I could show quite a few unflattering articles about Randi’s controversies but I feel his supporters insist that the fact that the challenge existed was the end all be all. In and of itself.

When one must realize that Randi’s big claim to fame was the million dollar challenge and without that he had nothing.

Critical thinking should tell you quite simply that JREF’s donations required appealing to skeptics. If Randi went to bat for anything that seemed supernatural his fans would turn on him, and if his big claim to fame was an unwinnable contest then his bread and butter demanded that he never allowed the contest to be won.

It’s that simple.

Now one could say that he’d get famous and rich for confirming Magick exists but… why would he? The papers would talk about the psychic not the foundation and further studies couldn’t be done at JREF because it wasn’t a scientific research facility and James had no training in science at all…

It merely had people who were trained to look out for things like cold reading and the like.

There’s nothing to gain and everything to lose and the fact that 99% of people who applied to challenge were turned down and 0% of those who did even got past so much as a preliminary round. Well it’s a little sus.

Now I’m not saying magic is out there and JREF is hiding it. If it were then JREF wouldn’t have the means to hide it.

What I am saying is JREF and James Randi were not scientists they were showmen and that’s very important to keep in mind.

Sharing The idea that you can debunk a phenomenon by yelling “FAKE!” And doing a smug dance is something that offers more harm than good imho. Especially when you get people like Anti-Vaxxers who Mimic this behavior though rallying against medicine instead of faith and folklore.

I can get unbanned by using a VPN? I heard those get shadowbanned

Yeah but Apple really is a fuck.

Fuck Apple. Fuck Epic too but one thing at a time.

I prefer… Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced

Never seen it and I’m just using ubo

UBlockOrigim

Ah yes James Randi, a man I have very mixed feelings on. He was a climate skeptic who would claim to have debunked people who never signed up for his challenge. A real scum bag in general. He was also a high School drop out with no training in the sciences.

Admittedly he called himself an “Honest Liar” and was motivated not by money but out of fear that people believed he had magic back when he was a magician.

Still given his character I tend not to take JREF too seriously.

Bro you didn’t make up that word. You heard it on an episode of Always Sunny and forgot. I’d say it but honestly it’s so close to a racial slur that I’d rather not risk it.

You have said it before, it was the last thing you said to Brian before he went out that night and… well I can sense there’s a lot of unresolved drama there so I’ll stop talking now

Anyway don’t worry about Brian, in the great hereafter he became really good at Sudoku and is considering reincarnation on a planet in the Crab nebula. Interesting choice considering the people of that world are all female. Humanity won’t discover them for about two weeks but first contact will be surprisingly underwhelming

Naw I’m messing with you. This was all stream of conciousness… but maybe I freaked someone out who thought I was serious.

When I used to be New Age I believed that not believing in magic gave you a resistance to it because Quantum…

Accepting the truth that magic ain’t real was tough

Okay but that’s worse. You do see how that’s worse right?

Indeed. My dream internet is anonymous

Reddit can tell when I make an alternate account to get around a bullshit site wide ban but not when a robot is pretending that they took his wife in the divorce?

What the actual fuck?

I stopped using it when I asked who I was and then it said I was a prolific author then proceeded to name various books I absolutely did not write.

I legitimately thought this was satire.

I will admit to not liking Paper Straws since last I used one it just melted in my drink. Been meaning to invest in a reusable straw to avoid plastic but not use paper.

Because Dark Souls made money