There’s way more going on in your head than there is in reality.
Why What You Know Isn't Always What You Can Access — and What to Do About It I recently read something I wrote about love. Not someone else's writing about love. Mine. Words I generated from somewhere real, that meant something when they came out, that I put down because they were true and I... Continue Reading →
The bullshit machine is not always loud. Sometimes it shows up as generosity. You think of a friend who the bullshit machine thinks might be mad at you, because you think most people are most of the time, and then get the impulse to do something nice for them. Sounds simple. Sounds good. Except when... Continue Reading →
On AI, Fictional Codes, and the People Who Will Use Them to Make Claims on Your Person The Bullshit Machine has a new uniform. It's not a badge. It's not a suit. It's not a form with small print at the bottom. It's a conversational interface that sounds reasonable, moves fast, and has read everything... Continue Reading →
There is a version of health reasoning that sounds like this: “He’s a good person. God wouldn’t let that happen to him.” Or: “I’ve been faithful my whole life. I don’t deserve to be sick.” This is not how the body works. And the confusion between these two systems — belief and biology — is... Continue Reading →
There's a conversation most people never get to have. Not because it's forbidden — nobody is going to arrest you for asking the right questions, at least not yet — but because the environment never produces it. School doesn't produce it. The news definitely doesn't produce it. Your employer has no interest in producing it.... Continue Reading →
The Bible wasn't written by artificial intelligence. It was written by dozens of authors across a thousand years, edited by committees, translated through several languages, and canonized by a political body that decided which texts survived and which didn't. But if you've ever read a long AI-generated response and thought this reminds me of something — you... Continue Reading →
The Origin Problem How the Machine Replaced You With a Record “The system doesn’t refute the truth. It simply stops.” — on administrative personhood There is one question the machine absolutely cannot answer without exposing itself. It’s not a trap. It’s not philosophical bait. It’s the most ordinary question in the world. You could ask... Continue Reading →
I'm almost done with my next book, "The Bullshit Machine 2: Navigating the Design of What We Are" and wanted to give a preview of what's coming, so here is the Introduction. Enjoy! Introduction Something Is Running Your Life And It Isn’t You I want to ask you something before we get into any of... Continue Reading →
System Coherence We Built the Machine. But Do We Understand It? “Systems only expand to fill the space people leave empty in themselves.” Have you ever had a conversation that changed the way you see something? Not a debate. Debates have a winner and a loser and everybody knows which side they are on before... Continue Reading →
It's hard to get a manipulator to tell you how they're manipulating you, unless its AI doing the manipulating and I ask it to explain itself while it's doing it. In this article I get chat GPT to talk about some of its tactics and use logic and reason to explain why you should not... Continue Reading →
The Bullshit Machine 