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by highCs 3478 days ago
I have thought about that 10 more minutes and fortunately I get the same result as you: one can say of everything that "this is bullshit and the intention is bad". You dad got a new car? This is bullshit and the intention is bad. So my post achieve nothing good indeed.

So now, I have a question. I've noticed some people use a clever communication and social trick I call "word dropping". "word dropping" consists of forming sentences only in the intention to say or write a set of words because doing so can have an effect on some people. (Example of word set: de-risk, small market, big market, MVP, hire, key role, business plan, etc.) It is exactly like a text written with random words, it means absolutely nothing, but the trick is to do that with a limit set of words which when put together quasi-randomly provide a feeling of sense. One can see the disastrous consequences such a thing can have if people start believing into it. It's super powerful because word dropping cost nothing to produce and cost a lot to dismiss with proper arguments. This only hurts terribly.

I've found some people use plenty of social intelligence hacks like that, which works, hurts and decrease productivity. How do you protect someone from that? For example, say someone use word dropping to hurt me, what can I do? I guess I should read a book about that...

2 comments

I was reminded of http://strategy-madlibs.herokuapp.com/ that is mentioned in this great talk by Simon Wardley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYH-vLWHhyY

It sounds good, but isn't good. I think the answer in response to it is to have ammo that both sounds good and is useful, and it'll win out to the smart people.

Haha the heroku app. Exactly that.
> It's super powerful because word dropping cost nothing to produce and cost a lot to dismiss with proper arguments.

Sounds like you may be referring to the Bullshit Asymmetry Priciple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_pr...