The incredible power of bullshit

2024-06-26

You doubt that an idea is bullshit, but you see that it's well-known, used by many, and promoted by famous people. Is it possible that such an idea is bullshit?

Yes: Bullshit can sometimes spread faster and easier than well‑formed ideas that are supported by facts. Let me explain why by exploring 4 causes and 2 catalysts.

Cause 1/4: Interesting stories

Fact-based ideas are bound to facts. Do they also produce interesting stories? It's possible, but unlikely.

Bullshit, on the other hand, isn't bound to facts, and therefore, its creator is free to form it to tell a good story. Humans love stories, and given the choice between a soulless but well-formed, reliable idea and a bullshit that tells a good story, many will choose the latter.

Cause 2/4: Confirmation bias

Reality surprises and disappoints, and so does a model based on it. Bullshit, on the other hand, is not based on reality and can be fabricated to exploit emotions and confirm beliefs.

Given a choice between a bullshit that confirms one's beliefs and a well-formed, reliable idea that contradicts one's beliefs, most people choose the former. Most people value comfort over truth.

Cause 3/4: Presentation quality

People have to spend most of their time researching and experimenting to discover or develop a sensible idea. Unfortunately, they usually don't have enough time or interest in improving their presentation skills. So, when they do have something to say, their presentation is not interesting enough for most audiences.

The bullshitters, on the other hand, don't have as much to learn and research and therefore have plenty of time to invest in improving their presentation skills. Unfortunately, many people can't go deep enough and use presentation style as a measure of the quality of the idea.

Cause 4/4: Confidence and loudness

Ideas that are based on facts are temporary and will be replaced by better ones as more facts are revealed. Bullshit, on the other hand, is "timeless"! It offers confidence.

This false confidence may be the reason that bullshitters are louder. Their loudness exaggerates the popularity of their ideas to the public and sometimes silences the opposition.

Catalyst 1/2: Financial support

Usually, people who create and spread bullshit do it for personal gain, and sometimes it works, and they profit from it. When it does, they can put the profit back into further promoting the bullshit and making it even more successful.

Well-formed, reliable ideas based on facts usually don't support their discoverers/modelers as much. So they don't have as much "advertising" money to help them spread.

Catalyst 2/2: Networking effect

For all the said reasons, bullshit has an incredible power to spread more than ideas that make sense. The spread itself creates a vicious cycle and attracts more people to the bullshit because many people think that popular ideas have a lower chance of being wrong. Many of them forget that some of the most horrible ideas in the world are or used to be the most popular ones.

How to combat bullshit?

Bullshit is designed to benefit a few master bullshitters at everyone's expense. Bullshits usually don't live long, but while they do, they harm us, and therefore, it's better to combat them.

The first step in combating bullshit is to understand how it spreads and not take its popularity as a reason to accept it.

Don't criticize an idea when you learn about it; pretend you believe in it. That's the only way to give it a chance and really understand the idea. When you're done learning it, review it critically and don't care how many people believe it or how famous or interesting its proponents are.

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