The bullshit detector's survival guide

The "Age of Bullshit" is one of my most widely circulated essays. It followed up a related article, "Campaign Speech by the Honourable Minister for Progress, Priorities and Posturing." That piece mocked political double-speak. Dear readers, you have clearly signalled your interest, so it seems only right to return to the subject of bullshit one more time. My former pieces diagnosed the disease. This one prescribes the remedy-bullshit, while incurable, is treatable.

Let's begin where all counter-bullshit strategies must: with Alberto Brandolini, the originator of Brandolini's Law. Also known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, the law states: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that needed to produce it." That's why bullshit thrives on professional panels, in comment threads, and at podiums. It's fast, confident, and unbothered by accuracy. Refuting it is slow, cautious, and laborious.

So we must triage. Focus on the most noxious forms. Let the lesser ones drift by like (smelly) weeds on the tide.

Step 1. Spot the symptoms

In general, the more bluster, the less substance. The more multisyllabic terms packed into a sentence, the more likely that sentence is designed to impress rather than clarify. When you come across someone whose goal is to "leverage strategic synergies" or "optimise stakeholder alignment" or similar opaque phrases, try to rephrase what they are saying in plain language. If you can't, they are probably talking bullshit. Real expertise simplifies. Bullshit always complicates.

Step 2. Learn to use the McCloskey method

Deirdre McCloskey, economist turned rhetorician, made a career out of translating the grandiose into the intelligible. She mocked economists who wrote "maximise intertemporal utility subject to an intertemporal budget constraint." Her version? "Try not to run out of money."

McCloskey's method-dry, exact, slightly amused-is ideal for puncturing bloated claims. Here are three more examples.

• UK Government Net Zero Strategy (2021):
  "Delivering transformational change through sector coupling and whole-systems innovation."
  Translation: We don't know exactly, but we're trying something big.

• UNESCO (2021):
  "Leveraging learning ecosystems to enable inclusive pedagogical frameworks through strategic transdisciplinarity."
  Translation: We want schools to teach everyone fairly.

• BlackRock ESG Report (2022):
  "Driving sustainable value creation via integrated materiality assessments."
  Translation: We're trying to be eco-friendly-or at least appear to be.

McCloskey's approach is timeless: if speakers can't say something clearly, they may not understand it, or worse, they may not want you to.

Step. 3 Beware the medical mirage

Bullshit loves a lab coat. One of its favourite tricks is quoting relative risk reductions while hiding the absolute numbers. "This drug reduces your risk of stroke by 40%," they proclaim. But from what to what? From 5 in 10,000 to 3 in 10,000? That's a 40% relative reduction, but only a tiny absolute difference.

It sounds dramatic, but it isn't.

The same goes for food labels promising to "boost immunity" or "reduce inflammation." Compared to what? In whom? Under what conditions? When percentages are untethered from a baseline, you're not getting information-you're getting theatre.

The rule is simple: never accept a percentage without asking what it's a percentage of.