A Year of Bullshit

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

One year ago today, I started Everything Is Bullshit. So far, it’s been a lot of fun. Here are some of things I’ve called bullshit on this year:

• Happiness

• Suffering

• Morality

• Ideology

• Values

• Convictions

• Opinions

• Authenticity

• The meaning of life

• The fear of death

• The desire to make the world a better place

• Most of our desires

• Most of what we find interesting

• Most of western culture

Wow! That’s a lot of bullshit.

Let’s take a look at some of the lessons we learned along the way:

• From You Will Find This Interesting:

  “We’d all be better off if our information diets were less interesting and more boring.”

• From You Actually Want to Suffer:

  “We need to rethink our relationship with suffering. We demonize it and fail to appreciate its benefits.”

• From Happiness Is Bullshit:

  “Happiness is great… But it’s not what you think it is. It’s not a substance you’re directly pursuing, like food or water. It’s not the purpose of life, or even something you’re particularly interested in.”

• From Morality Is Not Nice:

  “Morality often makes us worse people, by justifying our sadism and fueling our sense of moral superiority.”

• From Darwin the Cynic:

  “We talk a lot about the dangers of cynicism. But we almost never talk about the dangers of idealism. If you reflect on the history of bloodshed—the cracking of eggs for utopian omelettes, the revolutions that devour their children—the world will invert itself before your eyes… Cynics aren’t the problem... Idealism is the problem.”

• From What Are Ideologies All About?:

  “Maybe liberals and conservatives are members of the same flawed species, equipped with the same instincts for intergroup competition and moral rationalization… Maybe we should be troubled about this.”

• From I Am Not Human:

  “When you’re trying to explain something weird about a group of humans, and you want to blame human nature, ask yourself: has it been hard for you to resist that nature within yourself?”

• From Your Fear of Mortality Is Bullshit:

  “If you think you’re afraid of mortality, I’d invite you to consider the possibility that what you’re actually afraid of is aging.”

• From Status Is Weird:

  “We ultimately have to choose what bullshit story we’re going tell ourselves, including the bullshit story that we’re too cool for bullshit stories, or else we’ll succumb to alienation and despair.”

• From I Don’t Care If You Read This:

  “Give in. Play the game. Send the signals you want to send to the people you want to receive them.”

• From Incentives Are Everything:

  “The more we all become aware of our incentive structures, the more incentivized we will be to choose them wisely.”

Wow! That’s a lot of wisdom. Or maybe the whole idea of imparting “wisdom” is bullshit too? Let me know in the comments. Which reminds me…

The comment section

One thing that has continually surprised me is the quality of the comments here. I assumed they would be full of trolling, insults, and ad hominem attacks. After all, the internet is full of that stuff, and the goal of this blog is to call bullshit on nearly everything we hold sacred. After every post, I braced myself for a torrent of hostility.

And yet, it never came. The comments have generally been thoughtful, respectful, and intellectually curious. I’m honestly not sure why. Maybe there’s something about the vibe of this blog that selects for open-minded, emotionally stable readers? Maybe everyone else gets scared away by the crushing despair?

Regardless, if you’ve ever left a comment here (especially if you’re one of the regulars), I extend you my sincerest thanks. You’ve contributed to a valuable discussion, provided an oasis of good faith in an otherwise barren internet, and caused me to doubt whether everything is truly bullshit.

The future of Everything Is Bullshit

If you like this blog, then I have good news for you: I’m going to continue writing it. The number of posts might be lower than last year (I’ve recently run out of my backlog). But if you want a larger amount of content from me, here’s one thing you can do to make that happen: spread the word. Tell your friends. Post about it on social media. Push that like button at the bottom of every post. Post a comment, even if it’s something dumb like, “good post.” You’d be surprised at how much seeing “good post” motivates me to work on this blog. I’m a human primate, and the more status points I get for writing this stuff, the more motivated I’ll be to write it.

What’s on the docket for next year? I’ve got a lot of good ideas cooking. I plan to write about why arguing is bullshit, why money is bullshit, and much more.

But I’d also like to branch out a bit and explore at least one topic outside of Bullshit Studies. There are a number of topics I’m considering, but I’m torn about which one to prioritize. So I’ll put it to a vote:

Oh, and one more question (please be honest):

Thank you for your votes. Thank you for reading. Thank you for your status points. Thank you for not being an asshole in the comments. Thank you for making this a rewarding experience for me. And most of all, thank you for joining me in questioning the nature of our reality, even when it hurts.

Here’s to another year of bullshit!