard to prove a negative) Make sure for your personal life, company, organization, whatever, that you operate as much as possible in the 3rd quadrant.

fagnerbrack 5y ago

The best parts IMHO: > One informant told [...] that his job involved ‘characterizing the reality of a situation with any description that is necessary to make that situation more palatable to some group that matters . . . Everyone knows that it’s bullshit, but it’s accepted. This is the game’ (Jackall, 1986, p. 145) and > the effort they need to put in to refute bullshit is often of an order of magnitude greater than what is required to produce the bullshit in the first place (Brandolini, 2014)

hanniabu 5y ago
That second one is exactly why misinformation has so easily taken hold.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Quantity is a Quality of its own.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throw10920 5y ago
  And false claims of misinformation! It's far easier to falsely claim that something is misinformation than it is to refute the claim and show that it is in fact reasonable or factual. We're in a misinformation bull market!
rq1 5y ago
>> the effort they need to put in to refute bullshit is often of an order of magnitude greater than what is required to produce the bullshit in the first place (Brandolini, 2014) So P != NP?
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  I had a similar thought: time for a bullshit-powered cryptosystem?
  - Majromax 5y ago
    Isn't that just cryptocurrency?

throwaway81523 5y ago

Non-shortened title: Playing the Bullshit Game: How Empty and Misleading Communication Takes Over Organizations Author: André Spicer Date: June 4, 2020 Abstract: Why is bullshit so common in some organizations? Existing explanations focus on the characteristics of bullshitters, the nature of the audience, and social structural factors which encourage bullshitting. In this paper, I offer an alternative explanation: bullshitting is a social practice that organizational members engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity. When the practice of bullshitting works, it can gradually expand from a small group to take over an entire organization and industry. When bullshitting backfires, previously sacred concepts can become seen as empty and misleading talk.

cgio 5y ago
Is this abstract intentionally ironic or not? Bullshit in this include “social structural factors”,“part of a speech community”,”practice of bullshitting” “bullshitting backfires”. Is there any principle that “any critique of language is self referential”?
- danaris 5y ago
  There's a big difference between jargon, which may be opaque to someone outside the field, but is genuinely communicating something important to someone within it, and buzzwords, which are largely bullshit designed to sound like important jargon.
  - cgio 5y ago
    My jargon is your buzzword and the other way around. Qualification of importance and information content is subjective and contextual. Will one side or the other choose who the bullshitter is, or will both sides realise everyone is bullshitting to some extent as a social signalling tool. I gave a few quotes above from the author that would be inspiring for many a buzzword slingers.
    - 5y ago

User23 5y ago

The seminal text referenced in the article is a short, poignant, and enjoyable read: On Bullshit[1]. [1] http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_...

keyle 5y ago

No idea how this article pleases my soul. I'm surrounded. "Bullshitology" ... "disconnected from normal standards of truth such as logic, clarity and evidence". Words to my soul. I even have a bullshitometer, and I know how much they're in trouble or have no idea what they're doing, based on a simple k/vv ratio ;) (keywords per verbal vomit). Late or overdue projects tend to have meetings with k/vv blowing off the roof. For this I introduced the k^2/vv ratio. Hey if you're still reading, first, I feel your pain, second, might as well have fun.

onion2k 5y ago
The important thing to remember is that everyone does this. You have your bullshitometer, but so does the person you're communicating with. They're looking for the k/vv ratio in what you write too. And while you might believe you're writing clear, succinct messages with Just The Facts, they're seeing bullshit flammery excuse-making wrapped in technical jargon to hide your incompetence. Everyone believes they're a good communicator because no one is capable of judging their own writing. To hold that against them is unkind, just as it'd be unkind for someone to hold your comms against you.
- keyle 5y ago
  So much yes! What? Are you saying my k/vv needs to be discounted by a hidden ratio called blackhole understanding, bu, for my inability to uplift my knowledge convergence with the ephemeral business strategy? And so it is, (k/vv)^PI/bu Thank you sir.
- trhway 5y ago
  That reminds about those Elizabeth Holmes' affirmations recently mentioned here - there was something like "I will call out BS immediately" yet there was no affirmations wrt. being called out on BS.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Bullshit is not the same as "bad communicator" and is not the opposite of "clear" and "succinct". On the contrary, I would say that an expert bullshiter displays very good communication (and usually political) skills. Bullshit is to purposely mislead or say things that actually don't convey anything, e.g. in order not to commit to anything or to leave wriggle room for later.

Animats 5y ago

"I will argue that bullshitting is triggered by a speech community with many conceptual entrepreneurs, significant amounts of noisy ignorance and permissive uncertainty." Right now, "metaverse".

LittlePeter 5y ago

Online bullshit detector: http://www.blablameter.com/ http://www.blablameter.com/ When ran on the abstract of this article: Bullshit Index :0.7 This reeks. I bet you're a PR-Expert, Politician, Consultant or Scientist. If there is a message, it's unlikely it will reach anyone.

taffronaut 5y ago
That is awesome. I ran the abstract of something I am writing for our marketing peeps and got: Bullshit Index :0.47 Something's getting a bit fishy. You probably want to sell something, or you're trying to impress somebody. It still may be an acceptable result for a scientific text. i.e. it's assessment was pretty much exact.
sixstringtheory 5y ago
I’d love a GitHub Action that runs all changes to docs etc through something like this!
cblconfederate 5y ago
Clearly the bullshitometer is bullshitting. 88 points currently, the message has reached HN frontpage. It even reached me, a major bullshitter. When i ran my own comments through it they come up with extremely low scores. I call bullshit
pintxo 5y ago
We need a browser plugin for this.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

One phrase I really can't stand is, "Out of abundance of caution". I have an abundance of "shut the fuck up" for anyone who uses it. Although I'm not sure what a good replacement is. In the nonfiltered world it'd be "Because we're worrywarts".

cblconfederate 5y ago
I see a business opportunity here: business communication tailored to personal sensitivities: You will received bullshit that is personalized and tailored to your stated preferences
- bopbeepboop 5y ago
  That exists — it’s called a “manager” and comes with command-and-control functionality too!
- theduder99 5y ago
  Yes here are my new preferences regarding email comms and if you don't follow them I may experience emotional trauma: 1) responses should never include the word 'no' or any negative word. 2) responses should always include the phrase 'yes sir, thank you sir, you are an amazing inspiration to the team and I hope to be like you someday'
roenxi 5y ago
There are lots of situations where being very cautious is objectively the best idea - so it is a mistake to categorically reject caution. Being excessively cautious is a mistake when the stakes are low and the benefits outweigh the risks. It is also a mistake when a decision needs to be made and no new information is going to arise. But that is contextual. It is sensible when dealing with situations where mistakes are easy to make and costly to recover from.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I don't disagree. "There is currently a high risk of flooding. Out of an abundance of caution we have shut down our subway system.". It's the appropriate amount of caution, but that phrase just grinds my gears. It makes the user sound like they want to overemphasize the fact, like saying "Oh we care soooo much." (without any sarcasm)

dlkf 5y ago

> In this paper, I claim bullshitting is a social practice. I will argue that in particular speech communities people are encouraged to play the language game of bullshitting, and when it is played well it can bolster their identity. This is a very ironic sentence.

marcellus23 5y ago
How so?

cblconfederate 5y ago

> Why is bullshit so common in some organizations? Because it works

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Specifically because it communicates belonging ("fit") and facilitates status plays. Worst case it's meaningless filler - the equivalent of looking busy while doing nothing. Best case someone important may be impressed. It's important to remember the downside is on not bullshitting and sticking to facts and metrics. In many orgs, neither will win friends and influence people.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Because the organization doesn't live or die (immediately) based on interactions with the real world. It can continue on autopilot for a while while the leaders/staff play their game of pretend. Such things don't continue forever, though. Such organizations are eroding their future.

tremon 5y ago

Very enjoyable article, but I do wonder if the conceptual entrepreneurship displayed in the section "De-escalating bullshit" is ironic by intent or merely by circumstance.

chiefalchemist 5y ago

> In this paper, I offer an alternative explanation: bullshitting is a social practice that organizational members engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity. When the practice of bullshitting works, it can gradually expand from a small group to take over an entire organization and industry. When bullshitting backfires, previously sacred concepts can become seen as empty and misleading talk. This is Culture. Bullshitting is an example of the means to a bad ends. The ends being Culture. While a rewards system helps, the ultimate enabler is cronic denial.

Borrible 5y ago

So, it's a bunch of Narcissus clones/clowns bragging about themselves and each other in Echo's chamber and the applauding audience refuses to admit, the emperor is naked? Because they are not just afraid to look dumb, but actually love the play? Nothing new under the sun, eh? Boys will be Boys. Until reality bites. On a more serious note: "Communication is improbable", Niklas Luhmann, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy "Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur", Latin phrase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundus_vult_decipi%2C_ergo_decipiatur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundus_vult_decipi%2C_ergo_dec... "Nothing is true, everything is permitted", Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra "Facts and events are infinitely more fragile things than axioms, discoveries, theories, which are produced by the human mind." Hannah Arendt, Truth and Politics, The New Yorker 1967

wppick 5y ago
Also: "There is no truth, there is only consensus"

wayoutthere 5y ago

I peddle in this trade. Honestly, most of corporate America speaks in bullshit. So I use bullshit to sell them things they don’t need, then more bullshit to convince them it was a resounding success. It pretty much works every time until you get a super-demanding client, at which point I fire them as a client and move on to easier targets. Why shouldn’t I go in and get mine? We’ve built an economy that prizes looking competent over actual competency, and I’m just taking advantage of that. I have zero loyalty to the demons in the money pit, and in fact ripping them off is an existential coping strategy in many ways. That the system rewards this behavior is basically the point. All I’m doing is making America work for me. This attitude is becoming pretty prevalent; I’ve started dubbing it corpo-punk since it’s a bunch of white collar workers causing chaos through deliberate incompetence and bad-faith efforts in corporate America.

danaris 5y ago
Who, exactly, are you trying to convince that what you're doing is OK?
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Nobody; morality in the business world is for losers.
arpyzo 5y ago
I do the opposite. I refuse to peddle in this bullshit. I am that super-demanding client. It's a struggle, but I do well. Not as well as the bullshitters, but well enough to satisfy my family's needs and desires. The peace of mind of knowing that I'm doing my part to make the world a better place is priceless, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Honestly I feel the same — bleeding corporations of the resources they need to extort people out of their money is making the world a better place. Praxis takes many forms.

2-718-281-828 5y ago

Few months ago I was asked by a colleague to contribute an inspiration for a company development workshop. Frankly speaking - I am pretty damn disillusioned by now and couldn't come up with anything meaningful. He insisted, so I googled specifically for "coporate buzzwords" and came up with this: "Further establishing a welcoming and diverse work environment encouraging synergy and collaboration by committing to a common set of strategic goals." That statement was unanimously received very well and nobody realized that this is basically just sarcasm in action. Practically speaking my colleagues are all very smart (academics, PhDs all over the place) and should be able to detect bullshit bingo. At the bottom line though whether or not to go actively and motivatedly along with this ... bullshit makes a very practical difference with regard to boni. So, I don't know. Maybe it's me who's the idiot. In short: Bullshit bingo'ing is also often quite lucrative.

wallaBBB 5y ago
"Weird Al" Yankovic - Mission Statement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
- setgree 5y ago
  I loved this! And the fact that I was parsing its lyrics for meaning suggests I’ve become too immersed in the culture for my own good
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  As a long time fan of Weird Al, I've always been impressed with his knowledge of culture specifically outside his own domain. Making satire of Prince & Eminem is straightforward, they are basically his peers. What I'm impressed with is how does he get the insight into things like corporate America? Other songs like "It's all about the Pentiums" are satire, but they are accurate satire of a very early, nascent culture. It's rare that an entertainer can gain so much insight into things outside their own field.
- dgb23 5y ago
  "Paradigm shift" cracked me up!

dandare 5y ago

The paper itself, 4th paragraph of the Introduction chapter: > speech community [...] conceptual entrepreneurs [...] noisy ignorance [...] permissive uncertainty [...] surface-level agreement Am I uneducated or is the author trolling?

chillingeffect 5y ago
Nah these are jargon but concerned w communicating truth. I find 'speech community' esp. Illustrative. These are the 'idea people' who talk all day instead of rolling their sleeves up. Not as bad as bullshitters tho.
- dandare 5y ago
  I am not sure, I googled https://www.google.com/search?q=%22permissive+uncertainty%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22permissive+uncertainty%22 and most of the top results refer back to this paper or similar website talking about bullshitry. But maybe I am wrong and this is a real professional jargon of a real profession.
DharmaPolice 5y ago
I think there's probably a difference between specialist terminology (i.e. jargon) and the type of bullshit that they're talking about (although the distinction isn't always obvious). If I say "I couldn't SSH into the host - which I thought was because of a rule change on the firewall. Turns out that the IP I had been using was the reverse proxy address and not the backend server itself." that might sound like bullshit to a non-tech but if you're familiar with those terms/concepts then the sentence is fairly easy to understand. Not so with some of the bullshit this paper is talking about. It's also about the target audience. This is an academic paper written for an audience who will understand immediately what speech community means. A lot of the more irritating forms of corporate bullshit are distributed quite widely.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Perhaps via Baudrillard, the author is identifying bullshit as a way to make us believe that the rest is real?

dandare 5y ago

Almost every top management memo be like (random snippets from my inbox): > "I’d like to echo XXX’s sentiments about the opportunities this organizational change creates.." > "YYY has been integral to the growth and success of the Y team. Her tireless passion has been a source of great inspiration and she will be greatly missed - thank you so much YYY! With YYY's departure, we are very fortunate to see one of our very own exceptional leaders..." > "You’ve heard us talk about our focus on reaccelerating our new business growth in fiscal year 2022, and while last year was challenging on many fronts, your continued focus on supporting each other, our customers, and our communities enabled us to successfully weather the storm and set ourselves up for a strong FY22 and beyond." > "From day one, XXX has been a driving force in helping ZZZ become the unquestioned HHH industry leader and a true visionary for the future of work. Along the way she has played key leadership roles across ..."

motohagiography 5y ago

> This distinction is captured by Frankfurt (2005) who argues that a liar is concerned about the truth, but attempts to replace it with falsehood. In contrast, the bullshitter is unconcerned with the truth and speaks with no reference to it. The bullshitter falls short of lying because they make use of insincere and misleading statements rather than outright falsehoods. Recent psychological work has found that established measures of everyday lying are sufficiently distinct from bullshitting. I'll tell you what it really is: it's banal nihilism. We have this idea that nihilism is a kind of militant anti-truth, but it mainly manifests as a lack of conviction about anything altogether. When there is no fixed truth, and your survival depends on aligning to narrative, ("getting it" as they say) the abstractions you use become divorced from anything concrete that could be interpreted as a forcing function on the perceptions of the people you are speaking to. The article underestimates the consequences of it, and we can say "ha hah, only bullshit!" but it's much, much more pernicious than that. Someone who is enthusiastically fluent in bullshit can be trusted to be just as enthusiastic about destroying ecosystems, livelihoods, cultures, and peers, because instead of feeling existential dread at meaninglessness, they find security in it. It's difficult for most hackers to imagine that the dim agreeable affect of a middling project manager or adjunct eating lunch at their desk as barely concealing an abyss of rage and shame - one that is only relieved by tiny acts of passive sadism, but that's literally people everywhere. The term for them was "Little Eichmanns," because the whole point of Eichmann was that nobody would ever have thought him capable of being the architect of mass atrocities, but he is the prototypical example of the "stupid and dilligent," who can be relied upon at scale to substitute compliance and bullshit jargon for meaning. Source: banks, government, unicorns, and other institutions.

marktangotango 5y ago
> prototypical example of the "stupid and dilligent," I think stupid is too strong here, and misleading even. It allows those who are clearly not stupid from realizing they can fall into the same behavior. Simply not caring is sufficient.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Indeed I would walk that wording back a bit, it was a riff on an oft-quoted famous quip about military officers: “I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90% of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief." This "clever and lazy" group is distinct from the low cunning of the archetype I was referencing, but I stepped out of the boundaries of being charitable. Your criticism is legit, and I prefer to be held to that higher standard of kindness. Cheers.

djbusby 5y ago

Explains so many government agency employees.

vanusa 5y ago

This explains a whole lot of things -- like for example how I once heard a certain engineering director explain, with a straight face, how one cloud platform was more "agile" than other. By which he meant (as he explained) "has a more user-friendly toolchain". Which is of course a perfectly valid criterion for preferring one platform over another. But no, he had to say "agile". Which by now of course has become completely meaningless, other than to mean vaguely "good". And as the article points out, a speech signal: a way of indicating "I'm an engineering director (or product evangelist, whatever) now, and one of the ways I maintain that slot in the status hierarchy is by using lingo you don't dare challenge me on, and certainly not to my face. Even though most everyone knows it's basically bullshit." Before I read the article, I found his choice of words quite perplexing. But now it makes perfect sense.

wppick 5y ago
Yes the definition they give for bullshitting is: "According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, bullshit is an informal vulgar term which means ‘to talk nonsense, especially with the intent of misleading or deceiving’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines bullshit as ‘to talk nonsense or rubbish’ and ‘to bluff one’s way through something by talking nonsense’" And the word bluff is a more apt definition for these situations. It is essentially a bluff like in poker. Where the situation is "I might not know what I'm talking about because I'm using vague obfuscated language, but calling me out on it might point out that I don't know what I'm talking about, or it might make you look like you just didn't understand" especially if the audience in also uninformed it can be spun either way

fnord77 5y ago

> Pascal said ‘I feel like a dog that has been run over.’ Wittgenstein told his friend ‘You don’t know what a dog that has been run over feels like.’ Although the philosopher’s response is unfriendly in the extreme, it does make a logical point. Strictly speaking, a human can’t know what a run-over dog feels like. That's not a good example of "Bullshit". It's a colorful metaphor based on what we would imagine the dog feels like.

earleybird 5y ago
Pretty sure Wittgenstein was trolling his friend. But a clever man would have known. . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMz7JBRbmNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMz7JBRbmNo