This is a terrible research. Even the BS meter they used is not very cited elsewhere.
first sentence for example, any engineer knows that strong water jets can precisely cut steel in seconds, much better than any persistent river over several generations.
Also, they picked the most subjective "pro-social" measurements. It boils down to "volunteering" (time or money), no matter to what (can have been antifa, MAGA, etc)
> first sentence for example, any engineer knows that strong water jets can precisely cut steel in seconds, much better than any persistent river over several generations.
I agree the whole thing is dubious, but that's a pretty weird criticism to pick out. The sentence specifically says "river" and is true of rivers; the fact that water jet cutters exist is irrelevant.
Yeah, that comment is more indicting of the poster than the sentence. I would guess they're not super prosocial.. as a Rorschach test, this thing is fascinating.
It seems to me that the officially "bullshit" sentences are basically meaningless, rather than false. You can disagree about statements about how rivers wear things away; you can't really disagree with the bullshit sentences because they don't actually mean anything.
You’re right, though I think there’s a lean in interpretation toward untrue. I felt my bullshit platitude detector go off a few times on the “normal” sentences, but the wacky sentences made it easy to know that wasn’t what was meant by bullshit.
Bulshytt: (1) In Fluccish of the late Praxic Age and early
Reconstitution, a derogatory term for false speech in
general, esp. knowing and deliberate falsehood or
obfuscation. (2) In Orth, a more technical and clinical term
denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial
or political) that employs euphemism, convenient
vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical
subterfuges to create the impression that something has
been said. (3) According to the Knights of Saunt Halikaarn,
a radical order of the 2nd Millennium A.R., all speech and
writings of the ancient Sphenics; the Mystagogues of the
Old Mathic Age; Praxic Age commercial and political
institutions; and, since the Reconstitution, anyone they
deemed to have been infected by Procian thinking. Their
frequent and loud use of this word to interrupt lectures,
dialogs, private conversations, etc., exacerbated the divide
between Procian and Halikaarnian orders that
characterized the mathic world in the years leading up to
the Third Sack. Shortly before the Third Sack, all of theKnights of Saunt Halikaarn were Thrown Back, so little
more is known about them (their frequent appearance in
Sæcular entertainments results from confusion between
them and the Incanters).
Usage note: In the mathic world, if the word is suddenly
shouted out in a chalk hall or refectory it brings to mind
the events associated with sense (3) and is therefore to be
avoided. Spoken in a moderate tone of voice, it takes on
sense (2), which long ago lost any vulgar connotations it
may once have had. In the Sæculum it is easily confused
with sense (1) and deemed a vulgarity or even an obscenity.
It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt-
talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking
offense (or pretending to) when their bulshytt is pointed out to them. This places the mathic observer in a nearly
impossible position. One is forced either to use this
“offensive” word and be deemed a disagreeable person and
as such excluded from polite discourse, or to say the same
thing in a different way, which means becoming a purveyor
of bulshytt oneself and thereby lending strength to what
one is trying to attack. The latter quality probably explains the uncanny stability and resiliency of bulshytt. Resolving this dilemma is beyond the scope of this Dictionary and is probably best left to hierarchs who make it their business to interact with the Sæculum.
— THE DICTIONARY , 4th edition, A.R. 3000
first sentence for example, any engineer knows that strong water jets can precisely cut steel in seconds, much better than any persistent river over several generations.
Also, they picked the most subjective "pro-social" measurements. It boils down to "volunteering" (time or money), no matter to what (can have been antifa, MAGA, etc)