by Don Hall

Brandolini’s Law (a.k.a. the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle) which states that: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”

Ryan Berger pulled up into my driveway in a 1984 Firebird. Brand new. Yellow. "C'mon, man! Let's ride!"

I knew that Ryan couldn't afford the car. He had dropped out of high school earlier that year because he'd knocked up his girlfriend and needed to get a full-time job (a task he had so far been unsuccessful procuring). His parents had effectively disowned him as his unexpected fatherhood was an embarrassment to their status in the Kansas Christian sect. 

"Whoa. Where'd you get this car?"

"I borrowed it. Let's go!"

"Borrowed? Who'd you borrow it from? It has dealer plates on it."

"OK. Jesus, man. I went in and pretended I was shopping for a new ride. The dealer let me go on a test drive. I'm borrowing it, OK?"

"When?"

"When what?"

"When did you 'borrow' it?"

"Last Friday. Are you coming or are you gonna be a dick?"

I certainly didn't want to be a dick. I also wasn't so stupid as to ignore Ryan's self-serving word game. Borrow meant steal. Even if he returned it, he was stealing this car. For a joy ride. No different than boosting a neighbor's car to drive around town and then abandoning it.

Our ability to create and maintain bullshit has been a defining feature of social groupings since the beginning of time. It is so easy to manufacture complete nonsense and sell it as fact is as old as the first guy to trade oil from a snake guaranteed to make your manhood large and powerful.

We're surrounded by it.

For every 'new & improved' or '30% off' there is the waft of beefy bullshit. For each hysterical Twitter feed about the demise of civilization and every outraged reduction of groups of people in stereotype form, there is that squish of bullshit underneath. Every Nigerian prince looking for some help and grift for attention contains a healthy bag of shit from the ass-end of a male bovine.

As Brandolini’s law plainly states, it takes so much more energy to combat the bullshit than it is to create it. 

“I bet we totally don’t agree about abortion.”

This was a fishing expedition on Carl’s part.

“You think? What do you suppose my position is?”

“You’re probably pro-abortion.”

“Hmmm. I could be wrong but I’m not sure anyone is pro-abortion. I mean, maybe it’s just that I’ve never met anyone that is, like, ‘YEAH! ABORTION IS AWESOME!’”

“Then what are you?”

“Oh. I’m pro-choice but I’m pro-choice pretty much across the board.”

“So you think killing babies is okay?”

“Yup. I am in favor of killing babies.”

Carl isn’t sure what to make of this answer. He stops moving for a moment, taking it in. “Wait... what?”

“Oh, I get the scientific debate between the fetus and the baby, and when does human life really start and all that. I’m not a scientist so it’s just more honest to acknowledge that, yes, we are killing babies and I’m okay with that.

It’s sort of like looking at how we deal with real people versus abstract people, you know?”

“Abstract...?”

“If you tell me your mother contracted COVID at a Walmart because she thought masks were a part of the hoax and she might die, for you she’s a real person. For me, she’s an abstract person—don’t know her, never met her, just met you. Abstract. If your mom dies, it doesn’t affect me in any way.

It’s like the COVID deaths in general. 600,000 Americans have died from it but that number allows me to see them all as abstract. They’re real to somebody but not to me. I don’t know anyone who has died from it.

Same with abortion. Unless my wife or my niece or a friend of mine gets one, all those babies are abstract. I mean, do you care about the 300 or so Indonesians killed in the tsunami last year?”

“What? No. I didn’t even know about that.”

“Exactly. They are abstract so we don’t care. Humans are quite good at finding ways to make others abstract. Aborted babies aren’t even interesting enough to remember so who cares? I mean, All Lives Matter, my ass, right?”

“Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” ― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

It's become so incredibly easy to spew bullshit in the digital age, it's even harder to detect what is and is not bullshit. Which, consequently, increases the energy to rebut or ignore. New rules are needed.

The Morality Axiom which states that if your allegiance to or rejection of an idea determines your morality or lack thereof it's bullshit.

Q's Metric suggests that as the level of rage in defending a proposition increases, the likelihood of bullshit is also increased.

The Onion Layer Principle demonstrates that if the headline sounds at first read like a headline from The Onion, it's bullshit (even if it's true).

Orwell's Tenet indicates that if repeated redefining of common terms are employed in order to justify the work or idea, the high probability of bullshit is present.

The Lived Experience Precept says that any argument based upon the subjective experience of one or more individuals as more valid than empirical evidence or scientific data is, no question, 100% bullshit.

The Double Standard Brocard tells us that any standard set for one ideological bent not employed for another is bullshit. This also applies when using scientific authority to prove one thing but dismissing it to prove another.