Perhaps the most important principle in bullshit studies is Brandolini’s principle. Coined by Italian software engineer Alberto Brandolini in 2014, it states: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than [that needed] to produce it.” Producing bullshit is a lot less work than cleaning it up. It is also a lot simpler and cheaper to do. A few years before Brandolini formulated his principle, Italian blogger Uriel Fanelli had already noted that, loosely translated, “an idiot can create more bullshit than you could ever hope to refute.”
