The Curse of Bullshit

Small talk - with a space - is an important social skill, which may elude people whose skills are centered in other areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_talk

All languages have small talk, which ought to suggest that it is not bullshit or something which is possible to eliminate, but is instead an indispensable part of human communication.

I always found that among friends the solution is as simple as:

How are you? Fine. Me too. So how are you really?

Conversation begins. Putting the really on the end turns the "how are you" from a monolithic grunt of acknowledgement into a real sentence. Try it, but only when you have a few minutes for an actual conversation. "How are you" and "fine" are just the SYN and ACK of human (American English) speech.

I've been aware of this almost my entire life. My group of friends has never fallen into this trap. When we ask each other, "how are you", and things aren't going well, we expect an appropriate response. When we can tell that things aren't going well, we'll dig deeper, we'll try to get each other to say whats wrong.

When I am in a grocery store, I know the cashier doesn't give a rats ass about how my day went. I know they simply want me gone as fast as possible with as little fuss as possible. I've learned to answer "good" and to say "thank you" all in an effort to smooth things over so I can get out of there quickly. Business relationships are conducted with professionalism and respect, delicately crafted to avoid emotion or conflicts of interest.

But when I write things on my blog, I tell people when things aren't going ok. I talk about everyone and everything I have issues with. I talk about everything that's wrong with everything else. Twitter knows when I'm depressed. Facebook knows when I'm having a bad day. When I'm out talking with my friends, there is no bullshit, and no talking about the weather. When I end up not talking to someone for months, or even years, I still consider them my friend. I make friends with people because of who they are, not because of what they say.

As Micah here points out, just because certain extroverts insist that something is "normal" does not make it correct.

    The men in that far country were liars, every one. Their mere howdy-do
    was a lie, because _they_ didn't care how you did, except they were
    undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made
    no conscientious diagnostic of your case, but answered at random, and
    usually missed it considerably. You lied to the undertaker, and said
    your health was failing--a wholly commendable lie, since it cost you
    nothing and pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted
    you, you said with your hearty tongue, "I'm glad to see you," and said
    with your heartier soul, "I wish you were with the cannibals and it was
    dinner-time." When he went, you said regretfully, "_Must_ you go?" and
    followed it with a "Call again;" but you did no harm, for you did not
    deceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made
    you both unhappy.

    I think that all this courteous lying is a sweet and loving art, and
    should be cultivated. The highest perfection of politeness is only a
    beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and
    gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

    What I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do
    what we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an
    injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an
    injurious truth lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should
    reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving. The man
    who tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble, is one of whom the
    angels doubtless say, "Lo, here is an heroic soul who casts his own
    welfare in jeopardy to succor his neighbor's; let us exalt this
    magnanimous liar."

Excerpt from Mark Twain's "On the Decay of the Art of Lying", available on Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2572

Literal truth is a cardinal value but small talk like 'How are you?' also has an important epistemic function: to maintain a dialogue and permit the ongoing ability to arrive at truths. Thus the paradox is that in order to maximize the growth of knowledge we make judicious use of small talk, platitudes, humor, etc.

I'm torn.

One on hand, I agree that automatic responses like "I'm fine" aren't particularly accurate and can mask true emotions and feelings in a sea of politeness.

On the other hand, this piece is incredibly arrogant.

"We are supermen and women skipping through daises and pulling cash from behind the ears of thankfully, delighted customers who are saved from the old guard. We don’t make mistakes; we pivot. We don’t win; we crush it."

If the author's advice is to 'cut through the bullshit', then I sincerely advise him to stop writing stuff like the above quote. You are an entrepreneur writing to an audience of primarily entrepreneurs. Ego-stroking is just as bad as fake positivity, and drowning your message in it is just as bad too.

"I challenge you to take a day and care. I dare you to listen actively and when you ask someone “How are you,” that you demand a deeply truthful answer."

And I take some level of offense to this; first, that the author presumes that I don't already care, and that those people I talk to aren't being 'deeply truthful'. The majority of my friends and family are surrounded by people they generally like doing things they generally enjoy. They might not be ecstatic -- but they're definitely fine.

Most people know -- or should know -- that things could always be worse. Your business might be in trouble, you might not have reached every single goal heaped upon you as a child (see Dave McClure's recent post) but yeah, chances are, you're fine.

I've noticed it's mostly the geeky sort who think it's bullshit. I prefer sitting at home and playing computer games or learning something new when compared to lunches or dinners or other social gatherings because it bores me to death to make idle conversation.

Most normal people though need to make small talk, it's an important part of their lives. Also, most people dislike (or worse) those who are terse in day to day conversation.

"How are you" -> "Fine"

The reason people don't care about your response is because they expect a stock response. Say something interesting and I promise people will care.

Try something like

"How are you" -> "Great! Stayed up until 5am last night, but I finally caught that damn bug."

As if by magic, real conversation starts. Either with a fellow geek who wonders what manner of interesting bug it was, or with a muggle wondering what could possibly make a person stay up that late.

I've been thinking about manners, social interactions, etc. recently. This has stemmed from reading a lot of economists who blog on topics that include "signalling" (you've heard of this - it's the argument that people go to college not so much to learn things there, but to signal to employers - and potential dating partners - that they're the kind of person who CAN go to college).

Manners, smalltalk and other "bullshit" things are only bullshit to those who don't realize the purpose of them.

"How are you" / "I'm fine" is not bullshit.

It's a social ritual, much like shaking hands.

It says "you may know nothing else about me, but know this: I am at least a barely competent human being who has managed to learn some minor social interaction skills over the last few decades on this planet".

Imagine walking up to someone and offering to shake hands. Now, this person might decline for a variety of reasons - "I'm sorry, I've got a medical condition", etc.

...but if the other person rebuffed your handshake and said "I've come up with a much better form of greeting - here, wiggle your left pinky at me and I'll do the same back - more efficient, see?" I'd shake my head and think "OM*G - what is this person going to be like when I ask him to write a regression test? How is he going to dress if we need to go meet an investor - utilikilt and body paint?"

and...if we are being bullshit free, we should stop asking "how are you?" unless we really want to know.

I do wonder, though, what the author would rather we used for quick informal greetings used to acknowledge the presence of another person? Would "good morning" suffice? or should we be bullshit free as well and if we are having a lousy one say "Bad morning"?

Reminds me of this George Carlin's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vmknnXoOJk

>> How am I? I am moderately neato.

"I'm fine" is a conversation killer. Granted, that people often start a conversation with the expectation to be heard, "I'm fine" still puts the burden back on them far too soon and far too abruptly. An awkward silence usually follows as it leaves the questioner with the decision to either continue the conversation, or ask another question in hopes of greasing things along.

Typically, I find that people who trumpet their honesty are usually using it as a shield to mask less savory attributes; if nothing else matters, they can feel good about themselves despite the rest. "At least I'm honest," they say.

But honesty is still just a bunch of words. At the end of the day, it's just another kind of bullshit. Fuck your honesty. Give me results.

I actually hate this development. I think it's not nice when I'm being lied to. When I ask how someone feels and they lie into my face that's not politeness, it's a blunt lie.

And yes, I've been doing exactly the same for most of my life until I realized it. It's mean. When I ask how someone is I should be expecting to have a twenty minutes answer when necessary. If not, then I simply shouldn't answer.

To start a conversation you can also just say "Hi".

No, really, it just hurts when you have to ask a second time and "Are you sure?" to get an honest answer that ends with "I'm sorry".

Seriously, it's like technology really reduces emotions and if that's the case, the purpose of anything but plain reproduction (which again is without a purpose actually) is lost. Everyone talks about more efficiency, things becoming greater and better, but the purpose for all this is being destroyed and we're more like an ant hill that simply, plainly survives and reproduces.

I've noticed an odd phenomenon lately: when I'm in a crappy mood, and someone asks me how I'm doing and I lie and say "fine," it often takes me out of my own head and reminds me that I might be overestimating whatever is going wrong.

"If you haven’t experienced waking up one day with millions in a bank account and a dozen or so people looking at you in the eye, nodding their heads and telling you that they believe in you, you have never experienced the perfect storm of excitement and fear."

Sounds like the author has totally misplaces what should cause an excitement or worth pursuing as a goal. It's not having someone looking you in the eye (who this person is?). And not even a million dollars in the bank (is one million a lot of money?). It's what you did to make it, and what you make after with it.

The "curse of bullshit" is the curse many geeks have that small talk has no point and the curse many "entrepreneurs" have that they're doing the most challenging, amazing, world-changing work in the world.

"How are you doing?" is the least of my worries. For the past several years when a friend or family member asks "How is your job?", I answer honestly, sometimes slightly sugar coated if I'm feeling positive that day, and always feel like I've just had an unpleasant bowel movement. But, what I've come to realize is that I am the problem. I chose this path. When I've had problems at a job, it is a result of not leaving it and making the choice to take it in the first place. Now, many of the details you don't learn until after you take it, but I would have had the same general idea what it would have been like had I taken the time to really think about it. I look forward to a time when I can find something that I'm great at, that I love doing, and I love how and where I do it. But, despite all the books I read and positive things said on HN and elsewhere- I haven't found it yet, and really I would love to give up feeling shitty because I can't find it. So, while I'm still honest that things aren't perfect, it mights me realize each time I say what is going on that I have more work to do to set things right, and I just don't know exactly how to do that. For entrepreneurs and freelancers, most of the problems are inevitable, but there is a lot of help out there for you if you look. For those of us with regular jobs, no one will hold our hands to find answers.

When someone says "How are you" they are not interested in how you are, it's establishing a carrier wave for conversation.

Person A: Hi Person B: Hi, How are you? Person A: Good thanks

SYN SYN-ACK ACK

There's always a starting sentence to conversation, especially on telephones, that establishes volume, and makes sure there's no transmission errors (you can hear each other clearly, are speaking the same language, etc)

The article is trite, the kind of thing one comes up with as a teenager, believing it to be an insight. The social contract is such that most of us are thoughtful enough not to burden someone absentmindedly greeting us with a literal answer to the inquiry.

There was this one lady I knew who's automatic greeting was, "Hello, how are you?" without ever waiting for or hearing the response.

I got into the habit of replying, "Crap, thanks," and she never once realised what I was saying.

I work for a company whose slogan is 'No bullshit.' happy sigh

Everyone's most basic role is to provide customer service to their work, from burger flipper to enterprise architect, for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

That's why you're surprised when they fire you for poor performance. You get under people's skin by, instead of playing the language game, which may happen upon us, but rather attacking the game itself (and coincidentally enough, the other person's attempt at learning the rules of the game).

It's like saying, 'Isn't it funny that you greet people in that way?' Go on, say it outloud. In this dogged fight to optimize talk exchanges, you still come out looking like an ass.

All of this is like when scientists attack language because they can't figure out the best or most elegant way to express what is supposed to be the best or most elegant explanation or theory. -- Stop throwing the baby out with he bath water.