I ask this because my wife is going to see some medium tonight which she often does. I love her to death but the woman just revels in her gullibility. Anyway...I'm guessing this doesn't need to be reiterated with the audience here at the Grieve but just so we're clear: psychics, mediums, faith-healers, mind-readers...it's all complete bullshit. They are not only charlatans but in most cases morally corrupt charlatans that lie to people who are at weak points in their lives. I mean seriously...if someone could really talk to the dead, couldn't they get some information more valuable than "He loves you and misses you" or "He's sorry he never got to say good bye." Like, what is that? That could apply to not anyone but just about everyone! How about asking them what's on the other side? Is there a God? What does he expect from us? Nope. We know how it's done...we know how cold-reading works...we could train an idiot to do it. Now, I'm guessing that this whole community would consider me an asshole for stating this and perhaps rightfully so but if you really wanted to shut people up, why not prove it under reasonal experimental conditions?
The JREF challenge was started by James Randi, a former magician who basically goes around debunking bullshit so people will stop throwing away billions of dollars on it. Anyone who can prove to have supernatural or metaphysical powers will be rewarded with 1.2 million dollars. Most of these people don't even try and the few that have haven't even made it past preliminary testing. Surely, if someone was that confident in their "abilities" they'd take him up on this fabulous offer but it appears that this money is going nowhere. So why isn't it a bigger deal? Isn't that all you need to know? Everytime someone tells me they have a psychic or a medium or some other fraud in their lives, I always make sure to tell them to pass this information along to them but they either ignore me or say they won't. It's as if telling that person that they have a chance to win a million dollars would somehow be offensive to them.
To put this in perspective...I can probably hit a tennis serve in triple digits which of course loads of people can do but most can't come close. What if there was some skeptic out there who decided that no human can hit a serve over 100 MPH and he would give a million dollars to anyone who could prove that they can. You've played me in tennis. You know I can get a hold of a serve every once in a while. You may not know of any other people who you think can hit a serve that hard. If you chose not to tell me about the 100 MPH Serve 1 Million Dollar Challenge, I would have 2 conclusions to make.
1. You're an asshole.
2. You really don't think I can hit a serve 100 MPH.
Here's a video of James Randi fucking with some phenomenon...
I love that the guy wore his kung-fu outfit on TV.
Posted by: Assman | February 01, 2012 at 02:57 PM
Why didn't they just have him wear a mask or bandana over his mouth and nose? That would have sufficiently prevented a stream of breath from reaching the pencil or pages to move them. And it would have accomplished it without the supposed static cling. Besides, even if he did move the styrafoam along with the pages, he could have just claimed his psychic powers were not focused enough and just moved everything in the vicinity.
Posted by: Jeff | February 02, 2012 at 12:45 PM
Million Dollars is really nice and informative blog. But I want to know how am I found million dollars in easy way. Thanks for share.
Posted by: Flights to Delhi | February 22, 2012 at 08:42 AM
Kostenbalder, P.D. and J.W. Flecksteiner Biological oxidation of coke plant weak ammonia liquor.
Posted by: UGG Boots Clearance | March 10, 2012 at 02:37 AM