
The Curse of Bullshit - joshfraser
http://learntoduck.net/the-curse-of-bullshit
======
jellicle
Small talk - with a space - is an important social skill, which may elude
people whose skills are centered in other areas.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_talk>

All languages have small talk, which ought to suggest that it is not bullshit
or something which is possible to eliminate, but is instead an indispensable
part of human communication.

~~~
TimGebhardt
Interestingly, German doesn't really have a concept of small talk. It was a
problem translating Paddington Bear from English to German:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386>

~~~
ville
Interesting. I found lots of similarities to Finnish culture in the article
and Finnish language doesn't have a word for small talk either.

------
noonespecial
I always found that among friends the solution is as simple as:

How are you? Fine. Me too. So how are you really?

Conversation begins. Putting the really on the end turns the "how are you"
from a monolithic grunt of acknowledgement into a real sentence. Try it, but
only when you have a few minutes for an actual conversation. "How are you" and
"fine" are just the SYN and ACK of human (American English) speech.

~~~
Xcelerate
> "How are you" and "fine" are just the SYN and ACK of human (American
> English) speech.

Haha! This cracked me up. I bet I would be a lot more social if I could find
mappings between communication protocols and human interactions.

~~~
saraid216
You probably can. Faces and body languages are completely learnable as APIs,
and I've lately been studying conversation itself.

The hard part is that style matters. Think of yourself as a web crawler; how
do you poke at each webpage to get them to tell you everything you're
interested in knowing?

------
blackhole
I've been aware of this almost my entire life. My group of friends has never
fallen into this trap. When we ask each other, "how are you", and things
aren't going well, we expect an appropriate response. When we can tell that
things aren't going well, we'll dig deeper, we'll try to get each other to say
whats wrong.

When I am in a grocery store, I know the cashier doesn't give a rats ass about
how my day went. I know they simply want me gone as fast as possible with as
little fuss as possible. I've learned to answer "good" and to say "thank you"
all in an effort to smooth things over so I can get out of there quickly.
Business relationships are conducted with professionalism and respect,
delicately crafted to avoid emotion or conflicts of interest.

But when I write things on my blog, I tell people when things aren't going ok.
I talk about everyone and everything I have issues with. I talk about
everything that's wrong with everything else. Twitter knows when I'm
depressed. Facebook knows when I'm having a bad day. When I'm out talking with
my friends, there is no bullshit, and no talking about the weather. When I end
up not talking to someone for months, or even years, I still consider them my
friend. I make friends with people because of who they are, not because of
what they say.

As Micah here points out, just because certain extroverts insist that
something is "normal" does not make it correct.

~~~
saraid216
> When I am in a grocery store, I know the cashier doesn't give a rats ass
> about how my day went. I know they simply want me gone as fast as possible
> with as little fuss as possible. I've learned to answer "good" and to say
> "thank you" all in an effort to smooth things over so I can get out of there
> quickly.

I've learned to dwell on these moments and make the experience as pleasant as
possible for the other person. I don't chat them up; I focus my attention,
bring an earnest sincerity to the fore, and express my gratitude and hope that
they'll have a good day. It doesn't take any longer than anyone else, and it's
a small gesture that acknowledges their existence as more than just a tool for
my shopping habit without getting in their way.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Totally. It makes my day better to be nice to others and have them light up a
smile in return. It isn't all about what I feel, but a small gesture makes us
both feel better.

------
icebraining

        The men in that far country were liars, every one. Their mere howdy-do
        was a lie, because _they_ didn't care how you did, except they were
        undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made
        no conscientious diagnostic of your case, but answered at random, and
        usually missed it considerably. You lied to the undertaker, and said
        your health was failing--a wholly commendable lie, since it cost you
        nothing and pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted
        you, you said with your hearty tongue, "I'm glad to see you," and said
        with your heartier soul, "I wish you were with the cannibals and it was
        dinner-time." When he went, you said regretfully, "_Must_ you go?" and
        followed it with a "Call again;" but you did no harm, for you did not
        deceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made
        you both unhappy.
    
        I think that all this courteous lying is a sweet and loving art, and
        should be cultivated. The highest perfection of politeness is only a
        beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and
        gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.
    
        What I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do
        what we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an
        injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an
        injurious truth lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should
        reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving. The man
        who tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble, is one of whom the
        angels doubtless say, "Lo, here is an heroic soul who casts his own
        welfare in jeopardy to succor his neighbor's; let us exalt this
        magnanimous liar."
    

Excerpt from Mark Twain's _"On the Decay of the Art of Lying"_ , available on
Gutenberg: <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2572>

------
bafferphone
Literal truth is a cardinal value but small talk like 'How are you?' also has
an important epistemic function: to _maintain_ a dialogue and permit the
_ongoing_ ability to arrive at truths. Thus the paradox is that in order to
maximize the growth of knowledge we make judicious use of small talk,
platitudes, humor, etc.

~~~
dredmorbius
It's a conversational and social handshake protocol. As with other syntactic
sugar, it establishes a conversation and a convention. Where you go with it is
up to you.

------
jmduke
I'm torn.

One on hand, I agree that automatic responses like "I'm fine" aren't
particularly accurate and can mask true emotions and feelings in a sea of
politeness.

On the other hand, this piece is incredibly arrogant.

 _"We are supermen and women skipping through daises and pulling cash from
behind the ears of thankfully, delighted customers who are saved from the old
guard. We don’t make mistakes; we pivot. We don’t win; we crush it."_

If the author's advice is to 'cut through the bullshit', then I sincerely
advise him to stop writing stuff like the above quote. You are an entrepreneur
writing to an audience of primarily entrepreneurs. Ego-stroking is just as bad
as fake positivity, and drowning your message in it is just as bad too.

 _"I challenge you to take a day and care. I dare you to listen actively and
when you ask someone “How are you,” that you demand a deeply truthful
answer."_

And I take some level of offense to this; first, that the author presumes that
I don't already care, and that those people I talk to aren't being 'deeply
truthful'. The majority of my friends and family are surrounded by people they
generally like doing things they generally enjoy. They might not be ecstatic
-- but they're definitely fine.

Most people know -- or should know -- that things could always be worse. Your
business might be in trouble, you might not have reached every single goal
heaped upon you as a child (see Dave McClure's recent post) but yeah, chances
are, you're fine.

~~~
shoo
Regarding that first excerpt you quote, I parsed that as the author providing
an obvious exaggerated example of entrepreneurial bullshit. Surely it is not
intended to be serious.

------
asto
I've noticed it's mostly the geeky sort who think it's bullshit. I prefer
sitting at home and playing computer games or learning something new when
compared to lunches or dinners or other social gatherings because it bores me
to death to make idle conversation.

Most _normal_ people though _need_ to make small talk, it's an important part
of their lives. Also, most people dislike (or worse) those who are terse in
day to day conversation.

~~~
DTrejo
> __[...] it bores me to death to make idle conversation. __

The hard part is driving the conversation to something you both find
interesting.

Every person has something they could talk about for hours — the hard part is
figuring out what that is. True, you just might not care about all the
different kinds of hooks one can use to catch fish, but that's ok, half of
what makes a conversation interesting is enthusiastic delivery.

~~~
asto
I like talking to one other person esp. if they are 1. intelligent 2. not a
web programmer (as long as they're talking about something I am not very aware
of, I'm good) . I was talking about small talk in groups.

Conversation _always_ tends to the most boring topics. I could talk about very
interesting things about computers. Somebody at the table may be into finance.
Someone else into fashion. No matter how interesting these people may be as
individuals, conversation in a group tends towards things everyone at the
table is comfortable conversing about. Mr/Ms 'look at these awesome shoes I
bought last weekend' is not going to be terribly impressed by the Mr/Ms
'latest advances in computing' and vice versa. So you will soon be in a
content devoid conversation full of how are yous and how are things at work
and how are the kids and parents and... AAAAAAAAAA!!!

------
Swizec
"How are you" -> "Fine"

The reason people don't care about your response is because they expect a
stock response. Say something interesting and I promise people will care.

Try something like

"How are you" -> "Great! Stayed up until 5am last night, but I finally caught
that damn bug."

As if by magic, real conversation starts. Either with a fellow geek who
wonders what manner of interesting bug it was, or with a muggle wondering what
could possibly make a person stay up that late.

------
tjic
I've been thinking about manners, social interactions, etc. recently. This has
stemmed from reading a lot of economists who blog on topics that include
"signalling" (you've heard of this - it's the argument that people go to
college not so much to learn things there, but to signal to employers - and
potential dating partners - that they're the kind of person who CAN go to
college).

Manners, smalltalk and other "bullshit" things are only bullshit to those who
don't realize the purpose of them.

"How are you" / "I'm fine" is not bullshit.

It's a social ritual, much like shaking hands.

It says "you may know nothing else about me, but know this: I am at least a
barely competent human being who has managed to learn some minor social
interaction skills over the last few decades on this planet".

Imagine walking up to someone and offering to shake hands. Now, this person
might decline for a variety of reasons - "I'm sorry, I've got a medical
condition", etc.

...but if the other person rebuffed your handshake and said "I've come up with
a much better form of greeting - here, wiggle your left pinky at me and I'll
do the same back - more efficient, see?" I'd shake my head and think "OM*G -
what is this person going to be like when I ask him to write a regression
test? How is he going to dress if we need to go meet an investor - utilikilt
and body paint?"

------
countessa
and...if we are being bullshit free, we should stop asking "how are you?"
unless we _really_ want to know.

I do wonder, though, what the author would rather we used for quick informal
greetings used to acknowledge the presence of another person? Would "good
morning" suffice? or should we be bullshit free as well and if we are having a
lousy one say "Bad morning"?

~~~
spinchange
The fact is humans do not and cannot live a bullshit-free existence. Some
degree of it, including self-deception, is inherent to us all and like
lubrication for day-to-day existence and interaction with other humans.

I think the author basically intended to affirm another Svbtle author's candid
and personal revelations by saying we should all be so honest.

A few straw men about small talk never killed anyone. :)

~~~
countessa
>>I think the author basically intended to affirm another Svbtle author's
candid and personal revelations by saying we should all be so honest.

aah okay - I missed that. Pretty long winded +1.

As to honesty - well, there is a time and a place for the kind of honesty that
just puts it all out there and a time and a place for an abbreviated version.

Not every interaction requires the in-depth/verbose honesty because every
interaction has its context.....for example - checkout girl - you aren't
really going to spill your guts to her when she greets you with a cheery "How
you doin' today?". It would be a bit weird to respond "yeah, I'm not so good
actually, let me tell you all about it" "Um...okaaaay, that'l be $25.95
please".

anyhooooo staw men small talk, just my thoughts. :)

~~~
spinchange
I totally get where you're coming from and felt the same way.

Perhaps I am reading too much into, and someone evidently disagrees with me
because getting downvoted and buried but I was trying to bridge your reaction
(which i share) with where I thought the OP was coming from.

------
baseh
Reminds me of this George Carlin's:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vmknnXoOJk>

>> How am I? I am moderately neato.

~~~
ams6110
A classic. I thought of it too. "How's your hair? / Fine! / That makes a lot
more sense to me!"

------
vishaldpatel
"I'm fine" is a conversation killer. Granted, that people often start a
conversation with the expectation to be heard, "I'm fine" still puts the
burden back on them far too soon and far too abruptly. An awkward silence
usually follows as it leaves the questioner with the decision to either
continue the conversation, or ask another question in hopes of greasing things
along.

------
saraid216
Typically, I find that people who trumpet their honesty are usually using it
as a shield to mask less savory attributes; if nothing else matters, they can
feel good about themselves despite the rest. "At least I'm honest," they say.

But honesty is still just a bunch of words. At the end of the day, it's just
another kind of bullshit. Fuck your honesty. Give me results.

~~~
tete
Results are just another kind of bullshit. Give me honesty.

------
tete
I actually hate this development. I think it's not nice when I'm being lied
to. When I ask how someone feels and they lie into my face that's not
politeness, it's a blunt lie.

And yes, I've been doing exactly the same for most of my life until I realized
it. It's mean. When I ask how someone is I should be expecting to have a
twenty minutes answer when necessary. If not, then I simply shouldn't answer.

To start a conversation you can also just say "Hi".

No, really, it just hurts when you have to ask a second time and "Are you
sure?" to get an honest answer that ends with "I'm sorry".

Seriously, it's like technology really reduces emotions and if that's the
case, the purpose of anything but plain reproduction (which again is without a
purpose actually) is lost. Everyone talks about more efficiency, things
becoming greater and better, but the purpose for all this is being destroyed
and we're more like an ant hill that simply, plainly survives and reproduces.

~~~
icebraining
This is not a new development driven by technology.

 _The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built,
from the base to the dome, of graceful and gilded forms of charitable and
unselfish lying._ \- Mark Twain, "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"

 _In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of
it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real
virtue._ \- Thomas Jefferson

(By the way, Twain's essay is great:
<http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2572/pg2572.txt>)

------
jblock
I've noticed an odd phenomenon lately: when I'm in a crappy mood, and someone
asks me how I'm doing and I lie and say "fine," it often takes me out of my
own head and reminds me that I might be overestimating whatever is going
wrong.

------
incosta
"If you haven’t experienced waking up one day with millions in a bank account
and a dozen or so people looking at you in the eye, nodding their heads and
telling you that they believe in you, you have never experienced the perfect
storm of excitement and fear."

Sounds like the author has totally misplaces what should cause an excitement
or worth pursuing as a goal. It's not having someone looking you in the eye
(who this person is?). And not even a million dollars in the bank (is one
million a lot of money?). It's what you did to make it, and what you make
after with it.

~~~
Negitivefrags
I think he might be referring to to point just after having raised money and
so just before spending it all on some risky venture rather than after having
earned the money.

------
chasing
The "curse of bullshit" is the curse many geeks have that small talk has no
point and the curse many "entrepreneurs" have that they're doing the most
challenging, amazing, world-changing work in the world.

------
nothacker
"How are you doing?" is the least of my worries. For the past several years
when a friend or family member asks "How is your job?", I answer honestly,
sometimes slightly sugar coated if I'm feeling positive that day, and always
feel like I've just had an unpleasant bowel movement. But, what I've come to
realize is that I am the problem. I chose this path. When I've had problems at
a job, it is a result of not leaving it and making the choice to take it in
the first place. Now, many of the details you don't learn until after you take
it, but I would have had the same general idea what it would have been like
had I taken the time to really think about it. I look forward to a time when I
can find something that I'm great at, that I love doing, and I love how and
where I do it. But, despite all the books I read and positive things said on
HN and elsewhere- I haven't found it yet, and really I would love to give up
feeling shitty because I can't find it. So, while I'm still honest that things
aren't perfect, it mights me realize each time I say what is going on that I
have more work to do to set things right, and I just don't know exactly how to
do that. For entrepreneurs and freelancers, most of the problems are
inevitable, but there is a lot of help out there for you if you look. For
those of us with regular jobs, no one will hold our hands to find answers.

------
malux85
When someone says "How are you" they are not interested in how you are, it's
establishing a carrier wave for conversation.

Person A: Hi Person B: Hi, How are you? Person A: Good thanks

SYN SYN-ACK ACK

There's always a starting sentence to conversation, especially on telephones,
that establishes volume, and makes sure there's no transmission errors (you
can hear each other clearly, are speaking the same language, etc)

------
Hari_Seldon
The article is trite, the kind of thing one comes up with as a teenager,
believing it to be an insight. The social contract is such that most of us are
thoughtful enough not to burden someone absentmindedly greeting us with a
literal answer to the inquiry.

------
anotherevan
There was this one lady I knew who's automatic greeting was, "Hello, how are
you?" without ever waiting for or hearing the response.

I got into the habit of replying, "Crap, thanks," and she never once realised
what I was saying.

------
amybe
I work for a company whose slogan is 'No bullshit.' _happy sigh_

------
nerdfiles
Everyone's most basic role is to provide customer service to their work, from
burger flipper to enterprise architect, for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

That's why you're surprised when they fire you for poor performance. You get
under people's skin by, instead of playing the language game, which may happen
upon us, but rather attacking the game itself (and coincidentally enough, the
other person's attempt at learning the rules of the game).

It's like saying, 'Isn't it funny that you greet people in that way?' Go on,
say it outloud. In this dogged fight to optimize talk exchanges, you still
come out looking like an ass.

All of this is like when scientists attack language because they can't figure
out the best or most elegant way to express what is supposed to be the best or
most elegant explanation or theory. -- Stop throwing the baby out with he bath
water.

