Killing Mind

It seems there’s no want for examples of fine bullshitting in the world around us. What occurs to me is the brazen techniques used across the board, that no doubt given the right audience, actually prove convincing. I think I might be allergic to bullshit - every time I see it some dash of bullshit in a piece of communication, I can’t help but completely disregard the entire piece. Here’s a little list I’ve collected, of ways to bullshit:

• Polarise the argument. Establish an us versus them mentality, preferably where them is “society”, the government, or those not privy to the bullshit exposition. Few will challenge the assertion that all of society has been teaching them the wrong thing their whole lives, and that you’re there to save them. Bullshit alert: “Still struggling with your normal saw? That’s because everyone has been doing it completely wrong by pushing the saw instead of pulling it. Use this new ‘pull’-saw instead.”
• Throw in maxims, but take them entirely out of context. People like the familiarity of a maxim, and don’t seem to mind when they’re highjacked to mean something entirely unreasonable.
• Make comparisons to a few household name geniuses, claiming they knew it all along, and therefore, all the geniuses in the world have known the bullshit all along. Make sure the genius is dead, so people wont bother to check if they hadn’t anything to do with the argument at all.
• Use graphs in appallingly asinine ways. Graphs have a way of suggesting scientific rigour without requiring it. The axes need not make sense and there does not need to be data relating to the graph. Extra tip: the word “exponential” can mean just about whatever you want it to mean, when describing bullshit with a graph.
• Make words up. For extra points, combine two words into one, instead of using “and” or some other basic sentence construct. Extra bonus points if your made up words form some barely pronouncable acronym.
• Claim nonsense statistics, especially when describing non-quantifiable data. Many people don’t know what a denominator is let alone care that a statistic is worthless without one. Therefore, you are free to claim that 70% of wind is air, or something equally meaningless.
• Use “order of magnitude” when you mean a lot. Bonus points if the metric you’re refering too isn’t even quantifiable. Bullshit alert: “We are living in a world where technology is changing by an order of magnitude every ten years”