Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” introduced the distinction between lies and bullshit. The liar wants to deceive you about the world (to get you to believe false statements), whereas the bullshitter wants to deceive you about his intentions (to get you to take his statements as good-faith efforts, when they are merely meant to impress).
We may need to introduce a third member of this set. Along with lies told by liars, and bullshit spread by bullshitters, there is also spam emitted by spambots.
Like the bullshitter (but unlike the liar), the spambot doesn’t necessarily have any model of the truth of its sentences. However, unlike the bullshitter, the spambot doesn’t particularly care what (or whether) you think of it. But it optimizes its sentences to cause you to do a particular action.
To me it seems troll is also an important category. Most journalists don’t care whether you believe what they write but care that you engage with their writing. Whether you love it or hate it is secondary when you share the post on facebook and twitter.
Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” introduced the distinction between lies and bullshit. The liar wants to deceive you about the world (to get you to believe false statements), whereas the bullshitter wants to deceive you about his intentions (to get you to take his statements as good-faith efforts, when they are merely meant to impress).
We may need to introduce a third member of this set. Along with lies told by liars, and bullshit spread by bullshitters, there is also spam emitted by spambots.
Like the bullshitter (but unlike the liar), the spambot doesn’t necessarily have any model of the truth of its sentences. However, unlike the bullshitter, the spambot doesn’t particularly care what (or whether) you think of it. But it optimizes its sentences to cause you to do a particular action.
To me it seems troll is also an important category. Most journalists don’t care whether you believe what they write but care that you engage with their writing. Whether you love it or hate it is secondary when you share the post on facebook and twitter.