Inner-space part 2- The Descent Of Bullshit.

Okay, now to the software side of the human psyche I promised in part 1.


Bullshit, where did it begin?
Impossible to say for certain.

But there are clues.

At the core of bullshit, is deception.

And clearly, deception is deep in the fabric of nature.

Evolution has sculped lifeforms that owe their survival to deception.

So, at least we know that deception isn't "unnatural".

So, as we climb the branches of the evolutionary tree, we next must ask, where did the first actual lies come about?

Well, it had to have been invented by our primate ancestors.
Lying is an intelligent decision, and requires communication to boot, so, there had to be some rudimentary "talking", at least.

As with the stick insect, and the um...tomato caterpillar (?) , deception does have a survival advantage.
And lying for us humans can also have a survival advantage.
Like, the famous example of lying to protect Jews hidden in your attic.

Okay, nothing wrong with that, but how does it twist, and warp, into mendacity, and then finally, bullshit?

Well, start with deception for survival.

Somewhere along the line, some monkey, or proto-human must have gone from using a lie to divert a threatening competitor, and instead, used lying to to get an extra bit of food or sex.

And he saw it, and it was good.


And then the little lying bastid spread his genes, and the rest is history.

But, that covers mendacious lies, what about bullshit?

Whelp, bullshit isn't just a lie, but there's this layer of self deception.

Where your ego and identity get all tied up in the thing, and you get yourself to believe your own bullshit.

This probably had survival value too.
Pumping up your confidence, lotta things that's handy for.
Plus, combine that with our natural propensity for weaving the world into a narrative, then you get spinning yarns, and that's a short hop skip and a jump to bullshitting.

So, right about the time we got that higher primate brain, and language starting getting complex, the bullshit started.

Didn't take us long.

And as our societies got larger and more complex, so did our bullshit.
Until certain kinds of bullshit were seen as not only useful, but necessary.

So, fast-forward ahead, and the bullshit gets more complex, more "sophisticated", more tangled up in bullshit to defend the first bullshit, then bullshit to defend that bullshit, and so on.

And eventually, the bullshit became rampant.

And one particularly nasty strain of bullshit, is the bullshit that says that a lie can become the truth.
That there is in fact, no objective reality, and then anything goes.
And then you've got post-modernism.
And then you get dangerous horseshit like "science doesn't describe objective reality, it's just politics".
And we see what that shit's doing in the climate change debate.
Buckle up, that's gonna be a fun ride. *eye roll*

Course, another consequence of this loony post-modern bullshit, is the idea that the "truth", is whatever "works", so you can go with whatever bullshit makes you feel good, or is politically expedient.

And gosh, golly, hasn't that just been super for both our foreign and domestic policy the past 8 years?

So yeah, bullshit HAD survival value, can still do sometimes, but we're up to the point in our civilization where it's reached critical mass.
It needs to be vented.

And part of how we release the pressure valve, is to acknowledge it, and that's where, as I illustrated in the last chapter, folks of my avocation/vocation come in.

It's a noble tradition, and I'm happy to do it.
I'd do it for free.
Well....I do do it for free, don't I?

Well, we have been doing our job, but bullshit is still at critical mass.
Where have we gone wrong?

Could be as simple as the bullshitters are out-breeding us.

Predator/prey imbalances have been known to happen in nature.

Well, anyway, that's the neurological narrative for where the trouble referred to in part 1 starts.

It starts with bullshit, and bullshit starts with a haywiring of our natural drives.

And speaking of haywired drives, on top of the bullshit being at critical mass, on top of there being a predator/prey imbalance in the bullshit food chain, we get back to the hardware malfunctions.

Yhep, on top of the bullshitters spewing their sun blotting black cloud, Godzilla and King-Kong are wrasslin' across the landscape knocking down buildings.


And the Godzilla/King-Kong fight, and the 3 ring bullshit circus all going off simultaneously, this is what lazy cynical people call "human nature".

But...that's really too simplistic an answer.

It's almost on the level of "just because".
And, as I showed in a prior rant, most if not all "just because", answers are yet another layer of bullshit.

Which is why I've been digging into it with this series.

But that's the scope of it, anyway.
That's the onion sliced view of "human nature".

So, okay, how to fight bullshit?
How to keep the critical mass from drowning us, or blowing us up?

Well, with that pesky predator/prey imbalance, Unca Dickynoo needs your help.

A small army of snarky clowns aren't gonna do it anymore.

We need battalions of Bullshit Busters.
We need to globally franchise this operation.


How to become one, kiddies?

Start with the critical thinking section, particularly the videos.
Important shit there.

Check out the blogs of my friends, they're all smart cookies.
:D

Also, check out my "links of importance", lotta great resources there.

And spread the word.

There's a lot of work ahead.

Gonna be hard work bringing Godzilla down.

Even with proton packs.