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comment by StJohn
StJohn  ·  2741 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why Is There So Much Bullshit in Modern Writing?

    He doesn't define what he means by "bullshit" until 3/4 into the article.

He gives a pretty good outline in the first two paragraphs — "unnecessary words", "jargon", and "unclear" all jump out as examples of what he's calling bullshit. That sets him up to go into more depth later.

    There are a lot of ramifications of that. His analysis is simplistic and unhelpful.

He's not really a social critic, as far as I can tell, and I don't think he ever set out to analyze those ramifications. It looks like he writes books about effective business techniques.

    This is just an ad for his book

It's very common for writers and actors and directors to go on the circuit to promote their upcoming thing. Every interviewee, every chat show guest, has some new thing that is now available in fine cinemas or bookstores everywhere. It's not an unreasonable way to do things, so long as their interview or article isn't just an ad — it should stand on its own in some way. This article outlines how an interesting problem came about. His book is, naturally, about how individuals can fix it. I probably won't buy the book, but I did enjoy reading the article.