Was Theranos Bullshit?

Blood Drop Emoji by Apple

In 2003, a woman named Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford University to start a company called Theranos, a company claiming to have created revolutionary technology for blood testing. They claimed to have technology that could analyze blood using blood from only a pinprick on a finger. Eventually, Theranos rose to be estimated at a value of approximately 9 billion dollars, without ever having a working and accurate product. The company eventually failed, with Holmes being accused of fraud. 

According to Harry Frankfurt, there is a difference between lying and bullshit; essentially, the liar’s intentions are to lead the listener away from reality. Their goal is to trick the listener. As for the bullshitter, they simply do not care about the truth. Bullshit could be true or false; the difference between the liar and the bullshitter is that the bullshitter could care less what the truth actually is. 

Elizabeth Holmes, photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP

Was Elizabeth Holmes a bullshitter or a liar? Did she care about the truth or was she trying to perpetuate a false idea to lead those who listened to her down a path of false reality?  Holmes started the company before dropping out of Stanford University. She managed to raise $700 million from early investors without having working technology. She took investors' money on the condition that she wouldn't have to show how Theranos's technology actually worked. Holmes was seemingly obsessed with Steve Jobs; she dressed like Jobs, decorated her office like Jobs, and kept the company shrouded in secret much like Jobs. She even lowered her voice for the media to fit into a predominantly male populated tech industry.

To say that Holmes was simply a bullshitter, I believe, would be false. It seems that Theranos really was all an elaborate hoax, with Holmes playing the role of a tech entrepreneur perfectly. Perhaps, however, Holmes did bullshit; maybe she was convinced that her company could produce the product that they claimed, and they simply needed more time to accomplish it. Perhaps she wasn’t concerned with the truth because she was convinced that her product would be a true concept. However, the evidence does show that Holmes was an elaborate liar that set out to trick investors to give her company money.

Mercedes Killing Civilians

Mercedes is making multiple levels of self-driving cars, they range from self-parking to cars that will take you step by step to your location. These more advanced levels of cars will be programmed to sacrifice pedestrians and other drivers to save the passenger of the Merc. This is a huge question of ethics in technology, whose life is worth more? Is it worth it to save the driver over five other people? Christoph von Hugo the manager of Mercedes driverless car division said, “If you know you can save at least one person, at least save that one. Save the one in the car,” von Hugo told during an interview. von Hugo also goes on to say if we know we can save the driver we are going to do it, there is no guarantee that anyone else wouldn't get hurt, so why put them in the algorithm. In a situation straight out of iRobot, the driverless car would completely be oblivious to other people.
This may take years to perfect but it has already proved necessary, a Tesla took a life in 2016, it ran its driver under a semi, killing him. In a car accident, nothing is certain, but if the life of the driver can be saved then why not make that a certain outcome. That is Mercedes's defense against putting its driver over all else, and while there are certain limitations to the technology so we may be safe from loose Mercedes for years to come.

You could get used to the lies

Why do people lie? Why would someone Racking his brain and trying to come up with some clever words, to make another believe his imaginary facts? What is it for? Because so that the seniors will buy the unnecessarily expensive medical equipment? Because it gets them more likes under his Instagram posts? Or just trying to escape from the facts he doesn’t want to face?

If you take a closer look, you would realize our daily life is filled with all kinds of lies and the reasons are numerous. However, most of them won’t affect us so much, because those lies that causing trouble are often followed by the punishments. Liars who scam people for money will likely end up in jail; People lying to themselves would eventually wake up in the cruel reality.

So why there are so many crazy lies out there on the internet, and they are spread wildly? Because there’s no cost of lying on the internet! If someone spread fake scandal about the celebrities he hates or if spread his abusive words against strangers he argues with, nobody will find out who he is in the real-life, and he will keep doing that without getting any punishment. It is because of this, the internet has become a paradise for lies. However, it doesn’t mean that lie is the only thing left on the internet. The benefit of using the internet outweighs its cost, but we could get used to the lies and learn to identify them.

The Lies, Truths and Bullshit Behind Mobile Dating Apps

“How do lies injure us?” (Harry Frankfurt, 36). As a part of generation Z, our busy lives and internet society have huge impacts on how we present ourselves in our regular traditional lifestyle. Being a student at a big and diverse college, I sometimes find it hard to meet and connect with new people. Before the Internet, people met through family members, friends, school, work and public encounters. However, with today’s free digital match-making apps people tend to forget the traditional ways to bond with each other. Online dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Match, etc have emerged over tradition dating.  They are now become something that falls into our day-to-day routine. Clearly, these sites have had a huge impact on dating behavior; they're changing the fundamental nature of our social networks. Choices are made in the blink of an eye and people tend to be skeptical with all the messages they receive through dating apps. The truths could lie within a description but the lies could be hidden behind the bright screens. From research, more than 50% of online users admitted lying in their profile about their height, weight, or age. If you are lucky, you find the one. If you are unlucky, you get a creepy one and another bullshit story to tell your friends.  Nowadays, it’s rare to see relationships would begin with a smile and a handshake, rather than it’s just a swipe. This culture is changing the way we treat others and how we handle our own feelings as well.