SimonX went to lekatt’s own board to discuss near-death experiences, and as far as I can tell he didn’t change his style. The reason I don’t do it is that I don’t feel there’s much point to it and I’m not primarily here to take part in an anti-ignorance crusade anyway, but to enjoy myself.
Thanks for proving my point. I was being conservative in my estimate of a “select few”.
That’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t come here to the SD to argue or debate. That’s why I stay clear of Great Debates. I know some people enjoy arguing and debating but I am not one of them. I come here to read and be entertained and perhaps learn a new thing or two and that’s pretty much it.
If you say so. I thought your point was that there was an SDMB elite who always victimize people like SnakeSpirit. I don’t think that’s right: the majority of people who get involved in debates about the paranormal think the claims he and lekatt aren’t supported by evidence. If this counts as some kind of irrational bias, go right ahead in thinking the believers are being persecuted.
No, I don’t think the skeptics run the board. They engage in particular negative, antisocial, and unproductive behaviors that are triggered by certain topics. Now that I’m going to avoid those topics, I probably won’t notice who is skeptic and who isn’t. Nor will I feel persecuted. Quite simple, really.
Before you can counter my point, you actually have to grasp it. You’ve got this backwards.
At a New Age board you would find out what it’s like to be a poster with a position that no one else holds there. If you think your arguments for the nonexistence of these phenomena is convincing, why not go fight ignorance there?
I can guarantee you that the New Agers will give your POV more respect than the “believers” get here. At other, less civilized boards (UFO conspiracies, etc.), you could even enjoy the outright crucifixion that others here have received.
Give it a try?
Poor reading comprehension or “artful dodging” is in evidence here. Of course the skeptics didn’t agree with lekatt and SnakeSpirit. The whole issue here is how they expressed that lack of agreement. A large number of people have behaved abominably.
Or do you think that browbeating and humiliation are acceptable in such cases?
You know, I’m insulted. I’m deeply insulted here. Aeschines, have I ever insulted you? Have I ever taken your claims less than seriously? I don’t know about everyone here, but I’d love for ghosts to exist. I want to see psychic powers in use. I could sure as heck use them in my daily life, we could save lives, we could prevent disasters, and I could get into the server room when the lock keeps effing failing on me. (I hate that lock. I think it needs a new battery) I want to talk to my great grandmother. She traveled the world in the 1930s, she saw so much. And I was never interested in her stories when I was young. She went to China! I never realized how tricky that must have been for a single girl in that era, or what courage it must have taken.
I would pay every penny I have to tell her goodbye, to tell her how the family came out, to tell her she can be proud of us.
I want to believe. But, as much as I want to believe, I want to know the truth. It’s my paradigm. When I see an effect, I want to know how it works. I want to repeat it for myself. I built a light bulb once, just cause I could. Wasn’t good, but I got it to work. I wanted to know how the power got from the switch to the TV, how the TV worked, how things got from the camera down the lines. So I studied and learned about all sorts of amazing stuff. It’s like history, Aes. Science and history are fascinating. There’s stuff there you’d never see in fiction because it’s too unbelievable. But it all works. You can test it yourself, if you have the time and patience.
Psychic abilities… you test them hard enough, they don’t work. I know. I can fake a few of them… I wanted to know how to do card tricks. I happened to be part of what later got reported as a UFO sighting… it was a bunch of people in the Hudson River Valley screwing around with primitive ultralights.
That’s the problem psychic abilities keep running into. We hear a story. It’s a good story. But people just aren’t good observers. Excepting those trained as observers, like magicians. Scientists are mostly good recorders. Some are good observers. Those are the creative ones like Feynman. But mostly, they’re good recorders and that’s an important but very different skill. You ever hear of the gorilla experiment, Aes? It’s kind of interesting. See, a bunch of people were given a woman’s basketball game to watch, as I recall the story. (It won an IgNobel this year, so I know I can find a cite if I go and look, but time’s pressing) They watched the game, I think they were asked to record the baskets or something. And then after the game they were asked about the gorilla. Almost nobody noticed that in the middle of the game, a person in a gorilla suit walked through the game in the midground, and continued out of frame. It’s certainly an odd thing… but nobody remember it. Because they were recording. Again, it’s similar to something I learned from Sherlock Holmes. A paraphrase: “How many steps are there to my door, Watson?” “I don’t know, Holmes.” “There are 34. I know this because I see and I observe.” That blew my mind, Aes, because it was so true. People see, but they don’t observe. That’s how magic works. Stage magic.
It’s because I want to believe that I am so cautious about psychic abilities, Aes. Because there are so many fakes, so many screwups, that when, someday, I proclaim this person to be the real thing… I don’t want to be wrong.
Does Randi feel the same way? I don’t know. I think he used to, once. But it’s been a long road, and there have been a lot of fakes. It’s possible to get burned out, Aes. And I think that’s what happened. You see so many fakes, you get harder and harder and more and more combative. But one real one. One real one who’s strong enough to prove himself repeatedly… well, there’s a free and legal million. It’s not bad. It may not be much, but… well, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Because if Randi says you’re the real thing, people will listen to him, if only because he’s been so strident for so long. And then you can use that talent in ways to help the world… and make money. Because when people ask their boffins if you’re for real, they’ll point to Randi and be able to say why you’re for real. And that will open doors that would never be opened before.
That help any? I’m still kinda insulted, but I hope you understand why I’m skeptical. It’s because I still have hope.
I don’t know, because I don’t really know you. Now that I do, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.
As for the rest of your post, I don’t argue about things “paranormal”; hence, I have no comment.
Oh, and as for your challenge, Aeschines, there are considerations here. Firstly, we certainly do not want to ignite a board war. Secondly, we really don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings in their own ‘place’. Except for, in my personal case, a board that may be in front of bad weather. I don’t mind pissing them off, but it’s still impolite.
If you can find a new age board that is willing to accept us, I think we could field a select group to go over and rationally discuss things with them, in the spirit of good fellowship and in accordance to your challenge. I do not know of one, myself, perhaps you do. Of course, this is all subject to the appropriateness of my suggestion to the moderators, and I will be reporting my own post to make sure it’s appropriate, because I want a mod’s word on this.
If you could suggest a theoretical topic for discussion?
I’m not issuing a challenge. I was making an example, trying to put things in perspective.
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You wouldn’t hurt their feelings. It would be twenty to one against you, at which point, owing to human nature, they would actually enjoy themselves going at you. A more civilized board would just ignore you after you had made your points and people had responded.
For the record . . .
I took Snake to task more than once. Not for his beliefs, fuck them. I don’t give one little rat’s ass about them.
No, see, I lit into him for being a dick.
And that’s why he ended up getting the boot. Not because he was a poor beleagured “believer” being oppressed by the evil skeptics. Because he was a dick.
Anyone who wants to paint him as some kind of electronic martyr to the paranormal cause is a fucking idiot.
That was YOU?!! Damn, I remember that!! Nicely done! 
Actually, this isn’t a discussion about the paranormal, as much as it is a discussion about belief systems and why people believe the way they do, and respond the way they do. We could be talking about why dirty water dogs (as supplied by street cart vendors) taste better than microwaved ones, for as much as the actual events have bearing on the discussion at this point. You see, I’m explaining my point of view to you, and I would really like to hear why you hold the point of view you do.
If it helps any, I have had what I might consider paranormal experiences. From a solid six hour period of extreme synchronicity, to viewing a UFO that might have been an alien spaceship, but was more probably on reflection a commuter airplane crossing Venus (I checked for Venus the next night, I think I was right) and extreme exhaustion, to possible psychic impressions. (I’ve been wrong about half the time. I’m pretty sure I’m just picking up body language) The odd thing about me is that I’ve trained myself to write things down when I feel something has happened, and I check on it later. Because I’m a half-trained observer, I tend to pick up details that show I’m just fooling myself. Some things remain unexplained, but also unrepeatable, so I simply have to file them as unknown- needs further explanation.
Snake’s feelings on the paranormal aside, his Pitting of glee was unfair, wrong headed and out of line. glee very clearly made a typo and despite all of the evidence that that was the case, Snake refuse to accept it. It seems to me that he was baiting us in that final thread; a classic case of suicide by Mod.
Haj
Certainly not I.
The question here is what to do when people start acting dysfunctionally. It has nothing to do with the topic (poetry, paranormal) and everything to do with psychology and sociology.
It’s a very primitive but powerful drive: enjoying punishing someone when they deserve it. The form of it can range from A) genuine hope that a person doesn’t require punishment but enjoying it when push comes to shove, to Z) actively instigating the offence with the premeditated purpose of laying into them once they commit it.
Completely accurate.
I hate replying to myself, but the thread’s going fast.
EarlyOut: Wasn’t on purpose! We were just screwing around, doing our thing. Ultralights are neat! I was too young to go up, but I watched openmouthed. Admittedly, after the first few reports we did it on purpose, but it didn’t start that way.
Aeschines, you see, this is the scientific method in action. You issue a hypothesis. I offer an experiment to test the hypothesis. If we perform the experiment, we will get a result. This is science.
If we do not perform the experiment, we take the result on faith. This is not science, though, if the result is theorized through all possible conclusions, it may lead to further hypothesis and possibly testable experiments. Schrodinger’s Cat is an untested experiment, but it was used to show a possible weakness in quantum mechanics, which was testable. (The cat experiment is, in fact, test_able_, but inhumane.)
The other factor in scientists is, besides being great recorders, is that they are both patient and unstoppable. They will not stop at one positive experiment. They will go on and on until they are reasonably sure the experimental results will happen the same way every time, to within a calculated margin of error. They will not get distracted on sidepaths, though they will note them and return to them later.
As it is, your suggestion, while untested, remains a ‘straw man’. If tested, it would no longer be a ‘straw man’, but a valid truth.
Do you disagree with anything I’ve said?
Yes, I artfully dodged… what exactly?
Nobody behaved worse than SnakeSpirit, who got himself in hot water in the first place by calling a couple of people asses in GD. Once you start alienating people that way, you don’t have much of a chance, and of course they’re going to be more hostile to you in debates.
I think the jerk humiliated himself more than anybody else humiliated him.
‘Straw man’, while accurate, may be a bit harsh and unexplanatory for the discussion I’m trying to have. Let’s say, instead, that it remains a thought-experiment, which is useful for provoking discussion, but is not capable of being chosen as a valid truth, simply as an unproved assertion.
Yes. Much better.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yes. Dysfunctional posting behavior. What do you do? What’s constructive and what’s not? These are the questions being asked here.
Anyone who takes the “paranormal” side here experiences the same thing to some degree. Derision, mockery, etc. Although SnakeSpirit is the poster child of how not to respond to such treatment, that doesn’t change the fact that the treatment is still unacceptable.
You dodged again. Is humiliation on the board of those with whom we disagree or who themselves have behaved poorly a proper behavior for posters to engage in?
Do you have a straight answer?