
Playing the Bullshit Game: How Empty and Misleading Communication Takes Over - vo2maxer
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2631787720929704
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robocat
Very well written, with some excellent tongue-in-cheek humour.

I love this quote: “One informant told Jackall 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). A crucial aspect was not using too much or too little
bullshit, and also being able to judge the appropriate moment to bullshit.
Competent bullshitters also needed to become competent audience members for
performances of bullshit. They had to learn that bullshit should not be taken
too seriously and it should be engaged with in just the right way. If you took
bullshit too seriously, you ran the risk of being seen as a chump. Likewise,
if you challenged bullshit too frequently, you risked being seen as an
asshole.”

~~~
bsenftner
This describes the Mindfullness meditation movement accurately. They are
frauds with a mental toy that latches onto people with anxiety, for profit.

~~~
iancmceachern
I dont understand this comment, please elaborate. I've found meditation and
the like helpful, haven't paid a dime to anyone for it and so am confused.

~~~
bsenftner
Meditation itself is great and I'm a practitioner myself. But my experience
watching the growth of Mindfullness has been observing a series of over
reaching claims, each being addressed by some book, seminar, or class
"solving" the issue for a price. Some higher anxiety, over worked friends have
been sucked into these social circles and milked for all kinds of expensive
books, seminars, lectures, sessions, and what ever other made up term for that
specialized form of theater that costs far more than a movie ticket.

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gdrift
Sufficiently advanced talk about bullshit is indistinguishable from bullshit.

~~~
Nevermark
Exactly. As one's bullshit meta-knowledge increases, the precise jargon
required to distinguish between higher and lower level's of bullshit, and the
relative meaning topology between bullshit in overlapping social contexts,
will eventually sound like actual bullshit to the pre-initiate bullshit
novice.

I think I stated all that with proper precision.

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throwaway888abc
Bullshit Jobs: A Conversation with David Graeber

[https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/07/04/bullshit-jobs-a-
co...](https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/07/04/bullshit-jobs-a-conversation-
with-david-graeber/)

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foobar_
Conceptual entrepreneurs almost sounds like a good thing. Bullshit is a lie
with an ideological bent.

~~~
heavenlyblue
Hypothetical billionaires and conceptual entrepreneurs are potentially good
candidates for the president seat.

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valand
At first glance this looks like a joke

However it holds certain degrees of reality behind the humors

It is one good way to bring up an unquantifiable yet risky problem to people's
awareness

~~~
robocat
Did you follow the references to other papers? It seems to be well researched,
and much of the information seems to resonate with my own experience.

I wish I could learn the technique through a course or something because I
have seen how valuable the skill is.

I mostly skimmed the article, but in my experience I have seen some excellent
bullshitters have high social status. I can recall two CEOs (one guy, one
woman) with glib tongues: he is smart and successful, and I never understood
the woman (but she cycled through multiple companies so she had external
validation).

Another female friend bullshits successfully at work and within her peer
group. My friend doesn’t use bullshit words but instead there’s a kind of
Teflon irrelevancy to a lot of what she says (she is also well smart, with an
intuition that works).

