One of the books I'm currently reading is Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein.
I've probably prattled on about how much I think Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow is a great book on this blog before, so I was automatically drawn to any new publication with Kahneman's name on it.
On the books chapter titled "Occasion Noise," I was intellectually smitten by these paragraphs:
"Other studies tested the effect of mood on gullibility. Gordon Pennycock and colleagues have conducted many studies of people's reactions to meaningless, pseudo-profound statements generated by assembling randomly selected nouns and verbs from the sayings of popular gurus into grammatically correct sentences such as 'Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena' or 'Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.' The propensity to agree with such statements is a trait know as bullshit receptivity....
"Sure enough, some people are more receptive than others to bullshit. They can be impressed by 'seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.'"
Having sat through a number of graduate seminars in the humanities, I think there's a lot of bullshit receptivity happening in those environs.
I know I've sat in lectures and so-called discussions where abstruse theories having been bandied about and I've read all kinds of Theory that sounds important and "pseudo-profound" but doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Or change anything for the better.
Like James Brown sang, these theorists are "talkin' loud and sayin' nothin.'"
One can also apply this concept of bullshit receptivity to the mass of political ads we have to deal with if we watch any of the local TV stations.
In sum, there's a lot hokum out there that is quite vacuous.
Talking loud but what are they really saying?
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