Priceonomics - Everything Is Bullshit: The greatest scams on Earth revealed

EVERYTHING

IS BULLSHIT

Priceonomics

Copyright 2014 by Priceonomics Inc.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or used as toilet tissue in any manner without written permission.

For information, please contact us: info@priceonomics.com

ISBN-10: 0692224963

ISBN-13: 978-0692224960

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Priceonomics Authors

Alex Mayyasi

Rohin Dhar

Zachary Crockett

Special Contributor

David Raether

Cover Design

Dan Abramson

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION:

THE BIG LIE

W hich lies are so big that no one questions them?

In life, we grow up, attend school, get a job, buy a car, start a family, get a mortgage, lose a job, get a divorce, find a new job, start a new family, move a few times, retire, un-retire, re-retire, play some golf, and then die. Is it possible that as we act out this script, we occasionally make a very important life decision incorrectly because we had some misinformation? Almost certainly.

Misinformation has consequences. You could merely overpay for a bottle of wine. Or worse, you could waste tens of thousands of dollars and years of your life on the wrong kind of education. Or perhaps youll spend much of your youth feeling bad about your body if you start to believe an advertising campaign. And sometimes when many people believe a particularly vicious lie, truly horrific things can happen.

The History of the Big Lie

The canonical example of a Big Lie in the 20th century is Adolf Hitlers propaganda machine. Hitler created a lie so reprehensible that it seemed impossible that the head of a government could simply make it up: he claimed that Jews were responsible for all of Germanys problems.

Hitlers big lie led to the mass murder of millions of Jews, the slaughter of other minority groups, and a world-wide war. Today it seems unfathomable that such a blatant lie could instigate something so atrocious. But a mere 75 years ago, an entire nation committed an act of unthinkable evil in the service of a lie.

The term big lie was popularized by Hitler himself . In his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf , Hitler wrote that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility because the public would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Hitler painted Germanys Jews as perpetrators of the big lie, scapegoating them for the countrys defeat in World War I. Even in coining the phrase big lie, Hitler did so with a big lie.

After World War II, the United States military produced an anti-communist film called "The Big Lie," which began with the Hitler quote: "The great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." The film likened Hitler to Stalin, Nazis to Communists, and World War II to the struggle against Communism. The strength of big lies is that simple, forceful statements seem true. Selling the American public on the formula that Communists are the new Nazis was an easier justification for the Cold War than the complicated reality of communist revolutions intertwining with geopolitics, anti-colonial movements, and nationalist sentiments. A big lie sidesteps the need for a debate about the facts.

In 2003, the United States government invaded Iraq based on evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But the weapons didnt exist; instead, politicians jumped to a conclusion that the data did not actually support. Who could believe that the American government would be impudent enough to start a war over flimsy data?

Governments perpetrate some of the most consequential big lies. Sometimes the lying is overt. Other times, leaders selectively weigh evidence to draw their preferred conclusions. Either way is lying.

But big lies have other progenitors. Once you start looking for big lies, youll find the world is built on many ideas that the facts dont necessarily support. Yet we accept them because thats just the way things are.

The Marketing of a Big Lie

For us, the revelation of the power of a big lie came when we investigated the history of diamond engagement rings. Our whole lives, weve been inculcated with the notion that diamonds are valuable and wonderful. Diamonds are a girls best friend, priceless family heirlooms, and the best way to express your love. To get married, a man has to buy a diamond engagement ring and spend approximately two months salary on the purchase.

Why two months salary? Why diamonds? As it turns it, the tradition of proposing with diamond engagement rings is largely a 20th century marketing invention by De Beers, a company that has a global monopoly on the diamond supply. If a fundamental part of American life is a marketing gimmick to drum up demand for diamonds, what else out there is bullshit?

So the Priceonomics team started researching things that seemed suspicious to us. Why is wine so expensive? Why is it harder for Asians to get into Harvard than other students? How does art become art? Why does college cost so much? Why do college football and basketball coaches make so much money while players are unpaid? Why do so many pets die in animal shelters?

Why is the world the way it is, and which practices fall apart under scrutiny? The result is this book.

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In our view, the big lie of our society is the notion that our current beliefs and traditions are based on solid facts. When you start investigating some of our most hallowed values, you find that much of what we hold dear is actually based on historical accident, the profit motives of a few companies, or the agenda of someone who died long ago. A lot of what we believe and do is bullshit, yet we walk around thinking that its objectively the right way of doing things.

The philosophy of this book is that the best defense against a big lie is curiosity. How did a particular custom originate, and who benefits from its existence? This line of questioning can lead you down an illuminating and sometimes disturbing rabbit hole. It can also allow you to identify and call attention to practices you believe need to change.

The title Everything is Bullshit may sound cynical, but we see it differently. If so much of what we believe is bullshit, that means that many of our social values are up for grabs to be influenced. On one hand, its scary to think that some of our most cherished traditions were implanted by others to serve their own purposes . On the other hand, its liberating to know that you can actually impact the values that people hold dear.

You have the option to build the next generation of companies, institutions, and ideas. If you think companies are misbehaving, you can start a campaign that shames them publicly. If youre disappointed that the government is spying on us, you can work on the technology to make that more difficult. If you think police brutality is out of hand, you can make it easier for citizens to record and share when these violations take place. If you think we live in a sexist world, you can start a movement that helps change how people think about sex, gender and our bodies.

Everything we believe today is the result of a movement someone else started long ago. You can shape the future version of the world, just as others shaped the current one.

If you see something out there that is bullshit, you can replace it with something that is not.

PART I:

STATUS SYMBOLS

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What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

(Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan)

DIAMONDS ARE BULLSHIT

A merican males enter adulthood through a peculiar rite of passage: they spend most of their savings on a shiny piece of rock. They could invest the money in assets that will compound over time and someday provide a nest egg. Instead, they trade that money for a diamond ring, which isnt much of an asset at all. As soon as a diamond leaves a jeweler, it loses over 50% of its value.