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Bullshit: A Systemic Risk
We face a novel systemic risk: bullshit risk—where bullshit not only pollutes discourse but becomes policy, generating cascading systemic threats.
Defining the Problem
Harry Frankfurt’s 1986 essay defined bullshit as “speech intended to persuade without regard for truth.” Unlike lying, bullshitters are indifferent to truth. What they say may be true or false—they don’t care.
Steve Bannon articulated it as strategy: “flood the zone with shit” at “muzzle velocity” to overwhelm information channels.
Two Types of Bullshit
Type A (BS as means): The actor has objectives but uses BS to advance or conceal strategy. Putin’s “de-Nazification” rationale for Ukraine exemplifies this.
Type B (BS as end): Bullshit drives policy. Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” or Canada annexation fantasies show this—absurd ideas shaping policy.
Why It Matters: Systemic Risk
BS risk operates on multiple levels: • Information overwhelm: Signals drown in noise, impairing decisions. • Policy incoherence: Scrutiny is impossible when policies are masked. • Alternative epistemologies: Groups develop incompatible beliefs. • Radical uncertainty: Type B BS adds arbitrariness—paralyzing planning.
Societies lose capacity to address real problems as attention is consumed by fabricated crises.
Decision-Making Under Deep Shit (DMDS)
A BS-saturated world demands adaptation: BS filtering is essential: Critical evaluation matters more than openness.
Differentiate Type A from Type B: Analyze Type A like fiction; track Type B literally for policy consequences.
Don’t mistake BS for spin: BS manifests across the spectrum. Most politicians bullshit; few make it primary.
Fact-checking isn’t enough: It can magnify BS by generating attention. “Flooding the zone” seeks to overwhelm, not persuade.
Avoid BS epistemology: Where truth is irrelevant, debate is impossible. Rebuild truth-based frameworks.
Coping and Resistance
For risk professionals, BS poses existential challenges to our information landscape. Personal resilience—mindfulness, focus—is essential when the zone is flooded at muzzle velocity.
Yet we’re living through a fascinating experiment testing our methodologies. There’s dark humor, were it fiction.
But for those harmed—detained, denied medication, displaced—risk management must graduate to active resistance. The stakes are too high for anything less.
This framework represents an attempt to systematize what many intuitively sense: we’re navigating unprecedented territory where the relationship between discourse, truth, and policy has fundamentally shifted.
The question is whether our risk management methodologies can adapt fast enough.
We face a novel systemic risk: bullshit risk—where bullshit not only pollutes discourse but becomes policy, generating cascading systemic threats.
Defining the Problem
Harry Frankfurt’s 1986 essay defined bullshit as “speech intended to persuade without regard for truth.” Unlike lying, bullshitters are indifferent to truth. What they say may be true or false—they don’t care.
Steve Bannon articulated it as strategy: “flood the zone with shit” at “muzzle velocity” to overwhelm information channels.
Two Types of Bullshit
Type A (BS as means): The actor has objectives but uses BS to advance or conceal strategy. Putin’s “de-Nazification” rationale for Ukraine exemplifies this.
Type B (BS as end): Bullshit drives policy. Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” or Canada annexation fantasies show this—absurd ideas shaping policy.
Why It Matters: Systemic Risk
BS risk operates on multiple levels:
• Information overwhelm: Signals drown in noise, impairing decisions.
• Policy incoherence: Scrutiny is impossible when policies are masked.
• Alternative epistemologies: Groups develop incompatible beliefs.
• Radical uncertainty: Type B BS adds arbitrariness—paralyzing planning.
Societies lose capacity to address real problems as attention is consumed by fabricated crises.
Decision-Making Under Deep Shit (DMDS)
A BS-saturated world demands adaptation: BS filtering is essential: Critical evaluation matters more than openness.
Differentiate Type A from Type B: Analyze Type A like fiction; track Type B literally for policy consequences.
Don’t mistake BS for spin: BS manifests across the spectrum. Most politicians bullshit; few make it primary.
Fact-checking isn’t enough: It can magnify BS by generating attention. “Flooding the zone” seeks to overwhelm, not persuade.
Avoid BS epistemology: Where truth is irrelevant, debate is impossible. Rebuild truth-based frameworks.
Coping and Resistance
For risk professionals, BS poses existential challenges to our information landscape. Personal resilience—mindfulness, focus—is essential when the zone is flooded at muzzle velocity.
Yet we’re living through a fascinating experiment testing our methodologies. There’s dark humor, were it fiction.
But for those harmed—detained, denied medication, displaced—risk management must graduate to active resistance. The stakes are too high for anything less.
This framework represents an attempt to systematize what many intuitively sense: we’re navigating unprecedented territory where the relationship between discourse, truth, and policy has fundamentally shifted.
The question is whether our risk management methodologies can adapt fast enough.
(Source: The Rethink)