On Bullshit

What Hacker News says

1. getnormalitySep 2026
   Altman and Zitron are like pro wrestlers. Their speech acts aren't for truth, they're for some spectacular effect on your feelings and your imagination that keeps you coming back for more.

   I encourage anyone interested in this to read On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt, the best popular philosophy work in a long time.

   thread
2. telesillaMay 2026
   I can absolutely recommend the book On Bullshit, it's a tiny read and makes an excellent gift. Kate's article summarizes it very well.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

   This reddit comment puts it perfectly:

   "What’s it about? Frankfurt tries (successfully) to define bullshit (rather academically). In short, a bullshit artist is solely focused on persuasion and making an impression, not caring about truth. Paradoxically, bullshit can be true.

   What makes it bullshit is how it is created - shoddily, hastily and without regard for fine work. A gifted liar does their thing carefully so that the truth cannot be found out. A bullshit artist just flings it out, overwhelming skepticism with sheer volume, until something sticks with the audience."

   https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1pidpb2/on_bullshit_...

   An 1980s take on something that has taken over our 2020s digital airwaves, indeed.

   Show morethread
3. anigbrowlOct 2025
   This is why I'm so dismissive of self-styled political moderates who argue that the path to political comity is to talk things out with political opponents, meet them half way etc. You cannot have political comity with people who don't value truth and don't adhere to rational methods of argument. Such people will lie about their premises, repudiate arguments they previously agreed to (either on their own initiative or because their political weathervane of choice has changed direction), and their promises are meaningless because they don't see any shame in breaking a promise with people they don't respect. Basically about 1/3 of the US has taken ont eh trait of narcissistic personality disorder at a group level.

   I urge everyone to read Harry Frankfurt's short essay On Bullshit: https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on...

   Show morethread
4. xpeMar 2025
   Yikes, maybe we can take a step back? I'm not sure where this is coming from, frankly. One anodyne summary of my comment above would be:

   > Let's think and communicate more clearly regarding intelligence. Stuart Russell offers a nice definition: an agent's ability to do a defined task.

   Maybe something about my comment got you riled up? What was it?

   You wrote:

   > What you're doing, with this whole "let's make a bullshit word logical" is more similar to medieval scholasticism, which was a vain attempt at verbal precision.

   Again, I'm not quite sure what to say. You suggest my comment is like a medieval scholar trying to reconcile dogma with philosophy? Wow. That's an uncharitable reading of my comment.

   I have five points in response. First, the word intelligence need not be a "bullshit word", though I'm not sure what you mean by the term. One of my favorite definitions of bullshitting comes from "On Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt:

   > Frankfurt determines that bullshit is speech intended to persuade without regard for truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care whether what they say is true or false. - Wikipedia

   Second, I'm trying to clarify the term intelligence by breaking it into parts. I wouldn't say I'm trying to make it "logical" (in the sense of being about logic or deduction). Maybe you mean "formal"?

   Third, regarding the "what you're doing" part... this isn't just me. Many people both clarify the concept of intelligence and explain why doing so is important.

   Fourth, are you saying it is impossible to clarify the meaning of intelligence? Why? Not worth the trouble?

   Fifth, have you thought about a definition of intelligence that you think is sensible? Does your definition steer people away from confusion?

   You also wrote:

   > We never would have been able to create science, if it weren't for focusing on the kinds of thinking that can be made logical.

   I think you mean _testable_, not _logical_. Yes, we agree, scientists should run experiments on things that can be tested.

   Russell's definition of intelligence is testable by defining a task and a quality metric. This is already a big step up from an unexamined view of intelligence, which often has some arbitrary threshold.* It allows us to see a continuum from, say, how a bacteria finds food, to how ants collaborate, to how people both build and use tools to solve problems. It also teases out sentience and moral worth so we're not mixing them up with intelligence. These are simple, doable, and worthwhile clarifications.

   Finally, I read your quote from Dijkstra. In my reading, Dijkstra's main point is that natural language is a poor programming interface due to its ambiguity. Ok, fair. But what is the connection to this thread? Does it undercut any of my arguments? How?

   * A common problem when discussing intelligence involves moving the goal post. Whatever quality bar is implied has a tendency to creep upwards over time.*

   Show morethread
5. nonrandomstringMar 2024
   Obligatory: Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" [0] is a must-read for everyone interested in some stronger definitions. The full essay is easily found online.

   Long as short: BS has not got a lot to do with depth of knowledge or truth value so much as the attitude of the bullshitter.

   It's a moral not a knowldge defect.

   The Bullshitter is neither a liar nor self-aggrandising as we commonly think, but simply has contempt for the very concept of truth and falsehood. It's like epistemological sociopathy.

   Some bullshitters can be very knowledgable too. They pass the five-why questioning but then defect and talk absolute rubbish as it suits them.

   I think all LLMs are in essence bullshitters, and I hope something good to help us understand not just consciousness but morality too, will probably come of studying why LLMs are not really "thinking" and holding an interlocutor "in mind".

   Not Frankfurt now, but my own observation, if you wire that to the idea that power is the capacity to paint social reality in ones own interests, then unsurprisingly bullshitters are much more common in traditional power roles. LLMs are therefore (rather obviously) dangerous in any role that involves power or decision making.

   [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

   Show morethread
6. sklarghFeb 2024
   Alternate reading / requirement list. Basically covers meaningful coursework and offers some useful books about how large organizations function (or do not), plus some mind-stimulation on power dynamics.

   In no particular order.

   - MOOC, Fin, Acct, Stat, Calc, Ops 101, 102

   - Excel, SQL

   - Launch Decision

   - The Prince

   - Starboard Olive Garden Slide Deck

   - Ogilvy’s tips on writing (it’s what you don’t send that counts folks)

   - Barbarians at the Gate

   - Pearl Harbor Warning and Decision

   - On Bullshit

   - This is Water

   - Invisible Asymptotes

   - Toyota Production System

   - The meeting scene in Margin Call remains the most accurate portrayal of a high-stakes meeting as a junior staffer

   - Deploy a simple marketing and e-commerce stack and make some profit

   - Use slides to teach someone about something intensely uninteresting

   - Become effective at using CHAMPS KNOW forecasting heuristics

   - Read and understand a few mid-cap and large-cap 10-Ks and 10-Qs.

   Show morethread