so one person is a really shitty person, and the other is dumb, and you think the dumb person deserves to be punished? How does this work?
The part where you make a real distinction.
I do.
And that makes it all better. :rolleyes:
What the hell are you on? It never was.
He was a person who was very likely in a low emotional state, who got taken advantage of by someone who knows how to exploit human emotion, got taken in by a few very convincing cold readings. If he asked about the ‘only for entertainment purposes’ I’m sure the psychic had a prepared spiel about how the interfering government makes them display that - assuming they saw it at all. After all, remember how small the disclaimer was on the ‘Miss Cleo’ ads on TV?
I know folks who do…although they usually don’t wait for the movie to finish.
No. And quite frankly the comparison is ludicrous.
Ok, stupid people should not be held accountable for their actions. It’s somebody else’s fault. Got it.
How is it ludicrous? It seems spot on to me. If I were to go to a magic show thinking it’s real, find out it isn’t, then attempt to have the magician arrested for fraud, I think it’s safe to say I’d be the World’s Biggest Laughingstock. Why is it any different with a psychic?
Nice strawman you just raped there. Feel good now?
Yes. It seems spot on, to you.
:dubious: This isn’t what you’ve been saying? That the idiot deserves his money back, regardless of the fact this his own stupid actions got him into his predicament, because the psychic “scammed” him?
So are you going to enlighten me by answering the question?
Not in the least. You state that I think that fools should never be responsible for their actions. That is wrong, and thus a completely absurd strawman of my positions. They certainly should be responsible. But when they are taken advantage of by conman predators posing as ‘psychics’ there are certainly other factors involved.
I know the limits of my explaining abilities. I cannot teach a 5 year old very much nuclear engineering. Concurrently I cannot explain to a person who make comparisons that are beyond twisted why they are wrong…but I will try.
There is a large, mayhap a majority of people who think psychics, or at least some psychics are real. A few cold readings could even convince them if they were slightly skeptical. In the real world, critical thinking is in short supply, especially with regards to human interaction.
By comparison, I would think very very few people, almost none in fact, think a magicians stage show is anything other than trickery. If you ask a magician they might not tell you their tricks (in fact - probably won’t) but will often state that it is a trick and their own skills (there are a couple of exceptions to this, I know). Ask a psychic and you’ll probably get more babble about their powers, etc. If magician’s shows have disclaimers then a magician confronted will embrace it “this is entertainment”. By comparison a psychic will distance themselves from their disclaimers (“Oh the government makes me put that thing up - but you’ve seen my powers in action, yes?”).
Ergo ‘spot on’ is not the phrase I would use to describe this comparison. Diametrically opposed might be closer.
Furthermore, even if your claims were true, the comparison still fails. A magician doing a show only took you for the cost of the ticket. If the psychic only took, say the reasonable cost of a ‘palm reading’ I’d say the idiot is out that small amount of money. But when psychics start taking advantage and asking for larger sums of money for one thing or another (usually getting rid of variation of ‘bad vibes’) then they enter the realm of fraud and are no better than an exterminator who tries to sell you on protection package for an insect species that doesn’t exists, or a mechanic who claims you need to spend thousands on car parts replaced that are perfectly fine.
Get it now?
You’re making a great many assumptions about psychics as a whole – including the assertion that they will go out of their way to prove the opposite of their entertainment only disclosure. I don’t know this psychic, but I won’t assume that she lied about being an entertainer.
How can there be a “reasonable cost” for something you define as fraud?
Both examples are of individuals knowingly and outright lying to make profit. You can’t say the same of this psychic. She offered entertainment, this guy paid for it, and now isn’t happy with the quality of it.
“Get it now?” :rolleyes:
I’d say her success in convincing him to fork over so much money is pretty good evidence that she knew that he didn’t believe it was just entertainment, and at least lied by omission by not correcting this assumption. I mean really, even if he was hiring her non-stop for the entire seven weeks, that’s still $130 an hour, every hour.
I’m glad james Randi is alive to see this. I wish all psychics would be convicted of fraud. Then they would go out of business and the world would be a better place. yes, I am serious.
No point in expanding upon what Grumman has already stated. The request for such large amounts of money pretty much makes. You are cutting the psychic way too much slack here for no good reason.
I’m not happy with ‘psychics’ taking any amount of money. But there is a definite line between taken $20 for a palm reading and paying thousands for the repair of nameless psychic maladies.
The point sailed over your head. A magician gives us feats of skill and technique that impress us. He charges an admission fee to see his skill in action. That is a fair exchange and no more lying than an actor in a play.
By comparison, a psychic pretends to know things about you using various tricks. It can be harmless at a low level, but the relationship between a psychic and a client can be much closer than one might have with a therapist. That kind of relationship can be taken advantage of, and that is what happened here. It has happened to a lot of folks, sadly.
What she offered was way out of bounds of entertainment. Sorry if you can’t see that but the law has been pretty clear in past about such bounds.
No.
Just out of interest, tell me what you think “critical thinking” actually means.
I’ll bet you’re wrong.
Wrong.
There are a large number of stage magicians who perform magic tricks, and tell their audience that what they do is real.
One example of such is James Randi, your god.
See for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0H0r2Xqlgs
Randi presents this as an escape from a straitjacket, but that’s a lie. He’s actually a magician performing a conjuring trick. It’s an illusion. What you think you see isn’t really happening. He couldn’t actually get out of a real straitjacket.
I’ll bet you thought it was real. You always believe whatever Randi tells you.
Calm down, sir. 
Ah, the other Peter Morris is here.
I knew that was going to happen.
Do you have evidence that it’s not a real straitjacket? Even if it isn’t a real straitjacket, there’s a big difference between pretending you’re unusually flexible and pretending you have magic voodoo powers.
We’re in MPSIMS here, not Great Debates, so everybody is strongly advised to tone down the rhetoric and not make this personal.
I’m an amateur conjuror myself, and I know where I could buy a fake straightjacket where I could perform a trick identical to Randi’s. If he’s using a real one, he’s doing it the hard way.
In the first place, if you read my post, you’ll see that is pretty much the same point I made. Miskatonic said *“By comparison, I would think very very few people, almost none in fact, think a magicians stage show is anything other than trickery.” * and I disagreed with him.
Secondly, I do not believe that anyone is that flexible. I think that what Randi claims to do is actually beyond the bounds of the possible. I think it would be a paranormal feat if he can do it. Maybe he ought to apply for his own prize.
Back on topic, the question seems to be; are people responsible for their own bad choices? Obviously, no one forced him to give the money. Then again, he gave it under false pretenses. No one has a curse on them etc.
How responsible is society for peoples mistakes?
Depends. I don’t think society is responsible for the money in the sense that society pays the bill (i.e. taxpayers dollars, etc) but I do feel society has an obligation to go after elements that are basically scamming people out of money and get the money back from them.
Yes this guy is an idiot. We’ve all said that. But that being said let us not make it harder for people who have made mistakes to come forward. Silence of the embarrassed is the scammers best tools. It gives them free reign to continue their ways with little opposition.
There are limits, however. I don’t think we should be going to war with Nigeria because a bankers fell for their email scams, but the police & DA doing their duty in enforcing the theft by deception rules should be a minimum.
No, you weren’t, because demonstrations of skill of this sort have nothing to do with the sort of magic tricks Miskatonic was talking about, even if they’re performed by the same people.
Do you even know what that word means? Your argument from incredulity aside, a man being flexible enough to escape from a real straitjacket isn’t in violation of the laws of science as we know it. It just means the guy is more flexible than most people.