| BULLSHIT WARNING! This page is about bullshit. The author acknowledges this.
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"Trust me."
~ George W. Bush on bullshit
Bullshit (ISO 4217 currency code: BS) is a type of monetary unit commonly used throughout the world. It is not the currency of any one nation, but rather is the de facto medium of exchange for bureaucratic organizations worldwide. While this is bullshit's officially designated function, it hasn't stopped it from being informally used by lesser institutions and private citizens in a variety of situations.
Although the word "bullshit" is generally used as the catch-all term for the currency, it has many vaguely-defined denominations, including bull, crap, bullcrap, horseshit, and poppycock (an archaic term used only by old coots).
What is Bullshit Made of?
Bullshit is not made of metal or paper or plastic, like most currencies. It is a verbalized money system, whose value is based on the linguistic prowess of the user. So it isn't limited in the sense that some people have lots of money while others are deprived. Any person can have as much BS as they want, as long as they are capable of producing it. The ones who cannot must rely on more pedestrian forms of currency to get by.
The definitive work on the financial aspects of bullshit is "On Bullshit", by ex-financier Harry Frankfurt. The moneyman rented a loft in New York City and spent years immersing himself in local bullshit, studying the most intimate details of it. He frequented snobby restaurants, modern art exhibitions, and press conferences, and documented everything he learned about BS: its nature, its usage, and its adaptation to various environments. Unfortunately, after two years of intense research Frankfurt went mad, forgetting the difference between real and abstract bullshit. Consequently, he was often seen smearing himself and his paperwork with "waste materials", which were to be found in abundance in the streets of New York. After becoming both sane and sanitized, Frankfurt shaved off most of his Rip Van Winkle beard, published his findings, and went on to teach philosophy at Princeton. Unfortunately, due to the prolonged time Frankfurt spent around bullshit, he will still occasionally excrete it whilst teaching.
Production
Since bullshit is verbal, it does not require factories to print or mint it. The means of production are decentralized amongst all users (although there is a higher concentration of BS-production in government). Bullshit comes from authorized bullshitters, who can produce as much of it as is neccessary (and believable). Bullshit production can also suffer from a kind of inflation: if too much BS is issued, it begins to decline in value, and the producer is mocked and loses all credibility. Thus all producers must distribute their curency prudently, lest the weight of their bullshit overwhelm them.
The inflation model applies as well to bullshit as to any other currency - the higher the quality of the bullshit and the less it is produced, the more any given person can buy with it. A good example is communist Russia. Everyone had to share the bullshit, so too much of the same bullshit was produced and people had to use vast quantities of it to get the most basic of necessities. Politicians restricted the production of original bullshit so they could use it for their own goals. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the surplus communist bullshit was sold to the West (mainly southern California) in exchange for aid.
Usage
Anyone who can lie effectively is capable of using bullshit. Since it is an abstract form of currency, it is used to "buy" abstract things. For instance, a child can tell their parents that they are almost done with their school project and ask for some free time, even though they haven't even started yet. If their bullshit is of a high enough quality, then they can "purchase" some undeserved leisure and get away with it.
This basic practice is the same whether you are a small child or the President of a large country. If a person with good bullshit finds themselves in a sticky situation, all they have to do is use some of it to buy their way out. This is why most bullshitters usually find a career in politics: if they are really good, they can worm their way out of almost anything.
If someone from England says that they are going to give you a Blowjob, you are probably getting bullshit. Main article England#currency
History
Bullshit has undergone a long and tortuous evolution in becoming the universal currency it is today. Now that the nature of bullshit has been established, let's explore how it arrived at that point.
Prehistory
Human beings were not the first creatures to discover the value of bullshit. In fact, anthropologists have found that our simian ancestors were well-versed in the use of this vital commodity long before humans ever existed. Of course, their practices were not nearly as refined as ours are today. Millions of years ago, bullshitting meant literally throwing feces at one's enemies in order to drive them away. As time passed, this primitive behavior evolved into a form of bartering, as fellow monkeys began trading the valued deterrant for other goods. Thus was the first form of money invented.
Male monkeys, sharing 132% of their DNA with human men, also developed the first form of the self-produced repeatable bullshit used today when they realized that with simian hand gestures came the ability to lie in order to get laid. A female monkey, on average having only twice the intelligence of Marilyn Vos Savant, cannot visually distinguish between real food and random objects of similar size. Hence male monkeys learned to make the hand gesture for 'I have food' before waving small rocks or sticks around in front of the female as proof. The female's willingness to accept this bullshit brought the world's oldest currency into use in the world's oldest profession. Later this method was combined with visual substitution of actual feces for food, so that after mating the male would have the satisfaction of seeing the female mistakenly eat shit.
Early civilization
As these monkeys evolved into early humans, the art of bullshitting evolved with them. An important development in this evolution was the rise of the first governments. Whenever a king or an emperor came to power, his rule was absolute. He could order his subjects and his laws whichever way he wanted. One common way of reinforcing this sense of importance was by paying for everything with bullshit. A despot could walk up to a merchant, take anything he wanted from his shop, and sarcastically pay for the looting with a fresh pile from the royal stables rather than a bag of gold coins. Over time this pattern of leaders "bullshitting" their way through life became ingrained in the popular consciousness.
Middle Ages
This practice continued on until the 14th century. At this time, bullshitting had reached its height in Europe. Every monarch had their own army of peasants out in the countryside, shoveling heap after heap of the stuff into wagons, just so that the ruler could sarcastically use it and make themselves feel good. Things were going along swimmingly (for the rulers, at least). Then the Black Plague hit. Hordes of flies and rats, attracted to the ridiculous amounts of bullshit festering on the Continent, spread the infectious disease far and wide, killing millions. Suffice to say, once Europe finally recovered, people realized that it was unwise to handle large amounts of bullshit regularly, no matter how witty it made their rulers feel.
The devastation wrought by the Plague forced a major change in the way bullshit was used. No longer could people handle the real thing; it was far too dangerous. But it had been a part of human civilization far too long for everyone to just give it up. So, gradually, people began rethinking the nature of thier bullshit. Soon, the leaders of Europe hit upon the idea of verbalizing it. Now instead of having to buy enough bulls to generate enough stinking waste to use regularly, all they had to do was think up enough stinking lies to do the job. So, instead of a despot sarcastically paying for stolen goods with a pile of fertilizer, all he had to do was say something along the lines of: "The check is in the mail." "Bullshit," the victim would reply. "Exactly," the despot would answer with a wicked grin.
But this new practice had a fatal flaw, in that anyone who could speak could now bullshit as sarcastically as King Henry VIII himself. A royal stable and an army of serfs was no longer required. And so the practice of bullshitting spread to all walks of life, becoming a form of currency among the common people. If your bullshit was good enough, you could "buy" your way out of almost any situation. Eventually, the best bullshitters became so good, that they acquired great power and prestige, and held power over every gullible fool who believed their words. This is why bullshitting is so essential to government today.
The Modern Era
A country or culture's government is usually based in its system of economics due to the fact that governments cannot operate without bullshit, and cultures are prone to use BS the same way they use other currencies. Democracy is a governmental form of capitalism in which every person is allowed to make and use their own bullshit. Fascism is a governmental form of communism - nobody's bullshit is their own, and everyone must use the same bullshit whether there is enough to go around or not.
Anarchists are a special case - anarchists cannot recognize their own bullshit, so they do not realize it can be exchanged. Without an economic model for bullshit use they cannot form a governmental model. This is why there are no anarchist governments.
Bullshit and Modern Romance
Like any ability, bullshit has had vast implications for relationships between men and women. The ability to use bullshit as currency has improved with technology and openness, making the BS-friendly profession of prostitution ever more lucrative for women. Human and simian males have been able to lie in order to get sex for eons. But with the proliferation of dance clubs and better methods for communication, most modern prostitution takes the form of dating relationships in which each party tries to exchange as much bullshit as possible.
Men substitute bullshit for money by exaggerating their wealth or professing love. Women have far more ways to substitute bullshit for sex - revealing clothes, provocative dancing, marriage, and laments about menstruation (which actually facilitates intercourse rather than preventing it) are used to convince a man that there will be sex later as long as the money keeps flowing. The most experienced prostitutes are also the most experienced bullshit artists, even developing investment strategies. With small down payments of sex and bullshit, a woman can build a child support portfolio with as many 18-year cash annuities as she likes.
Hip-hop artists, many of whom are making vast sums of money in exchange for nothing but bullshit, do so largely by producing instructional videos on the use of BS in prostitution with songs such as 'Gold Digger.' This is evidenced by the fact that virtually all women in hip-hop are referred to both by themselves and by men as 'hos'.
Digital Bullshit
It doesn't have to compute! The explosion of computer technology has truly shown that bullshit can come in any denomination or amount one wishes to spend, and has even given BS a life of its own. Computers allow information to take any form one can imagine, and where there is information there is bullshit.
Microsoft was the first company to exchange large amounts of bullshit in lieu of actual programming. Its Windows operating systems have expertly blended bullshit with enough usable code that users think they are getting their money's worth. Even when users know they are getting BS, they often find that they can reuse or expand on it. Independent programmers have used the Windows operating system as the base for thousands of software titles composed of bullshit, and end users know all too well that programs such as PowerPoint and Word can be used to generate new bullshit. End users are not wholly defenseless against Microsoft, however. BS exchange services such as KaZaA allow users to obtain it for free, even if they have to use password crackers to bullshit their way into the programs they download.
Apple Computer is a telling example of what happens when a company doesn't know how to substitute bullshit for actual value. Sales of licenses to software developers have been weak, due to the inability of Mac OS X to operate in the BS format required for Windows titles. And since most computer buyers are used to the vast amounts of built-in and potential bullshit on Windows machines, they are reluctant to try going without BS they might one day need. Apple's primary marketing triumph, the iPod, is a success because while it doesn't come preloaded with any bullshit it can be used to store the stuff in vast amounts.
The Internet, with its combination of fluid content, uncontent and instant access, has truly allowed mankind to master the use of BS as currency. The nation of Nigeria barely produces anything tangible, but with the use of Internet scams has turned bullshit into its largest source of revenue. Vatican City was the first country to realize that bullshit could be a nation's sole industry, but Nigeria has focused on ease of use. So-called '419' scammers need only exchange bullshit via email for bank account numbers. As human stupidity is a constant, this offers a fixed rate of exchange for turning BS into gold more easily than any alchemist could have dreamed. Hackers and computer virus authors have taken immediately to the more exciting possibilities of the Internet, creating bullshit which can not only be used for material gain but to take control of other people's BS as well.
Bullshit Occupations
With improvements in communications, BS production has become a profession in and of itself. Types of modern professional bullshit artists include:
- 1.) Politicians, people who use bullshit to buy political power. Their bullshit production may be outsourced to spin doctors or lobbyists.
- 2.) Telemarketers, who use the phone to sell a combination of products, company-produced bullshit, and their own improvised bullshit.
- 3.) Military recruiters, who are paid to deliver government-produced bullshit to prospective recruits.
- 4.) Public relations firms, companies to which other corporations can outsource vital bullshit production.
- 5.) Exotic dancers - prostitutes who usually substitute bullshit for sex, aided by working in a bullshit factory called a strip club. The willingness on the part of johns to pay for this BS is aided by serving alcohol.
- 6.) Professional poker players - people who use carefully tuned bullshit to win card games, and show spectators how it's done.
- 7.) Lawyers - similar to politicians or PR executives, these creatures take existing bullshit such as the law or a 'not guilty' plea and mix it with their own bullshit. They are paid bullshit-production fees by clients or the state, or can use BS to convince a court to pay civil damages to their client (who is then bullshitted out of the proceeds). Because bullshit is used within all fields of law by both defense attorneys and prosecutors, jurors know that both sides are using bullshit and simply choose the BS that sounds better. This freedom of expression has made true content-free bullshit an art form at which anyone can be a Rembrandt.
Bullshit addiction
The Catholic Church is an extension of the Vatican, the first nation to recognize the true potential of bullshit addiction and deal bullshit as its sole industry. The first dose is always free. The church merely has to bullshit a person into accepting the idea of 'faith,' which states that all bullshit must be accepted on sight with no demand for anything real in return. This creates an addict, someone who accepts bullshit but does not see its exchange value. Dealers who still recognize bullshit as currency expect money in return for producing it, and are called priests. As the Church is the the greatest source in history for the greatest currency in history, attempts to control its bullshit and make sure people buy it have shaped much of Western civilization.
The Church is also patriarchal, and has ensured that Catholic use of bullshit for sexual purposes remains firmly under the control of male dealers. To this end women are barred from dealing, except for nuns who are allowed to deal bullshit to addicts as long as they do not substitute it for sex when a priest calls on them. If nuns are not available, priests use their bullshit on addicts who cannot produce their own, such as children. The dealers' use of bullshit for sexual purposes is reinforced by the pretense that priests are celibate, despite the fact that a penis is the only qualification for the job.
Islam has become a lesson to the world on what happens when dealers become addicted to their own bullshit. Nobody in the Muslim world has been able to use their BS to make money, because like any addict they know it's bullshit but don't care whether it can get them anything material. Business dealings between Muslim religious factions do not involve money or goods - the parties merely trade bullshit. Non-addicts in the West have created a use for oil and have informed Muslims that they are sitting on it by also inventing drilling rigs. As BS is the only currency available to most of the Muslim world and they can't figure out how to trade it for cash, Muslims demand on pain of death that everyone buy their bullshit instead of their oil.
The Future
Or "How I Learned to Quit Thinking and Love the Phaser."
The future of bullshit is as limitless as human imagination and as boundless as human stupidity. As long as there are enough clever bullshitters in the world, and enough gullible idiots to accept their currency, then BS will always have value. This is possible because bullshit parallels the spread of human language. Wherever any form of communication is possible, whether it be face-to-face, televised, on the Internet, or in some form that we can't possibly imagine, there will always be a place for bullshit to thrive. You can count on it.
What might be, hundreds or thousands of years from now, is the subject of the genre called science fiction. Of all science fiction, none better depicts the potential of bullshit to shape the future than 'Star Trek.' It depicts a future in which nobody is poor because money has been entirely replaced by bullshit. Federation science has discovered that laws of physics such as relativity, gravity, and conservation of energy are all BS. This allows for technologies which undo these laws merely by including their own bullshit such as inertial dampers, warp coils, subspace, and replicators (capable of turning a pocket watch into a food ration if needed). If it is found that a machine does not have enough bullshit to counter the laws of physics, it must be modified. Treknology can be outfitted with new bullshit by being within earshot of such phrases as 'temporal flux,' 'reverse the polarity,' or 'remodulate the field coils.' New particles or substances can be created by using bullshit to describe them. There are even characters physically composed of nothing but the finest BS, such as the android Data whose batteries "recharge themselves."
Think this doesn't matter because none of it is real? The proof is in the bullshit. The writers of 'Star Trek' have shown their understanding of BS by their ability to exchange it for cash even though they're not producing it anymore. They present all of their bullshit as fiction, yet many fans buy Klingon dictionaries and technical manuals to familiarize themselves with the BS needed to live in the 'Star Trek' universe.
A Note on Uncyclopedia
One common Uncyclopedia tag is a quote by Oscar Wilde identifying the article as being bullshit and the author as being gay. The "bullshit" part is a high compliment to the article as being a fine piece of bullshit writing worthy to join the other pieces of bullshit that make Uncyclopedia so rich. As for the "gay" part... eh... not so much.