ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"><HTML><HEAD> <TITLE>Top 20 BS : The Irrational World Blog by Stew Green</TITLE><META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><META content="Stewart Green, : Opinion Blog 2009 Stew Green" name=description> <META content="Stewart Green, Opinion Blog 2009 , Stew Green" name=keywords><META content="Stewart Green, Stew Green" name=AUTHOR><STYLE type=text/css>BODY { FONT-SIZE: 12px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, sans-serif}TD { FONT-SIZE: 12px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, sans-serif}P { FONT-SIZE: 12px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, sans-serif}A { TEXT-DECORATION: none}A:hover { TEXT-DECORATION: underline}</STYLE></HEAD> <BODY leftMargin=0 topMargin=0 rightMargin=0><BASEFONT face="comic sans ms"><p><center><FONT color=#ff00ff><FONT face="Maiandra GD" size=5><B>Top 20 BS Issues</B></font><br>The Irrational World Blog</font> <p> <p> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="900"> <tr><td valign=top width="50%"> <TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=4 bgColor=#ffffff> <tr><TD bgColor=#aaaaaa><FONT color=#ffffff face="comic sans ms" size=3>From commercialism to hippy BS there is so much falseness.. <tr><td bgcolor="#ddddff"> Bollocks, bull, BS <p>I like many things music, books etc, others are not to my taste , but the vast majority of stuff is bullshit<br>- I like many things with imagination, but I don't like things which aren't reality being made out to be real like many mens accounts of their sex life. <br>- grey data i.e. material sourced from newspaper reports and activists is allowed to be included in the official IPCC reports <br>- I'm a bloody good liar, but actually I almost never lie I tell the truth all the time, but I think I must be a rarity. <p><b>Top 20 BS Issues</b> <table border=1 cellspacing=0> <tr><td><b>1a. The Need To Believe a </b> - The human habit of refusing to accept uncertainty "I don't know" See <a href=rational3.htm#need_to believe>about the The Need To Believe</a> <tr><td><b>1b. 2+2=6</b> joining the dots even when there is nothing there eg seeing the face of Jesus in the wallpaper, trying to fill in the gaps with religion, psychic world <tr><td><b>2. Hoax world created by FAKE VALUES in society</b> : building up false expectations that every person will have a nuclear family, there are no gay people, that everyone is fertile, that more education makes you more money and that brings more happiness, that sex with a virgin is good ... religion, paranormal etc. are all part of theis hoax world <tr><td><b>3. Hoax world created by continual distortion in the media</b> ..from love is so easy in movies , to capital city media celebrity stuff in newspapers MMR ..building false perspective from the way that media ignores some stories but bangs on about others, leading to , stranger danger <tr><td><b>Thinking error ... not accepting you can't prove a negative</b> e.g. you can't prove Santa Claus of God doesn't exist <tr><td><b>Gamblers fallacy </b>if a fair coin is tossed repeatedly and tails comes up a larger number of times than is expected, a gambler may incorrectly believe that this means that heads is more likely in future tosses <tr><td><b>large number confusion </b> 1500 deaths in 50m people over 50 years as against a risk of 1 in 100 people dying per year, or that in really large sets of data bizarre coincidences happen. <tr><td><b>rushing to assume cause & effect </b>versus unrelated coincidence or B causes A not A causes B.. related to 1. the brains habit of joining the dots to assume correlation means causation </table> </table> <td width="50%" valign="top"> <TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=4 bgColor=#ffffff> <tr><TD bgColor=#aaaaaa><FONT color=#ffffff face="comic sans ms" size=3>From commercialism to hippy BS there is so much falseness.. <tr><td bgcolor="#ddddff"> <table border=1 cellspacing=0> <tr><td><b>Black and White Thinking</b> failure to accept complexity that we live in a full colour world..simplistic statements like "it's all about oil, now give me another beer" <tr><td><b>nationalism</b> and that some countries are better that others , when in reality it's the rich people oppressing the poor <tr><td><b>"The Americans"</b>.. even if we accept they meant "US government" what about "The Russian", "The Chinese" governments ? <br>(there are no "the Americans, just 300 million individuals) <tr><td><b>large number confusion</b> ..e.g MMR, nuclear, bird flu <tr><td><b>climate panic</b> ..when the science is not clear <tr><td><b>windmills</b> ..the maths doesn't work <tr><td><b>following the crowd</b>, mob or herd mentality <tr><td><b>confirmation bias</b> <tr><td><b>Bubble World </b>There is only one reality, but there are many bubble worlds, people live in a bubble world with no true perspective on the real world <tr><td><b>Modern tricks</b>.. like Cameron's talk of cuts which don't happen for 3 years, Ryanair stuff, reality TV, airbrushing, following the crowd, mob or herd mentality <tr><td><b>sport winner illusion</b> ..your team will not win the cup ..why cos there are 30 teams so 29 will lose <tr><td>some irrational things & politics are like <b>one Russian doll inside another</b>, just when U think U understand a new backstory emerges <tr><td> <b>Immediacy is the enemy of Truth</b> These days press reports have to be written in 30 minutes, by the time people have thought it over & enlightenments evolved..the press has moved on <tr><td> <b>Easier to be an ANTI than a constructor</b> - Newspapers by nature are negative, protestors are anti everything - constructive positive solutions are more difficult </table><br> <tr><TD bgColor=#aaaaaa><FONT color=#ffffff face="comic sans ms" size=3>2 big words <tr><td bgcolor="#ddffdd"> <p>- <FONT face="Maiandra GD" size=5>context </font></b> - is the use right in this circumstance ? <br>- <FONT face="Maiandra GD" size=5>perspective </font></b> - is it a big thing or a small thing ? <p> - The BS in society is closely linked to Common errors in reasoning : <b>see <a href=http://www.stewgreen.com/essays/thinking.htm>my page about reasoning</a> </b> <br><br> </table></table> <TABLE cellPadding=3 border=0 spacing="3"> <TBODY> <TR> <TD><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT size=-1><A href="irrational_world.htm">&lt;-- PREVIOUS PC </A></FONT></FONT></TD> <TD bgColor=#dddddd><B><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT size=-1><A href="../../index.html" target=_top>HOME</A></FONT></FONT></B></TD> <TD bgColor=#dddddd><B><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT size=-1><A href="irrational_world.htm" target=_top>BLOG INDEX</A></FONT></FONT></B></TD> <TD bgColor=#dddddd> <CENTER> <CENTER><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT size=-1><A href="../../travel/comment.htm">note/comments</A></FONT></FONT></CENTER></CENTER></TD> <TD><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT size=-1><A href="rational1.htm">NEXT --&gt;</A></FONT></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P></BASEFONT></BODY></HTML>