Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

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Related fun game that I like to play when there are "pop up" public art/sculpture things that appear on the street: totally ad-lib a mini-critique/-explanation for the piece there on the spot if you are there with someone else and see if you can get away with it.

e.g. just picking something random: https://inspiringcity.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/wp_2015083... and coming up with something

"The ethereal skeletal-form the character hewn - nay assembled - out of cubic masses I think really suggests a genuine fragility or frailty of humanity in a context of our modern society - you know what I mean, raising questions about the concept of self in an anonymous and increasingly digitised world. The fact this faceless figure is stationary and notably rooted solid here on the spot despite being surrounded by this busy streetscape only reminds me of our ultimate mortality, and that our place - our mark we leave - in the universe is merely fleeting... the artist really hammered this point home I think by the use of rusting steel: nothing is permanent, dust to dust ashes to ashes and all that. Moving stuff."

It is fun - bonus points for ending the critique with "Ultimately, it is about mans's inhumanity to man" for every piece :-)

I like to think that I've been able to get away with it loads of times now ("gee - I just thought it was a rusty metal man statue"). My wife now rolls my eyes whenever I do it with friends, but she lets me have my fun :)

I just tried that out for a couple sentences when I realised that this is /precisely/ what I would do for English Literature classes, years ago. Perhaps it is no coincidence that that subject that seemingly trains you to 'bullshit' is then also related to intelligence.

Reminds me of what my friend once told me during my university years - that yes, I do have the ability to get out of tough places with class assignments by inventing a barrage of completely sensible-sounding and technically true chaff like this, and that this ability is making me lazy; that I start to rely on my ability to talk my way into an A instead of putting more work into polishing the project. That remark touched me deeply. I realized that yes, I've been considering this to be a very fun game (the self-imposed restriction that I have to stay truthful was what made it challenging, in a fun way). Ever since I've put an effort into avoiding doing this - it's too easy, and you don't learn as much as you can when actually doing the work to the best of your abilities.

> I realised that this is /precisely/ what I would do for English Literature classes, years ago

I'm pretty sure mastering bullshittery is indeed the only way to pass such a class.

I'm in a technical online Master's program right now, and I'm amazed sometimes at where I get marks taken off, and where I don't, in some of my submissions. The areas I feel I bullshitted the most seem to be the most accepted.

I'm sure there's some survivor/confirmation bias going on there, but even so...

What if your friends know you are bullshitting but are too polite to point out, or are just playing along for fun?

Does it matter? After all, there's no real underlying conversational reality to be referenced; just the Ur-Zeitgeist of performative familiarity, the verbal construction of an image and its presentation to the Other ...

that's a fancy way of sayin they were just bullshittin about nothin

Sounds like a fun game if all your friends are on it. We used to play this game as Management Consultants -- we'd go into a restaurant/venue and pretend to offer a semi-serious unsolicited strategy update for the place. Extra points for keyword bingo and more extra points if you could do it with a straight face.

maybe yardstick for real friends

What do you mean "get away with"? That your fiends haven't told you to shut up yet?

The yardstick is whether you can get them to repeat your BS to others before you dissuade them of the idea.

Sometimes the BS is just too compelling, and they refuse to drop it even after your denouement.

Given how art is as much about intentions as it is about the reaction of the observer, a compelling enough BS might take a new life as a honest reflection on art. Arguably, that's what most art criticism is today.

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