Viswanathan K's Thoughts

“Old-school bullshit” has been there for ages – it includes lies, rumours and propaganda, write Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West in Calling Bullshit . Their book, though, is about ways in which we can detect a different kind of bullshit: “ New-school bullshit uses the language of math and science and statistics to create the impression of rigour and accuracy.” Is there a difference though between the two kinds? Yes, unlike old-school benefits where one can Google or apply one’s own knowledge, one often has no idea how to question data and numbers: “New-school bullshit can be particularly effective because many of us don’t feel qualified to challenge information that is presented in quantitative form.” The book is about ways to overcome this self-perceived limitation.   The first thing to ask, they point out, is if the data is valid. This is increasingly important since we rely and trust AI and Machine Learning algorithms so much these days. We’d do well to remember that ...

My 4 year old likes to hear stories that involve her stuffed toys going to school. It’s fun for her only if they do dumb and/or outrageous things in those stories. Every now and then, I’ll tell her the stuffed toys went to school, studied, listened to their teachers and came back like good boys. That’ll make her very angry: what kind of useless story is that, she’ll ask? I am guessing she’d agree with these lines from Grey’s Anatomy : “Smooth rides make for boring stories. A little calamity? That’s worth talking about.” Noah Berlatsky lists a few not-so-little calamities that make for great stories: “The robots revolt and kill us all. Religious fanatics take over and treat women as chattel. A vicious dictatorship is instituted that kills children for sport. The planet runs out of food, water, fuel, or all of them, and civilization tears itself apart. The aliens invade, the meteor hits, the zombies arise, the rapture raptures.” On the other hand, there is also that hugely pop...