Category Archives: Bullshit & Philosophy

Manslaughter by Fireworks

Leave a reply
Reporting Website: kingcounty.gov/reportfireworks or WebComplaints

Two fires in unincorporated King County that killed or critically wounded residents following Fourth of July celebrations have been linked to fireworks, according to fire officials.

A fire near Seattle’s Highline neighborhood left one man dead the night of the Fourth and two homes engulfed in flames, according to a tweet from King County Fire District 20.

Roland Kennedy, 70, died from smoke inhalation, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. His death was ruled an accident.

— Fireworks to blame for deadly Highline house fire …, Seattle Times

On July 4th, 2018, I witnessed a neighbor shooting off powerful fireworks equal in concussion producing noise of modern battlefield artillery—rattling windows for a block—physically threaten another homeowner pleading with him to cease and desist because his home had just caught fire due to fireworks landing on his roof. And if that was not enough, the neighbor who made the threat went over to the victim of fireworks house the next day and threatened him again for good measure. I think the words and deeds of those who cackle, laugh and ridicule — even threaten — reveals exactly who and what their motives really are all about.

True satire requires both wit and moral purpose. Without the first, it is mere condemnation; without the second, it is mere venting of the spleen. The employers of the former are the carpers and faultfinders who inhabit any university faculty, sucking laughter out of any fruit. They do not realize that taking something seriously does not mean taking it solemnly. The latter are the sophomores, those who take it all flippantly. They joke but have no purpose beyond cackling laughter.

— Terry Lindvall, God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert
@Nextdoor Post sarcastically calling for ol’ fashioned 1950’s brawl in our neighborhood streets . . . threats meant to intimidate are already a reality.

Dave Baun’s caustic and belligerent fantasy is closer to reality than many realize. It is only a matter of time before neighbors start shooting neighbors as the incivility and abusive rhetoric displayed on Nextdoor continues to be tolerated and escalates. It is said that satire to be effective must have both wit and a moral purpose; Dave Baun’s malicious sarcasm has neither wit nor a moral purpose but is merely an example the kind of flippant sophomoric cackling laughter that passes as civil discourse on Nextdoor.

Frank Iacolucci bullying on Nextdoor

Some Nextdoor bullies tell other homeowners who live in completely different HOAs that have passed rules to completely ban all fireworks to “move somewhere” else when illegal fireworks are shot off at all hours day and night outside the their homes. Frank is regular annual abuser and bully on Nextdoor around the issue of firing off illegal fireworks after Seattle Seahawks games. He likes to brag about shooting them off after Seahawks games mockingly posting after bragging, “kidding” when we know well he is not. And yet Nextdoor pretends this is somehow being “helpful” and civil to taunt, ridicule, and tell his neighbors to leave if they don’t like it. Frank even advocates for others (to join him one can assume) in firing off illegal fireworks after Seahawks games, thereby using Nextdoor as a platform to agitate for neighbors breaking the law and directly or indirectly harming their neighbors. Frank Iacolucci likes to bully his neighbors sitting behind his computer screen and Nextdoor enables his bullying:

Sorry I was cleaning up my firework mess! [illegally shot off after Seahawks game] I kid! I kid! [no Frank is not joking, only bullying and mocking and ridiculing] Have a wonderful night everyone! This thread was almost as entertaining as the Seahawks win. I guess you do know they won Shawna since the fireworks went off! Night. Hahahaha!!! My wife said someone would complain [about illegal fireworks shot off after Seahawks game] and I thought she was joking! Man I’m glad I’m not your neighbor! Go to bed! I can give Officer Shirley contact info. He’s the sheriff up here and I’ve know him for 20+ years. [information passed on to King County Sheriff’s department] He lives up here. Actually … maybe he was the one who lit the fireworks off! He is a huge Hawks fan…. [libeling an officer of the law?] Cops have more important things to worry about than people complaining in “unincorporated” king county [they are illegal there too but Frank doesn’t care] about fireworks going off after a Seahawks win! Do us all a favor and deal with it. (Nextdoor, November 2018)

I’ve been lighting fireworks in this neighborhood for 40 years so stop complaining [they have been illegal except for designated times for decades]. This is my neighborhood and people like you have made it comical! So move somewhere they are illegal [they are were she lives already and have been illegal for decades outside of very limited times, like around the Fourth of July, but this bullying belligerent doesn’t care] and stop complaining [making legitimate statements about illegal fireworks]. (Nextdoor, June 2020)

— Sample of Frank Iacolucci’s hateful posting towards his neighbors on Nextdoor

It is not enough that each year several homes burn down, but for some on Nextdoor apparently it’s all just giggles and laughs even when our elderly neighbors, unable to escape, burn to death in house fires set by Fourth of July fireworks. They mock, ridicule, and laugh while their neighbors homes burn and some burn to death in Fourth of July fires. So much for Nextdoor’s Be Helpful, Not Hurtful policies. And we wonder where on earth our children learn to be bullies?

The cast of characters mocking like sophomores, those who take it all flippantly, who joke but have no purpose beyond cackling laughter parade a number of fallacious arguments — license masquerading as patriotism — insisting their fetish for fireworks is their Constitutional right in honor of our nations patriots. No such constitutional right exists and fireworks were historically regulated even in early America for public safety reasons. The fact that many cities have outlawed fireworks proves their is no Constitutional right to fireworks that override their neighbor’s right to public safety and to not have their homes burnt down or lives threatened by belligerents who insist they have a right to blow things up over and into their neighbors property. This vacuous and transparently self-serving pseudo-patriotism that is nonsense on stilts is typical of the rhetoric posted on Nextdoor.

Their claim that firing off dangerous fireworks is a “right” guaranteed by the Constitution is factually false. Neither does the Second Amendment guarantee the right to fire dangerous fireworks that threaten the lives and property of one’s neighbors. Repeatedly such self-serving narcissistic fallacious appeals to patriotism are used by such selfish individuals. Some even make the ludicrous claim that being a veteran entitles them to the right to blow up fireworks and potentially burn down their neighbors’ homes, or worse, kill them in a house fire. Enough is enough; it is time to call these people what they really are and expose the phony patriotism they use to hide their selfish narcissism and license masquerading as liberty and patriotism.

When the bullshit armchair-warrior blood and guts argument fail the Constitutional test there is always just plain old nativist ad hominem nonsense like blaming the ban on outsiders coming from sunny California or Seattle no less. Of course, many residents have lived in their homes for decades and how long someone has lived in unincorporated King County is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Another absurd excuse is the whataboutism.

The Fireworks started going off and my Dog looked at me like, “They [Seahawks] Won, huh?” … and went back to sleep. Go Hawks!

— John Wells’ post in response to neighbor complaint about illegal fireworks after Seahawks game.

John Wells posts elsewhere about how those who shoot illegal fireworks ruin it for those who are responsible, but when they are shot off illegally, such as after Seahawks games, posts hypocritical comments like above. John Well’s disingenuous mocking reveals his true character and intentions. Such bullies feign being victims of those “others” who don’t abide by the rules yet make no effort to hold those who don’t abide by the rules accountable, mocking and ridiculing the idea that offenders should even held accountable.

I will be doing a large display in my neighborhood, but I do it right…. The problem is people who aren’t responsible or smart with Fireworks and they ruin it for the rest.

— John Wells’ disingenuous feigning about “people who aren’t responsible” when in truth he eggs them on.

Starting in 2022 all fireworks are illegal in unincorporated King County (see below). Yet, John Wells continues his disingenuous game of mocking and ridiculing the law proving his complaint about those who “aren’t responsible … ruin it” for those like him who likes to put on big firework shows for his neighbors is disingenuous. In reality John Wells could care less about the death of Roland or the property damage or terrorizing of pets and people caused by legal or illegal fireworks. John Wells is, like Frank Iacolucci and others, little more than bullies using bullshit sophistry to justify license as liberty. To wit his latest whataboutism comment:

Posted on July 2, 2022, prior to July 4th.

Some openly accuse law enforcement of turning a blind eye or worse, actually participating in the illegal use of fireworks. What such sophistry is really aimed at is the other mockers to invite them to pile on and join in bullying meant to silence legitimate concerns about the safety of our neighborhoods, homes, and very lives being put at risk by the few who conflate license with liberty.

A few years back for a reason unrelated to July 4th fireworks I knocked on hundreds of doors on our HAO which has almost 1000 densely packed fir tree ringed homes. In the process I met many homeowners and among those many homeowners were more than a few who were elderly couples or singles who would find it very difficult to evacuate quickly should their house catch on fire. In more than one case I met elderly couples where one was caring for a spouse who having suffered a stroke or other debilitating illness would never be able to evacuate them in an emergency. And I was told by the firemen who came to house near our home to put out a fire caused by Fourth of July fireworks that they cannot respond to them all any longer, and that eventually one will cause multiple houses to go up in flames as nearby trees spread the conflagration faster than their resources can respond. We are known as the neighborhoods that burn. I wonder if those who minimize, excuse, ignore, and engage in mocking giggles and laughs and bullying on Nextdoor knock on their neighbors doors to find out if they have any elderly couples living nearby who might not be able to evacuate in a fire emergency? Or they just assume it never happens; out of sight out of mind and all giggles and laughs?

Our family has owned a home and lived in the Renton Fairwood area for over twenty years now. Over those twenty plus years we have observed the study increase in the volume and lethal power of dangerous fireworks[1] being shot off in our closely packed neighborhood. As the volume of fireworks being shot off in our neighborhood continued to substantially increased so too did the danger of deadly house fires increase over time, until on the Fourth of July 2018, while our daughter and future son-in-law were practicing their wedding dance in our backyard as we all enjoyed the evening dinner amidst a increasing volume of explosions we heard firetruck sirens come roaring into our block in response to a neighbor’s home set on fire by a firework that landed on his roof and set it ablaze. Luckily, it was caught in time and fire fighters were able to get there soon enough to put it out. But not everyone, as we see in the opening Seattle Times quote above, were so lucky.

Later that same Fourth of July evening I observed a neighbor on my block putting on a rather big firework show of clearly illegal fireworks purchased from the tribal lands. When I directly asked him if these were legal fireworks, or the illegal ones purchased from the tribal lands he rather coyly avoided the question. They were clearly not purchased from the local fireworks stand. Among this large display was a plate of mortars that shot into the air and rattled windows with huge explosions. I note that early that evening while speaking with one of the firemen who responded to our neighbor’s fire (above), remarked as the explosions were going off around us, “[boom!] That’s a felony, [boom!] that’s a felony!” and told me to contact Governor Jay Inslee and ask him why the ban on illegal fireworks is not being enforced?

I note that earlier I had attempted to get some clarification on which fireworks were legal and which were illegal, but found the existing laws vague despite the clear prohibition of fireworks purchased on the tribal lands. The problem is that some fireworks (the so-called legal ones) are being sold in local firework stands that rent space in our local Safeway parking lots. And indeed, these stands sold mortars which are difficult to differentiate from the ones purchased on the tribal land vs. local fireworks stands. Even though there are statements from the various King County sites claiming that “If it has a stick or fins and goes up, or if it blows up, it is illegal in Washington State,” the laws as currently written make it virtually impossible for King County Sheriffs to effectively enforce the law. It is simply asking to much of our Sheriffs to turn them into explosive forensic investigators when firemen, trained as they are, have already noted in many cases the firework that caused the fire or damage or injury is never recovered having been destroyed in the explosion/fire.

To make matters worse, that same evening I witnessed the distraught homeowner whose home had been set on fire by fireworks drive by the neighbor’s illegal firework show and ask him to stop. This neighbor, rather than seeing the gravity of the situation and having any empathy, chose instead to attempt to minimize and intimidate the distraught homeowner telling him to “Move on, mind his own business” etc., finally threatening him saying, “I can find out where you live.” As I stood there and watched this, the demeanor and manner in which this statement was delivered, it was obviously delivered as a threat. I was told by the homeowner whose house caught fire that the next day this belligerent individual walked over to his block and told him, “You just made an enemy.” This kind of attitude raises serious concerns about the safety of our neighborhood when some are willing to ignore the existing laws and then resort to threats and intimidation when confronted with the consequences of illegal fireworks being shot off in our neighborhoods.[2]

That same Fourth of July evening as I walked throughout our neighborhood to observe the celebrations and what kind of fireworks were being shot off. I observed just a few houses away in a rental home the renters shooting off mortars and bottle rockets into the air amidst homes right across the street with shake roofs (know to be highly flammable). I was told by one fireman that bottle rockets are notorious for causing house fires as they often land on roofs still burning and ignite leaves and other debris. Spent mortar tubs and bottle rockets were clearly visible all throughout the neighborhood.

In one case I observed what appeared to be an adult and their children holding Roman Candle fireworks in their hands shooting them up into the air aiming down the street. It does not take much of an imagination to foresee the danger in such irresponsible behavior. Roman candles caused roughly 400 injuries in 2018. Just around the corner from where I observed this lives a family of five with three small children and a house with a shake roof. I dread thinking what might happen to them in terms of loss of property and potentially even life if some stray Roman candle flame should land on their roof and set their home ablaze.

As I continued to walk through the neighborhood I came across a home with a number of children shooting off bottle rockets with absolutely no adult supervision — not a single adult in sight — and right across the street were several homes with highly flammable shake roofs over the top of which they were shooting these flaming bottle rockets. The day after the Fourth of July I walked over and filmed the remains of the fireworks these kids and been shooting off.

The death of Roland Kennedy due to the use of Fourth of July fireworks being shot off in our closely packed neighborhoods that have many older homes with shake roofs was not unforeseeable. Over the previous years many discussion threads have arisen on social media site Nextdoor regarding the danger of the use of fireworks in our neighborhoods. I searched the Nextdoor going back several years and observed a pattern of communication taking place. Whenever a poster would raise a legitimate concern regarding the firing of fireworks — which happens not just on the Fourth of July but frequently in association with Seahawks’ football games — a predictable cast of characters would post condescending and/or ridiculing responses arguing they have every right to shoot off any kind of fireworks they like while ignoring the fact that not all fireworks were legal, often telling concerned homeowners to just drug their pets, ignore the fireworks, hose down your roof, etc.[3]

Some would even boast that they would be putting on “big” firework shows, always excusing their behavior and shifting blame onto the anonymous “other” guy who wasn’t practicing safe fireworks protocol or using “legal” fireworks for the increasing house fires occurring on the Fourth of July. They may well be taking all the recommended precautions and only using legal fireworks (i.e., no bottle rockets, etc.) but this ignores the reality that people’s homes are burning down and lives have been and will continue to be lost because of many who don’t abide by safe practices. The simple fact as told me by numerous firemen is that even legal fireworks cause house fires and our own experience in our densely packed neighborhoods tell us the many are not the few. Some even went so far as to film the fireworks being shot off in our neighborhoods and then congratulating themselves about another great year of neighborhood firework shows:

The interesting thing about the video above is that I was able to use public King County Parcel data and geographic information systems mapping (GIS) and google maps to overlay King County Parcel Maps onto the video and identify the actual parcel data of the homeowner firing off the fireworks.

The video was clear enough to trace the firework tracer right back to the ground and observe the homeowner get off his/her porch, walk out into the cul-de-sac and setup the next mortar and fire it off. For example, at 0:18 you can trace the location of a firework being fired from the ground up into the air-burst that follows. At 1:21 and 2:24 you are looking at the following Woodside HOA area (image right). If one observes the video carefully it is not difficult to see where fireworks are being fired from. I note that Woodside’s HOA has already banned fireworks in its neighborhoods.

If one looks carefully at the King County Parcel maps below the image of Woodside, which matches the video one can identify the exact parcel in front of which fireworks are being fired. If one combines the fact that a simple inexpensive drone can capture the digital forensics evidence good enough to watch an individual leave their front yard and setup and fire a firework and follow each shot firework’s tracer back to the location from where it was fired it becomes quickly clear that there already exists technologies that would allow law enforcement a cost-effective way to identify offenders and deal with them appropriately in real-time.

King County Parcel Map of Woodside Neighborhood

It is time those who want to see this abuse of illegal fireworks reigned in and stopped to do something about it by organizing a letter/email campaign in support of Jim McDermott’s proposed legislation to ban all fireworks in Unincorporated King County.

Dear Friend,

You are receiving this message because you have previously contacted my office regarding the dangers of fireworks.

Today at the Council, I introduced legislation that would ban the sale and discharge of consumer fireworks in unincorporated King County. The tragic death of an elderly man in White Center in house fire caused by fireworks, as well as the increasing risk of wildfire due to climate change, demonstrates the danger posed by fireworks, and the need to act.

As the proposal moves through the legislative process, I would encourage to you share your thoughts with my Council colleagues in support of the proposal. This can be done via email or in-person at a public hearing, once the ordinance is scheduled to be heard in the Council’s Local Services committee.

Please see the press release below for more details or click here.

Thank you for your support.

— Joe McDermott, King County Concilmember, District 8 (Joe.McDermott at kingcounty.gov)

Take action now. Find out who your King County Executive is and email them and tell them you support the proposed firework ban in unincorporated King County.[4]

~ ~ ~

[1] The majority of the most dangerous fireworks are already illegal. They are purchased on the surrounding tribal lands by our neighbors and then brought into our neighborhood and and fired off as part of their Fourth of July celebrations. But the existing laws are difficult to enforce due to vague definitions of what is legal and illegal and inability of law enforcement to determine the difference between legal and illegal fireworks with the degree of evidence required to make the law enforceable. By banning and making ALL fireworks illegal there will no longer be an difficulty in determining who in our neighborhood is firing off illegal fireworks. Such a total ban on all fireworks is the only way to make our neighborhoods safer for ourselves and our pets.

Like clockwork every Fourth of July the same actors mock and ridicule anyone who raises concerns on Nextdoor about fireworks terrorizing themselves or their animals or posing a risk to their lives, property, and peace of mind. They write the names of those who raise concerns on the mortar boxes and then post them on Nextdoor mocking legitimate concerns. Instead, a belligerent attitude is exhibited that refuses to consider that there are legitimate concerns, such as the fact people have died in fires cause by fireworks, houses have burned down our caught fire, firework abusers have threatened their neighbors and brag about shooting them off even at times when it is clearly illegal as the comments of Frank Iacolucci and Alicia Thorsteinson show.

The only way is to make ALL fireworks illegal thereby creating a clear line so those who abuse this confusion over what is legal and illegal are no longer able to do so thereby threatening the lives, property, and right to live peacefully without being terrified by being subjected to noise levels equal to being on a battled field under mortar fire. People die, houses catch fire and even burn down. There is no way to stop this except by making all fireworks illegal and only allowing properly permitted public displays. Otherwise our neighborhoods are increasingly going to be subjected to this threat from the few who abuse fireworks because of the confusion between what is legal and illegal.

[2] I shared what I witnessed (the statement I interpreted as a threat) with two police officers that are neighbors and both characterized the statements as threats and suggested a report to log the incident be made.

[3] This kind of bullying, intimidating, ridiculing, or even threatening behavior indicates a certain attitude that I observed repeatedly on the social media site Nextdoor whenever anyone would raise legitimate concerns about the danger of shooting off fireworks (legal and illegal) in our neighborhoods.

[4] Determine which district you are in here and who your representative is and join in supporting the proposed firework ban in unincorporated King County by communicating your support that the proposed ban of fireworks above be passed.

[5] On April 27th 2021 King County Council passed a resolution banning all fireworks in unincorporated King County:

Phishing for Phools

Leave a reply

Mainstream economics takes the particular features of capitalism — a very recent form of economic organisation in human history — as if they were universal, timeless and rational. It treats market exchange as if it’s the essential feature of economic behaviour and relegates production or work — a necessity of all provisioning — to an afterthought. It also focuses primarily on the relationship between people and goods (what determines how many oranges we buy?) and pays little attention to the relationships between people that this presupposes. It values mathematical models based on if-pigs-could-fly assumptions more than it values empirical research; so it pays little attention to real economies, having little to say about money and debt, for example! Predictably, the dismal science failed to predict the crisis. When the UK’s Queen Elizabeth asked why no one saw the crisis coming, the economists’ embarrassment was palpable. (Sayer 2015, 23-24)

— Andrew Sayer (2015) Why We Can’t Afford the Rich

[M]any of our problems come from the nature of the economic system itself. If business people behave in the purely selfish and self-serving way that economic theory assumes, our free-market system tends to spawn manipulation and deception. The problem is not that there are a lot of evil people. Most people play by the rules and are just trying to make a good living. But, inevitably, the competitive pressures for businessmen to practice deception and manipulation in free markets lead us to buy, and to pay too much for, products that we do not need; to work at jobs that give us little sense of purpose; and to wonder why our lives have gone amiss. (…) The economic system is filled with trickery and everyone needs to know about it.” (Akerlof & Shiller, 2015, viii)

[F]ree markets do not just deliver this cornucopia that people want. They also create an economic equilibrium that is highly suitable for economic enterprises that manipulate or distort our judgment, using business practices that are analogous to biological cancers that make their home in the normal equilibrium of the human body. (Akerlof and Shiller 2015, x)

— George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller (2015) Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation & Deception

Many of the quotes above are from economists, experts in their field, some Nobel Prize-winning economists. One thing is clear; the Great Recession shook the very foundations of economics to its core. Only the blind leading the blind can pretend today that something isn’t amiss within the field of economics. The quotations above only represent a small sampling of the discontent rising to the surface within the field of economics today. There is actually a revolt underway in the younger generation of economic graduate students who lived through the Great Recession and the near melt down of the world’s economy yet witnessed their teachers being confounded by the Queen’s question. And if we value our children’s and our grandchildren’s economic future we can no longer afford to simply leave economics to the experts—the Econocracy—for as these young graduate students tell us, we do so at our own peril. Amartya Sen in his essay Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory takes us on an intellectual journey back in time to the thoughts and reflections of one of the founders of the field of economics:

In his Mathematical Psychics, published in 1881, Edgeworth asserted that ‘the first principle of Economics is that every agent is actuated only by self-interest’. This view has been a persistent one in economic models, and the nature of economic theory seem to have been much influenced by this basic premise…. I should mention that Edgeworth himself was quite aware that this so-called first principle of Economics was not a particularly realistic one. Indeed, he felt that ‘the concrete nineteenth century man is for the most part an impure egoist, a mixed utilitarian’. This raises the interesting question as to why Edgeworth spent so much of his time and talent in developing a line of inquiry the first principle of which he believed to be false. The issue is not why abstractions should be employed in pursuing economic questions—the nature of inquiry makes this inevitable—but why would one choose an assumption which he himself believed not merely inaccurate in detail but fundamentally mistaken? (Sen 1982, 84-85)

— Amartya Sen (1982) Rational Fools

Spotting the Spoof

Leave a reply

I came to think of humans as a kind of Turing machine. I searched for stories which reinforced the parable. There were many of them. However, Üxküll’s tick story was the most impressive (Kindle Locations 884-887). (….) Üxküll’s tick and the Turing machine parable all fitted together in one idea (Kindle Locations 900-907). (….) We find an astonishing coincidence with my Turing machine parable of animal and human behaviors…. This is the most primitive case of the definition of the situation.

(Shiozawa et. al. (2019) Microfoundations of Evolutionary Economics. Kindle Locations 884-887, 900-907, 926-933. Springer Japan. Emphasis added.)

According to this view, individuals within an economy follow simple rules of thumb to determine their course of action. However, they adapt to their environment by changing the rules they use when these prove to be less successful. They are not irrational in that they do not act against their own interests, but they have neither the information nor the calculating capacity to ‘optimise’. Indeed, they are assumed to have limited and largely local information, and they modify their behaviour to improve their situation. Individuals in complexity models are neither assumed to understand how the economy works nor to consciously look for the ‘best choice’. The main preoccupation is not whether aggregate outcomes are efficient or not but rather with how all of these different individuals interacting with each other come to coordinate their behaviour. Giving individuals in a model simple rules to follow and allowing them to change them as they interact with others means thinking of them much more like particles or social insects. Mainstream economists often object to this approach, arguing that humans have intentions and aims which cannot be found in either inanimate particles or lower forms of life.

— Kirman et. al. (2018, 95) in Rethinking Economics: An Introduction to Pluralist Economics, Routledge.

Even such purely academic theories as interpretations of human nature have profound practical consequences if disseminated widely enough. If we impress upon people that science has discovered that human beings are motivated only by the desire for material advantage, they will tend to live up to this expectation, and we shall have undermined their readiness to moved by impersonal ideals. By propagating the opposite view we might succeed in producing a larger number of idealists, but also help cynical exploiters to find easy victims. This specific issue, incidentally, is of immense actual importance, because it seems that the moral disorientation and fanatic nihilism which afflict modern youth have been stimulated by the popular brands of sociology and psychology [and economics] with their bias for overlooking the more inspiring achievements and focusing on the dismal average or even the subnormal. When, fraudulently basking in the glory of the exact sciences, the psychologists [, theoretical economists, etc.,] refuse to study anything but the most mechanical forms of behavior—often so mechanical that even rats have no chance to show their higher faculties—and then present their mostly trivial findings as the true picture of the human mind, they prompt people to regard themselves and others as automata, devoid of responsibility or worth, which can hardly remain without effect upon the tenor of social life. (….) Abstrusiveness need not impair a doctrine’s aptness for inducing or fortifying certain attitudes, as it may in fact help to inspire awe and obedience by ‘blinding people with science’.

— Andreski (1973, 33-35) in Social Sciences as Sorcery. Emphasis added.

Complexity theory comes with its own problems of over-reach and tractability. Context counts; any theory taken to far stretches credulity. The art is in spotting the spoof. It is true irony to watch the pot calling the kettle black! To wit, mainstream economists questioning the validity of complexity theories use of greedy reductionism — often for the sole purpose of mathematical tractability — when applied to human beings; just because mainstream economists also have unrealistic assumptions (i.e., homo economicus) that overly simplify human behavior and capabilities doesn’t invalidate such a critique. Just because the pot calls the kettle black doesn’t mean the kettle and the pot are not black. Building models of human behavior solely on rational expectations and/or “social insects” qua fitness climbing ticks means we are either Gods or Idiots. Neither Gödel nor Turing reduced creatively thinking human beings to mere Turing machines.

~ ~ ~

The best dialogues take place when each interlocutor speaks from her best self, without pretending to be something she is not. In their recent book Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, Nobel Prize–winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller expand the standard definition of “phishing.” In their usage, it goes beyond committing fraud on the Internet to indicate something older and more general: “getting people to do things that are in the interest of the phisherman” rather than their own. In much the same spirit, we would like to expand the meaning of another recent computer term, “spoofing,” which normally means impersonating someone else’s email name and address to deceive the recipient—a friend or family member of the person whose name is stolen—into doing something no one would do at the behest of a stranger. Spoofing in our usage also means something more general: pretending to represent one discipline or school when actually acting according to the norms of another. Like phishing, spoofing is meant to deceive, and so it is always useful to spot the spoof.

Students who take an English course under the impression they will be taught literature, and wind up being given lessons in politics that a political scientist would scoff at or in sociology that would mystify a sociologist, are being spoofed. Other forms of the humanities—or dehumanities, as we prefer to call them—spoof various scientific disciplines, from computer science to evolutionary biology and neurology. The longer the spoof deceives, the more disillusioned the student will be with what she takes to be the “humanities.” (Morson, Gary Saul. Cents and Sensibility (pp. 1-2). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.)

By the same token, when economists pretend to solve problems in ethics, culture, and social values in purely economic terms, they are spoofing other disciplines, although in this case the people most readily deceived are the economists themselves. We will examine various ways in which this happens and how, understandably enough, it earns economists a bad name among those who spot the spoof.

But many do not spot it. Gary Becker won a Nobel Prize largely for extending economics to the furthest reaches of human behavior, and the best-selling Freakonomics series popularizes this approach. What seems to many an economist to be a sincere effort to reach out to other disciplines strikes many practitioners of those fields as nothing short of imperialism, since economists expropriate topics rather than treat existing literatures and methods with the respect they deserve. Too often the economic approach to interdisciplinary work is that other fields have the questions and economics has the answers. (Morson, Gary Saul. Cents and Sensibility (pp. 2-3). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.)

As with the dehumanities, these efforts are not valueless. There is, after all, an economic aspect to many activities, including those we don’t usually think of in economic terms. People make choices about many things, and the rational choice model presumed by economists can help us understand how they do so, at least when they behave rationally—and even the worst curmudgeon acknowledges that people are sometimes rational! We have never seen anyone deliberately get into a longer line at a bank. (Morson, Gary Saul. Cents and Sensibility (p. 3). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.)

Even regarding ethics, economic models can help in one way, by indicating what is the most efficient allocation of resources. To be sure, one can question the usual economic definition of efficiency—in terms of maximizing the “economic surplus”—and one can question the establishment of goals in purely economic terms, but regardless of which goals one chooses, it pays to choose an efficient way, one that expends the least resources, to reach them. Wasting resources is never a good thing to do, because the resources wasted could have been put to some ethical purpose. The problem is that efficiency does not exhaust ethical questions, and the economic aspect of many problems is not the most important one. By pretending to solve ethical questions, economists wind up spoofing philosophers, theologians, and other ethicists. Economic rationality is indeed part of human nature, but by no means all of it.

For the rest of human nature, we need the humanities (and the humanistic social sciences). In our view, numerous aspects of life are best understood in terms of a dialogue between economics and the humanities—not the spoofs, but real economics and real humanities. (Morson, Gary Saul. Cents and Sensibility (pp. 3-4). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.)

Literature Only Economics vs. Practical Problem Solving Economics

Leave a reply

I am much more fundamentalist than pluralist, because I believe a new unified economics is necessary and possible that can replace mainstream economics…. I believe it is necessary to provide new foundations for almost all heterodox economics…. [O]ur theory provides microfoundations …

(Shiozawa Yoshinori, RWER, Response to Mr. T. Confessing his fundamentalist anti-pluralism, RWER, 12/19/2022)

Key conclusions drawn from this qualitative research include: a simple definition of heterodox economics is not possible nor is a simple dichotomy distinguishing it from mainstream economics because of a quite complex relationship; a kairotic experience is common to heterodox economists (that is, a decision point at which mainstream economic theory is rejected) although shared identifiable reasons for this rejection were not found; heterodox economists consider the role of power is understated and/or ignored by mainstream economics; it can be inferred that heterodoxy has some commonality (ontological or methodological) because “most interviewees view the economic process as open to and interrelated with cultural, social, psychological, political, financial, geographical, bio-physical, and ecological factors” (ibid: 287); economists who identify as heterodox are committed to, and advocates of, pluralism that is not relativism, is different from that ‘advocated’ by the mainstream and is not ‘anything goes’; and, the heterodox community has: 

a diversity of origins, purposes, and standards for economic reasoning, ranging amongst others from history and philosophy of economics, to modelling, community organizing, and policymaking. Heterodox economics can therefore be likened to a eudaemonic bubble that enables the flourishing of its members (ibid: 285, emphasis added).

(Lynne Chester, Tae-Hee Jo, Heterodox Economics: Legacy and Prospects, WEA 2022)

I came to think of humans as a kind of Turing machine. I searched for stories which reinforced the parable. There were many of them. However, Üxküll’s tick story was the most impressive (Kindle Locations 884-887). (….) Üxküll’s tick and the Turing machine parable all fitted together in one idea (Kindle Locations 900-907). (….) We find an astonishing coincidence with my Turing machine parable of animal and human behaviors…. This is the most primitive case of the definition of the situation.

(Shiozawa et. al. (2019) Microfoundations of Evolutionary Economics. Kindle Locations 884-887, 900-907, 926-933. Springer Japan. Emphasis added.)

When, fraudulently basking in the glory of the exact sciences, the psychologists [, theoretical economists like above, etc.,] refuse to study anything but the most mechanical forms of behavior — often so mechanical that even rats have no chance to show their higher faculties — and then present their mostly trivial findings as the true picture of the human mind, they prompt people to regard themselves and others as automata, devoid of responsibility or worth, which can hardly remain without effect upon the tenor of social life.

(Andreski 1973, 33-34, in Social Sciences as Sorcery)

Human reality also includes insight, knowledge, and foresight; we are not mere Turing machines, automatons, or fitness climbing ‘ticks’. Humans evolved from animals indeed, but we have also evolved capabilities our forebears lack and Shiozawa ignores and/or sweeps all but the most primitive (i.e., mechanical) cases under the rug in the name of mathematical tractability. We can look before we leap and reflectively think both before and after we leap (or choose not to leap). Shiozawa rightly notes the absurd ME claim of infinite knowledge, but it is equally absurd to reduce human beings to the level of “social insects” as he does in his fitness climbing tick or Turing machine analogy.

Shiozawa spoofs both biology and computer science. He pays only lip service to complexity ignoring real-world phenomenal intractability. He arrogantly makes ex cathedra claims like a used car salesperson, posting on RWER his theory is “A behavioral and cognitive theory that does not build on rationality of agents and equilibrium framework [and] is already presented and is applied to analyze a system as big as world economy (Shiozawa, comment posted on RWER).” Yet, his book explicitly excludes and doesn’t deal with finance or the financial markets and many other aspects of the real economy which are most certainly in a big way part of the a “system as big as the world economy” and impact how it works or more importantly, as the 2007-2008 GFC show, doesn’t work.

Shiozawa dishes up old mutton sold as new young lamb for nowhere is to be found a serious investigation of complexity (let alone biology or computer science) and the real-world intricate and interdependent complexities of living adaptive systems rich with dynamic feedback patterns and emergent levels of part-whole and top-down causation vs. bottom-up causation, etc., for the list goes on and on.

You have gotten a good number of ardent supporters, but many of them are feeble minded people who believe that they can change economics if they denounce mathematics and natural sciences. They are simple minded anti-scientists.

— Yoshinori Shiozawa, RWER: Lars Syll, New Classical macroeconomists — people having their heads fuddled with nonsense, 2/13/2018

Shiozowa Yoshinnori consistently misrepresents the meaning and substance of Lars arguments, complaining incessantly on RWER how Lars is destroying young minds and turning them off from economics. His personal communication reveals he views Lars valid critique as an existential threat to his own being as a theoretical economist who promotes a theory first ideology akin to ex cathedra religious dogma. In reality Shiozawa is engaging in a form of Freudian projection onto Lars and others of his own deepest fears. Yoshinori Shiozawa likes to engage in nasty ad hominem accusing others of being feeble minded while arrogantly pontificating a whig interpretation of the history of science. We are not required to take such arguments on their face value, and neither should reasonable people take such disingenuous, ahistorical arguments seriously, let alone at face value.

It seems he believes if Lars and others are right that economics as practiced traditionally through abstract model building divorced from empirical reality (i.e., assuming and deducing without real-world evidence) and phenomenal intractability is an abysmal failure doomed to be dustbin of history then his own narrow view of science (a philosophically naive form of scientism) is inadequate to the task facing the next generation of economists who are working to reform and rebuild the field using more pragmatically oriented real-world evidence based practices as described by Delorme:

It is an approach giving primacy both to looking and discovering rather than to assuming and deducing, and to complexity addressed in its own right rather than to complex systems in which complexity is often viewed tautologically as the behavior of complex systems.

(Robert Delorme, (WEA Conference), 11/30/2017.)

In 2017 the World Economics Association hosted a conference on Complexity in Economics in which Robert Delorme presented a paper titled A Cognitive Behavioral Modelling for Coping with Intractable Complex Phenomena in Economics and Social Science: Deep Complexity. The conference papers have been turned into a book the first chapter of which is Robert Delorme’s paper. The abstract reads:

Complex phenomenal intractability in economics, in particular, and in social science in general, is neglected in theorizing in these areas. This intractability is complex because it is an offspring of certain complex phenomena. It is phenomenal because it relates to empirical phenomena, which distinguishes it from conceptual and computational approaches to intractability and complexity. Among the possible reasons for this neglect, one is, in established complexity theory, the focus on computer simulations which seemingly solve for analytical sources of intractability. Another one is the relegation of intractability proper to theoretical computer science. Yet the empirical inquiries that originated this research reveal significant cases of intractable complex phenomena that are accommodated neither by existing complexity theory nor by the theory of computational intractability. The task ahead is therefore to construct a theory of complexity with phenomenal intractability. A reflexive cognitive behavioral modelling is developed and tested through its application. It results in what may be called a Deep Complexity procedure.

(Dolorme 2017, in Davis, John (2020) Economic Philosophy: Complexities in Economics . WEA. Kindle Edition.)

~ ~ ~

In a recent WEA This was a paper hard to read. It does not mean that the paper was badly written. The difficulty of the task that the author sought enforced him to write this difficult paper. After struggling a week in reading the paper, I am rather sympathetic with Delorme. In a sense, he was unfortunate, because he came to be interested in complexity problems by encountering two problems: (1) road safety problem and (2) the Regime of Interactions between the State and the Economy (RISE). I say “unfortunate,” because these are not good problems with which to start the general discussion on complexity in economics, as I will explain later. Of course, one cannot choose the first problems one encounters and we cannot blame the author on this point, but in my opinion the good starting problems are crucial to further development of the argument of complexity in economics.

Let us take the example of the beginning of modern physics. Do not think of Newton. It is a final accomplishment of the first phase of modern physics. There will be no many people who object that modern physics started by two (almost simultaneous) discoveries: (1) Kepler’s laws of orbital movements and (2) Galileo’s law of falling bodies and others. The case of Galilei can be explained by a gradual rise of the spirit of experiments. Kepler’s case is more interesting. One of crucial data for him was Tycho Brahe’s observations. He improved the accuracy of observation about 1 digit. Before Brahe for more than one thousand years, accuracy of astronomical observations was about 1 tenth of a degree (i.e. 6 minutes in angular unit system). Brahe improved this up to an accuracy of 1/2 minute to 1 minute. With this data, Kepler was confident that 8 minutes of error he detected in Copernican system was clear evidence that refutes Copernican and Ptolemaic systems. Kepler declared that these 8 minutes revolutionize whole astronomy. After many years of trials and errors, he came to discover that Mars follows an elliptic orbit. Newton’s great achievement was only possible because he knew these two results (of Galilei and Kepler). For example, Newton’s law of gravitation was not a simple result of induction or abduction. The law of square-inverse was a result of half-logical deduction from Kepler’s third law.

I cite this example, because this explains in which conditions a science can emerge. In the same vein, the economics of complexity (or more correctly economics) can be a good science when we find this good starting point. (Science should not be interpreted in a conventional meaning. I mean by science as a generic term for a good framework and system of knowledge). For example, imagine that solar system was composed of two binary stars and earth is orbiting with a substantial relative weight. It is easy to see that this system has to be solved as three-body problem and it would be very difficult for a Kepler to find any law of orbital movement. Then the history of modern physics would have been very different. This simple example shows us that any science is conditioned by complexity problems, or by tractable and intractable problem of the subject matter or objects we want to study.

The lesson we should draw form the history of modern physics is a science is most likely to start from more tractable problems and evolve to a state that can incorporate more complex and intractable phenomena. I am afraid that Delorme is forgetting this precious lesson. Isn’t he imagining that an economic science (and social science in general) can be well constructed if we gain a good philosophy and methodology of complex phenomena?

I do not object that many (or most) of economic phenomena are deeply complex ones. What I propose as a different approach is to climb the complexity hill by taking a more easy route or track than to attack directly the summit of complexity. Finding this track should be the main part of research program but I could not find any such arguments in Delorme’s paper. (Yoshinori Shiozawa, A Cognitive Behavioral Modelling for Coping with Intractable Complex Phenomena in Economics and Social Science. In Economic Philosophy: Complexity in Economics (WEA Conference), 10/10/2017.)

1) My paper can be viewed as an exercise in problem solving in a context of empirical intractability in social science. It was triggered by the empirical discovery of complex phenomena raising questions that are not amenable to available tools of analysis, i.e., are intractable. Then the problem is to devise a model and tools of analysis enabling to cope with these questions. Then, unless someone comes with a complex system analysis or whatever tool that solves the problem at stake, a thing I would welcome, I can’t think of any other way to proceed than focusing on the very cognitive process of knowledge creation and portraying it as a reflective, open-ended, problem-first cognitive behavioral endeavour. It is an approach giving primacy both to looking and discovering rather than to assuming and deducing, and to complexity addressed in its own right rather than to complex systems in which complexity is often viewed tautologically as the behavior of complex systems. The outcome is a new tool of analysis named Deep Complexity in short. I believe that the availability of this tool provides a means to take more seriously the limitations of knowledge in a discipline like economics in which inconclusive and non demonstrative developments are not scarce when sizeable issues are involved.

2) Yoshinori Shiozawa raises the question of where to start from, from tractable problems or from the intractable? He advocates the former and suggests to “evolve to a state that can incorporate more complex and intractable phenomena”. But then, with what tools of analysis for intractable phenomena? And I would have never addressed intractability if I had not bumped into unresolved empirical obtacles. Non commutative complementarity is at work here: starting with the tractable in a discipline dominated by non conclusive and non demonstrative debates doesn’t create any incentive to explore thoroughly the intractable. It is even quite intimidating for those who engage in it. This sociology of the profession excludes de facto intractability from legitimate investigation. Then starting from the possibility of intractability incorporates establishing a dividing line and entails a procedural theorizing in which classical analysis can be developed for tractable problems when they are identified, otherwise the deep complexity tool is appropriate, before a substantive theorizing can be initiated. It is a counterintuitive process: complexification comes first, before a further necessary simplification or reduction. (Robert Delorme, (WEA Conference), 11/30/2017.)

In my first comment in this paper, I have promised to argue the track I propose. I could not satisfy my promise. Please read my second post for the general comments in discussion forum. I have given a short description on the working of an economy that can be as big as world economy. It explains how an economy works. The working of economy (not economics) is simple but general equilibrium theory disfigured it. The track I propose for economics is to start form these simple observations

As I have wrote in my first post, modern science started from Galileo Galilei’s physics and Johaness Kepler’s astronomy. We should not imagine that we can solve a really difficult problem (Delorme’s deep complexity) in a simple way. It is not a wise way to try to attack deep complexity unless we have succeeded to develop a sufficient apparatus by which to treat it. (Yoshinori Shiozawa, A Cognitive Behavioral Modelling for Coping with Intractable Complex Phenomena in Economics and Social Science. In Economic Philosophy: Complexity in Economics (WEA Conference), 11/30/2017.)

Dear Dr Shiozawa, it seems that we are not addressing the same objects of inquiry. Yours seems to stand at an abstract level of modern science in general. Mine is much less ambitious: it is grounded in research on how to deal with particular, empirically experienced problems in real economic and social life, that appear intractable, and subject to scientific practice. Deep Complexity is the tool that is manufactured to address this particular problem. It may have wider implications in social science. but that is another story. (Robert Delorme, A Cognitive Behavioral Modelling for Coping with Intractable Complex Phenomena in Economics and Social Science. In Economic Philosophy: Complexity in Economics (WEA Conference), 11/30/2017.)

You are attacking concrete social problems. I am rather a general theorist. That may be the reason of our differences of stance toward your problem.

Our situation reminds me the history of medicine. This is one of the oldest science and yet as the organism is highly complex system, many therapies remained symptomatic. Even though, they were to some extent useful and practical. I do not deny this fact. However, modern medicine is now changing its features, because biophysical theories and discoveries are changing medical research. Researchers are investigating the molecular level mechanism why a disease emerges. Using this knowledge, they can now design drugs at the molecular level. Without having a real science, this is not possible.

[Note Shiozawa’s implicit claim that previous medical science was not real science, but became real with the advent of molecular biology. No doubt molecular biology has opened up new domains of knowledge, but of course it is simply ludicrous to claim medicine wasn’t real science prior to molecular biology, as many perfectly valid scientific discoveries prior to and/or discovered without molecular biology are available to prove this assertion simply false. As Delorme states plainly below, this is scientism, not to mention an abysmal attempt to use revisionist history for purely rhetorical purposes. For a description of literature-only economics see Payson 2017. For a good description of the kind of scientism Shiozawa is parroting see Pilkington 2016. To use one of Shiozawa’s misquoted authors for go-to appeals to authority (unfortunately his memory doesn’t serve him well as Andreski contradicts his claim on RWER), see Stanislav Andreski’s Social Sciences as Sorcery (1973, 22-23).]

Economics is still in the age of pre-Copernican stage. It would be hard to find a truth mechanism why one of your examples occurs. I understand your intention, if you want say by the word of “deep complexity” a set of problems that are still beyond our ability of cognition or analysis. We may take a method very different from the regular science and probably similar to symptomatology and diagnostics. If you have argue in this way, it would have made a great contribution to our forum on complexities in economics. This is what I wanted to argue as the third aspect of complexity, i.e. complexity that conditions the development of economics as science.

To accumulate symptomatic and diagnostic knowledge in economics is quite important but most neglected part of the present day economics. (Yoshinori Shiozawa, A Cognitive Behavioral Modelling for Coping with Intractable Complex Phenomena in Economics and Social Science. In Economic Philosophy: Complexity in Economics (WEA Conference), 12/1/2017, italics added.)

It is interesting to learn that, as an economist and social scientist, I must be in a “pre-Copernican” stage. Although what this means is not totally clear to me, I take it as revealing that our presuppositions about scientific practice differ. You claim to know what is the most appropriate way of investigating the subject I address, and that this way is the methods and tools of natural science. I claim to have devised a way which works, without knowing if it is the most appropriate, a thing whose decidability would seem to be quite problematic. And the way I have devised meets the conditions of a reflective epistemology of scientific practice, in natural science as well as in social science. Your presupposition is that the application of the methods of natural science is the yardstick for social science. This is scientism.

My presupposition is that there may be a difference between them, and that one cannot think of an appropriate method in social science without having first investigated and formulated the problem that is presented by the subject. As a “general theorist”, your position is enjoyable. May I recall what Keynes told Harrod: “Do not be reluctant to soil your hands”. I am ready to welcome any effective alternative provided it works on the object of inquiry that is at stake. It is sad that you don’t bring such an alternative. As Herb Simon wrote, ”You can’t beat something with nothing”. I borrow from your own sentence that “if you had argued this way, it would have made a great contribution to our forum…” (Robert Delorme, A Cognitive Behavioral Modelling for Coping with Intractable Complex Phenomena in Economics and Social Science. In Economic Philosophy: Complexity in Economics (WEA Conference), 12/1/2017, italics added.)

On Letting it Slide

Leave a reply

The paradox of believing your own bullshit parallels the paradox of self-deception.  If a deceiver by definition knows that the belief he induces is false, it’s hard to see how he can convince himself that the selfsame belief is true (Hardcastle et. al. 2006, 10) ….  In his book Self Deception Unmasked (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), Alfred Mele argues that self deception should not be understood on the model of interpersonal deception. In interpersonal deception, the deceiver does not believe the claim that he hopes his victim will accept as true. If self deception were to fit the interpersonal model, then the self-deceived person would have to play both roles, both affirming and denying the same belief. Mele takes this consequence to show that the interpersonal model fails. For self deception happens quite frequently, and belief in outright logical contradictions rarely seems involved. (Kimbrough, Scott. On Letting It Slide. In Bullshit and Philosophy (editors Hardcastle, Gary L. and Reisch, George A.). Chicago: Open Court; 2006; p. 10.)

Self deceived individuals “mask the evidence” and engage in a “motivated misinterpretation of evidence and selective evidence gathering.” For reasons of courtesy, strategy, and good evidence, we should criticize the product, which is visible, and not the process, which is not. (Frankfurt, p. 336) Warmed over bullshit is not merely a stale imitation of the original, but a fresh deposit that compounds the methodological faults of the original. (Ibid., p. 12-14.)

[B]ullshit results from the adoption of lame methods of justification, whether intentionally, blamelessly or as a result of self-deception. The function of the term is to emphatically express that a given claim lacks any serious justification, whether or not the speaker realizes it. By calling bullshit, we express our disdain for the speaker’s lack of justification, and indignation for any harm we suffer as a result. (Ibid., p. 16.)

[B]ullshit’s indifference to truth and falsity, its hidden interest in manipulating belief and behavior, and the way one senses, as Frankfurt put it in his book [On Bullshit], that the “bullshitter is trying to get away with something.” The audience had come to see Stewart and his writers skewer current political events, after all, so few would have missed the obvious referents—the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the admission that sources for these claims were, in retrospect, not credible—that made the book so apropos. (Ibid., pp. viii-ix)

I always love that kind of argument. The contrary of a thing isn’t the contrary; oh, dear me, no! It’s the thing itself, but as it truly is. Ask any die-hard what conservatism is; he’ll tell you that it’s true socialism. And the brewers’ trade papers: they’re full of articles about the beauty of true temperance. Ordinary temperance is just gross refusal to drink; but true temperance, true temperance is something much more refined. True temperance is a bottle of claret with each meal and three double whiskies after dinner.

— Aldous Huxley, Eyeless in Gaza (London: Chatto and Windus, 1936) pp. 122–23.

Semantic Negligence

Bullshit is not the only sort of deceptive talk. Spurious definitions, such as those quoted above, are another important variety of bad reasoning. (Ibid., p. 151) …. Whereas the liar represents as true something he believes to be false, the bullshitter represents something as true when he neither knows nor cares whether it is true or false (On Bullshit, p. 55)…. [T]his indifference is much of what we find most objectionable about bullshit. The liar has a vested interest in the institution of truth-telling, albeit a parasitical one: he hopes that his falsehoods will be accepted as true. The bullshitter may also hope to be believed, but he himself is not much bothered whether what he says is true, hence his disregard for the truth is of a deeper and potentially more pernicious character. (Ibid., pp. 151-152)

Our outrage is conditioned on our being the objects of a deception. When we know what the bullshitter is up to we can be much more indulgent. As the comic novelist Terry Pratchett observes of two of his characters, “they believed in bullshit and were the type to admire it when it was delivered with panache. There’s a kind of big, outdoor sort of man who’s got no patience at all with prevaricators and fibbers, but will applaud any man who can tell an outrageous whopper with a gleam in his eye.” The gleam in the eye is essential here: it is this complicity between bullshitter and audience which constitutes the “bull session” (On Bullshit, p. 34). Only when it escapes from the bull session and masquerades as regular assertion is bullshit deceptive; however, the insidious nature of this deception degrades the commitment to truth upon which public discourse depends. (….) [The bullshitter’s] indifference as to the truth value of his statements, that is whether they are true or false, a meaning-related or semantic property, may thus be termed semantic negligence. (Ibid., p. 152)

Trump and the republican party has assaulted the concept of truth like nothing else in modern politics.

— Republican strategist Stuart Stevens in Amanpour and Company interview.