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Uri Geller Accused of Bending Copyright Law
JagsLive writes in with a Fox News report about Uri Geller's apparently playing fast and loose with copyright law in order to silence his detractors. "'All it takes is a single e-mail to completely censor someone on the Internet,' said Jason Schultz, a lawyer for the online civil rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing Geller over an unflattering clip posted on YouTube for which he claimed a copyright ownership."
I think this is a dupe of a story from a few weeks ago but I read them both.
Nothing's wrong with entertaining people. But suing people over it is just being a fucktard. I read both articles, nothing's changed, he's still a fucktard. Hey, I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
he should have seen that one coming.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There is no spoon.
Maybe someone could sue him because of using fake rolex watches he bends.
but if you bend it with your mind, Uri will come for you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Abuse of the DMCA through fraudulent takedown notices should result in no less of a penalty than an actual violation of copyright. If a copyright owner can collect $150K per instance of copyright violation, then someone who fraudulently claims copyright on an item they do not in fact have a copyright on should be up against the same penalty.
Nobody would've cared 'bout the clip if Mr. Geller didn't make it popular this way...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I suppose this is a bit of a shallow comment, but I love the Internet because when people do abusive things like Uri Geller and his unwarranted Youtube video removals, mass media will never/barely cover it. However the masses of the internet can show everyone what a tool Geller and others really are.
Indeed, let's let people have all their new, demonstrably false religions so that maybe in a thousand or so years we can have yet more groups of irrational zealots doing violence on unbelievers. Ignorance isn't a good thing, whether it's in you, your next-door neighbor or some poor douchebag on the other side of the planet.
The difference is that true magicians admit they're illusionists. Part of the contract with their audience is that they will fool them and that the audience will try to figure out their tricks. Geller does not claim to be a magician. He claims to actually do what he appears to be doing with the power of his mind.
One solution that exists in the RIAA versus filesharer cases is that the RIAA has to provide a copyright registration certificate proving ownership of a song before they can proceed in court. Internet takedown notices should also require a certificate of copyright registration to accompany them. This one small step alone would likely stop 98% of the takedowns requested. While copyright itself does not require registration, if you don't care enough to register it, you shouldn't care enough to try to take it down afterwards.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
End transmission.
"You must realize the truth. There *is* no Copyright law."
-- Subvert the dominant paradigm. Repeat as desired. http://ownlifeful.com/
Looks like instead of the spoon, it's Uri that will be bent. Too bad he won't go to jail, I'd like to see him 'bend' out of that one =)
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
From: TheBoss@itatlanbistro.org
...permanently.
To: HammerHank@shadybar.com
I need to have someone's lines cut,
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Geller does not claim to be a magician, he claims to actually posses mental powers. While many of us know this is silly, many people believe it, and are victimized because of it.
Oh, bullshit. If he actually owned the copyright, could demonsrate said ownership and evade the issue of "fair use," THEN I (a supporter of copyright in principle, but a believer that current law is way out of whack) would support Uri Geller. Since I believe that even if he does own the copyright in question, an 8-second clip being used as a demonstration of a hypothesis is, by definition, "fair use," I can believe in copyright and still call Geller out as a douche who is attempting to use misinterpreted (being generous) copyright law as a hammer against his critics.
No I mustn't. I can support fair use of small clips for things such as bonafide criticism of a performance. It is completely consistent with my stance on copyright to deride Geller's use of DMCA to muzzle those who would expose his methods. The case in point concerns 8 SECONDS of video. I call that fair use, consistent with my support of copyright law.
Just because you say it's so, don't make it so.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
It's funny. Some "psychics" genuinely seem to believe in their own "powers", apparently mistaking intuition and cold reading skills for ESP. But Geller is different. Not only is he a fraud, he knows he's a fraud. If Geller really believed in his "powers", he'd be trying to demonstrate them in laboratory conditions, if only to embarrass James Randi. But he doesn't believe in his "ability", so he lies and sues people, and thanks to his attempted censorship of this expose, more and more people have learned about his deceit.
What a sad way to live your life. All your achievements are fabrications, and you know that it's only a matter of time before even your most deranged fans realise they've been tricked. Where do you go from there? What are the job options for a notoriously fraudulent spoon bender?
Copyright law is pretty much designed to cause this sort of idiocy.
Re the ease of censoring on the net- It is quite scary how easily controlled most people's internet access (including my own, really) could be. People often think the internet is this robust, uncensorable system, because of old stories about being "designed to withstand a nuclear attack" and all that. That kind of applied when most network nodes were in universities and research labs, who were owner/operators of routing nodes with peering agreements with eachother. Nowadays, the vast majority of people on the internet are "edge nodes", connected to a single corporate ISP. So it's basically degenerated to a star/tree topology at the "home" level. No longer resistant to control, in fact facilitating control by establishing choke points. Blind, complacent faith in the "power" of the internet to "interpret censorship as damage and route around it" as the adage used to go, when that power is being neutered further with each upgrade cycle and your own only routing consists of sending stuff upstream on your sole connection to your sole ISP, is probably not a good idea. What can one do? Learn about wireless mesh networking fast I guess...
Choice of masters is not freedom.
While many of us know this is silly, many people believe it, and are victimized because of it.
They are victims of their own faith. It doesn't matter who the huckster is. Just like people who buy from spammers are victims of nothing more than their own greed. They get no sympathy from me.
What?
He is using copyright as an excuse, he is not interested in distributing the video himself. He was just caught cheating in front of the camera and wants to clean all evidence.
Dude, get off your high horse. Everyone comes in to this world knowing exactly jack and shit. All a brain is is some tissue on the end of a stick, once I realized that I found that I have nothing but sympathy for every creature who has to figure out this world with only that as their tool.
Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
And when the huckster is a politician, we all become the victims. Promoting critical thought matters, even if the individual examples can sometimes seem trivial.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
He's a genuine magician alright. If you're taken in by his "magic", your wallet disappears. What's the bet the money doesn't actually disappear though but ends up contributing to Uri's lifestyle.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Excellent, I have a new hero! James Randi!!
e lated&search=
e lated&search=
James Randi exposes Uri Geller and Peter Popoff (Faith Healer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9w7jHYriFo&mode=r
James Randi exposes James Hydrick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlfMsZwr8rc&mode=r
There are many, many more debunkings (sp?) by this fine man. Just search YouTube for 'James Randi'.
SD
The problem is that most people DON'T try to figure out this world with their brain. They look around themselves and find the world is a confusing place, so they don't think about it - they refuse to think analytically about anything, they just develop through trial-and-error a set of reactions to various situations that gets them through almost anything. Then they cruise through life, without a reasoned or complete worldview, just waiting for the weekends so they can get drunk and think even less.
ResidntGeek
IANAL by I know people are allowed to copy a small percentage for fair use. 8 seconds in 13 minutes sounds like it would fall within that margin.
Promoting critical thought matters...
That's my point. These people fall for this because they don't think critically. They want to believe, no matter how absurd the "product". Politicians are huckster because it works. If it didn't, they would be honest, but that's not what the voters want. They want tax cuts and entitlements. Those who promises those things, regardless of their real intent, will win. That is not the fault of the huckster. Adam and Eve were sinners, not victims. I say let the devil run loose. He can't do a thing without our help. Resisting temptation is our responsibility and nobody else's. And it is our responsibility to teach our children to resist. Don't ever expect the hucksters to "police themselves". And don't think for a second that legislation against tempting people will ever work. Critical thinking is indeed the key, but conditioned reflex is more likely to rule the day.
What?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I find it funny when the term fraud and magic are in the same sentence. I might be a little fuzzy on the exact legal definition of fraud. But people know magic is fake, and that it's an illusion done for entertainment. No magician is fraudulent unless he is specifically saying "yes I am REALLY doing this, not faking it" even then people would see it as part of the gimmick.
I thought fraud was designed for people who are trying to do something counter to what they said, when no concept of "for entertainment purposes" is implied.
Just ONE?
Pffft
They don't have to get rid of everything. Just the stuff critical of Uri Geller.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Never heard of this guy before. What I know now is:
... wait, I know! He is Bender!
- he bends metal
- he is annoying
- he is con-artist
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Ooh, I was almost with you up until that part.
Most people don't refuse to think analytically. They've just never learned, and their life experiences have not yet shown them the value of acquiring that skill. (Public schools tend to do that.)
Assuming a condescending tone about the Great Unwashed shows, if anything, a lack of analytic thought about the factors that lead to an individual's ability for rational thought, or at least a lack of applying that thought to one's own life. While there are certainly some people (and, in my experience, a terribly small few) who have the ability for reasoned, analytic thought and actually refuse to use it when it would benefit themselves and others, they are vastly outnumbered by people who see no value in that ability which they lack, and may never have the experiences which lead individuals to see that value. Why condemn another based on the intelligence with which fate has bestowed them?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
Just hope that some people had a bit more luck in not being deceived...
I have a question: Does this statement apply to religion?
If not, why not?
Does your explanation of "why not" apply to Geller, also?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
And why does this bother you? You and all other slashdotters can sit there in your almighty knowing worlds and look down on the common man who believes in religion, magic or whatever.
Stop trying to change people.
I don't think refuse is too strong a word at all. Most people aren't presented with an actual choice to think or not, but when they are they usually do actively refuse. Example: At work just a few days ago I got drawn into a political/religious discussion with a few people of probably average intelligence, and when two of them said they "didn't believe" in evolution simply because they didn't think we evolved from apes, we had quite a discussion about it. I tried several ways to break it down and figure out which part of the theory they didn't believe, or why they didn't believe it, or whether they distrusted the scientific method in general, and every time both of them very carefully avoided thinking about my points or explaining their position - every time they came to a point where a stock answer they'd read somewhere or heard in a sermon failed they brought it back to "well, I just don't think we came from apes, it's my belief."
I went to Catholic school for 13 years, and several times per day we were reminded of the mysteries of the Trinity and whatnot that we couldn't understand, so we weren't to try. We learned about all the "heretics" who managed to formulate the Church's teachings into something coherent and were sentenced to an eternity in hell. I still hear those things at church every week. This is the religion of a sixth of the world's population.
50% of the population has above-average intelligence. There aren't many people who are genuinely incapable of understanding the world, but there are many who don't bother to try.
ResidntGeek
Individual acts of stupidity and ignorance don't hurt, but collectively they do. You're right that I shouldn't care that a single person believes in magic or religion, but I do care if everyone does. Think globally, act locally.
And I don't change people. I explain myself; they choose to change if they wish.
ResidntGeek
this ass clown is getting tons of free publicity.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Does anyone else find it strange that a /. reader was also reading Fox News?
(Score:1, Flamebait)
:-)
Oopsy-daisy. Looks like I offended a purchaser of Dr. Richard Cranium's "performance enhancer". Hope you got your money's worth
What?
I wonder why you'd get into such a discussion at work. But then, your work environment would be a pretty alien place (I work in informatics with a bunch of university professors...)
Beside the point though. Man didn't "evolve from apes."
Man and Ape have a common ancestor, and the divergence was very, very long ago - probably 8 million years ago.
Phylogenists do not put forth the claim that "man evolved from apes."
Hey I went to Catholic school too -- an abbey school staffed by Cistercian monks who were among the last people to leave Hungary before the Russians took over. It was at this school, in a science course taught by a Hungarian Catholic monk, that I first heard the details of evolution explained in a proper way with respect to the prevailing theories and the scientific method.
>50% of the population has above-average intelligence.
That might make a good bumper sticker, but it's not a realistic or reasonable way of looking at the curve.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...and several times per day we were reminded of the mysteries of the Trinity and whatnot that we couldn't understand, so we weren't to try.
One of the beauties of life and death(and sausage) is the mystery. I used to enjoy movies and television much more before I got into the business and learned how it was done. Now I notice or am distracted by every flash frame and boom mic in the shot.
There aren't many people who are genuinely incapable of understanding the world, but there are many who don't bother to try.
As long as the bills are paid and there's beer in the fridge and the can is open when she brings it to you, it probably won't make the todo list. I mean, like, what else is there?
What?
Why not? Intelligence is normally distributed, isn't it? The mean and median should be close enough as makes no difference.
ResidntGeek
I'm not denying that ignorance is bliss - but that only works for an individual. If all of mankind were blissfully ignorant we'd lack many happiness-inducing inventions like heat and the Grateful Dead.
By the way, why can't you enjoy movies? I know how they're made, and I still enjoy them. Are you watching good movies, or movies like Titanic and 300?
ResidntGeek
Man and Ape have a common ancestor, and the divergence was very, very long ago - probably 8 million years ago.
You mean we're just a fork? Which one are we? XFree? or Xorg?
What?
He claims to actually do what he appears to be doing with the power of his mind.
I wonder whatever happened to the online challange from a few years back where a live webcam was locked into a safe with something else. The challange was to move things in the locked safe with the mind.
I haven't heard anything about it in years. I don't think anybody moved anything in the safe.
It is a kind of put up or shut up challange.
The truth shall set you free!
And I don't change people. I explain myself; they choose to change if they wish.
Right on, but unfortunately, you reminded me of this:
How many Psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb ?
- Just one. But the bulb has to really WANT to change.
What?
there is no fork.
...without a reasoned or complete worldview... No one has a reasonable or complete world view. I'm betting that right now there is a bit of information about the Universe out there that will completely change everything we think the Universe is when we discover it.
...just waiting for the weekends so they can get drunk and think even less. Isn't that what weekends are for?Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There is no copyright law.
There is only greed.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
ResidntGeek
Taking your ideas on is fine. But how do you feel if someone takes something you wrote, changes the byline (and nothing else) and posts it as their own? That would be perfectly ok with you because it would demonstrate how much they totally agree with you?
Heat?
Nature supplies plenty of that all year long. Now if you had said "cooking"...well...let's eat! By far man's greatest invention ever.
Gateful Dead?!
You know what the dead heads said when they ran out of weed?
- Man! These guys suck!
Yeah, ok bad joke.
I still enjoy movies a lot. I just became much more critical of technical issues. It's a bit of a distraction from the story. Funny thing about Titanic. I saw A Night to Remember a few months ago, and I thought most of the effects were every bit as good as in the "new" one. The acting certainly was. I came to the conclusion that color and "talkies" are the only real innovations experienced by the industry. From the point of view of the audience anyway. In all these new movies with "big sound" one of the most annoying things is the loud soundtrack along with barely audible dialog. First I'm deafened by the music and then can't hear what's being said. Damn theaters is like being trapped inside a boom box.
What's 300?
Back on topic, kinda:
I don't have a problem with those who choose to remain ignorant, as long as, and this is important, they mind their own business. It's when they start to meddle in the affairs of others that I'll put a boot up their arse.
What?
And why does this bother you? You and all other slashdotters can sit there in your almighty knowing worlds and look down on the common man who believes in religion, magic or whatever.
Ok, I will.
Seriously though, we don't like seeing people conned out of their money. And honestly, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I'd like the human race to go somewhere special. This kind of ridiculousness is holding our species back from a higher, more important existence.
As we all know, NO ONE can do that. The law is definitely unmalleable in this regard.
Fake Rolex watches, OTOH, want to be free.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Use a food analogy! Cheese and cake. Both had milk as a common ancestor, at some point there was a divergence. Milk became cheese and milk became cake, but cheese did not go into the cake. Unless you're making, like.. cheesecake, but it's best not to bring that up.
Exposing Uri Geller's spoon bending as fake is like exposing Pamela Anderson's breasts as fake. What's the point? It spoils the fun, and those who still think it's real aren't going to be convinced anyway.
Sorry, you're thinking of the spoon. There IS, in fact, a fork; there's a butter knife, too.
My sig can beat up your sig.
I might disagree: on some level, human beings have an innate ability for "analysis," it's just not "analysis" as we've been conditioned by an increasing level of abstraction in the public sphere since the printing press allowed us to record ideas and disseminate them widely - and others to build upon that, and so forth. Even a toddler learns to manipulate his or her environment using tools - which requires analysis. It isn't the same sort of analysis that we harness through SPSS, or the sort that an attorney might when considering a brief - it's more basic, but it is a critical evolutionary development without which we might not have automobiles, computers, McDonalds, rubber dog poo, and all the other accoutrements of civilization.
OTOH, I might be inclined to agree with you that the public school system - with coddling parents playing an equal or greater role - might cause many to "unlearn" many of the analytical skills that they build in childhood as they learn to navigate the world.
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
So the fact that the majority of Americans believe in a higher power hurts America? I fail to see the reasoning in that. Even if you don't believe in a god I fail to see how you are hurt by others who do. You might be annoyed, you might have to put up with people talking about it, you might even have to put up with your politicians making laws based on it.
k / - More than 90% of American adults believe in some religious deity.
I don't understand how following a religion is an act of "stupidiy or ignorance". It's a choice that most people have made and are happy with it. While I happen to not be religious, I believe it is significant when more than 90% choose to be. It doesn't hurt me at all, it doesn't even bother me.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17879317/site/newswee
My understanding is that we are more closely related (ie split off later) to chimps than chimps are to other
great apes which would make our common ancestor an ape unless one goes in for special pleading. Not a currently living ape but an ape nonetheless.
It doesn't even take thousands of years. Look at Mormonism. The entire Book of Mormon is forced into the realm of utter nonsense via simple DNA testing.
Unfortunately religious canon is like prophetic quatrains. Just say some vague things and interpret them post facto, or says very specific things but deny they were meant to be so specific. Then forget all the blatantly false.
It isn't a basic assumption that belief in higher power hurts the group. It's the idea held by some that they will suffer for the transgressions of others. It isn't a form even of simple religious intolerance they may often not care what deity you worship so long as you *act* as they do so as not to inspire the wrath of their god for allowing such things to happen around them and not acting. In some ways the statement 'Evil prospers when good men do nothing' can inspire a few more zealotish types to try to enforce their beliefs on the group to cause the hurt to the group.
Actually I'll disagree about people being unable to think logically or analytically, seein' as basically it's a built in mechanism.
That's how even learn to speak or function in the first years of your life. A baby has to, pretty much, reverse engineer speech and their own larynx and facial muscles, and do a lot of trial and error experimentation, to even start to speak.
Ok, let's say maybe that's a subconscious process, but then so is a lot of what we call "intuition" or, basically, how "Eureka!" moments work. There's a lot of processing in there that's really analytical thought, even if it doesn't happen in words.
At any rate, even later, logical and analytical thought are a part of your every day life. I've yet to meet anyone who was literally unable of it. You'd know them, because they'd be the guys who can't figure out how to work a lot of the every day items around them without being explained how to, every time they forgot or meet a new one. (Though it must be also said that it seems to be a somewhat common female syndrome to _pretend_ to be unable to do even the most trivial tasks, so the male knight in shiny armour has to come to the rescue. Think of it as trolling for attention, though, not as being genuinely unable to figure out where the USB cable from the camera goes.) And if someone was unable to follow simple "cause => consequence" logic, which is what some of the more illogical beliefs boil to, then they'd also be unable to solve such problems as "how do I turn the light on?"
Yes, there are _some_ such people, but they're a tiny minority. They're called retards. We're not even talking "less than average intelligence", we're talking the ones who get to be adults and (due to some brain disease or defect) still stuck at the mental level of a 2 year old or even worse.
Everyone else _is_ doing logical and analytical thought every day, even if they don't know fancy words for it. Believe it or not, you don't _need_ fancy lessons to do logic and solve problems in your head. Formal logic didn't teach people how to do it, it just reverse-engineered something that people were doing all the time anyway.
When people do appear illogical or unable of problem-solving is when, basically, they're not sincere (often even to themselves) about what problem they solve or about what axioms they use. They start from what they really want, solve that, then solve the extra problem of what acceptable excuse to use. When you see people string a bunch of fallacies to reach some utterly illogical conclusion, that's your clue that that's what's really at work: they're not telling you the _real_ problem they're trying to solve, or the _real_ criteria they're applying there.
People solve problems every day like "I want to have some power over you", "I want a status symbol", "I want to feel like I'm smarter than you all" (a nerd favourite), "I'm lazy and I want to work less" or "I want a bigger slice of the pie, fairness be damned." So they arrive at something that solves that problem, like, say "ok, so I'm buying a car with a wing, and you can freakin' keep taking the bus." But they can't tell you the real reason, or sometimes they can't even tell themselves the real reason. So now they have to work backwards to some reason why they objectively need an expensive car with a wing. If there is no real logic (that they can admit) that will reach the pre-defined "I need an expensive car with a wing" conclusion, then they'll have to string some fallacies to get there.
That's, in a nutshell, how people manage to look illogical, in spite of having a brain wired for logic.
Block-headed religiousness is just a particular case of that. People start from, basically, "death is scary and I need some way to think it won't _really_ happen" or "it's too depressing to think all this is my responsibility and fault, I need someone else who's responsible for my life" or even "dammit, I'm an insignificant loser, I wish I could feel like I'm someone really important, like saving the whole world
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
On a lower level, religion is harmful since it massively influences how we (i.e. too many of us) think and live as a society, what is allowed and accepted and what not. This leads, for example, to rigid bans of natural and healthy ways to develop and practice a natural and sane sexuality, especially in America, with laws allowing the police to prosecute and arrest children for simply touching each other.
In a similar way, it makes us adhere to inhumane, archaic forms of work ethic, keeping us thinking in ways like "only one who works should eat", while modern economy needs less and less manpower to produce what is needed, more and more expanding the armies of "useless" people, on whose poverty the kings of economy feed, whose accumulated riches are getting more and more obscene, and astoundingly small numbers of people thinking wrong of it.
On a still lower level, the system of religion and the principle of belief are inherently harmful, because they brainwash people into an unnatural readiness to accept things without questioning, well serving also the political system and its governments. And since religion is a mass phenomenon, the effects are vast.
Why should any magician adhere to any such rule ? Especially ones which prevent them pointing out how other magicians are conning people out of their money by claiming to be something which they're not.
I'm sure a lot of Uri Geller type magicians would prefer not to have their scams uncovered but one of the first rules of life is not to allow parasites the freedom to feed off your fellow humans.
I think you've just answered your own question there really.
If I'm going to have to put up with people making laws which govern my life based on their whacked out beliefs in some man with a beard then I'm perfectly within my rights to point out what a stupid , stupid, stupid thing religion is and do what I can to prevent idiotic belief systems interfering with my otherwise logical and scientifically controlled life.
Further to this if you may have noticed a certain number of irritating religiously motivated terrorists making themselves heard lately, this is one clear method through which other peoples religious beliefs ae interfering with my life.
The motion to dismiss Geller's bad suit cites "Gregerson v. Vilana", a defamation/copyright lawsuit I'm a party to (I'm the Plaintiff, Gregerson). www.eff.org/legal/cases/sapient_v_geller/sapient_m otiontodismiss.pdf.
It's cited as a minor point in the memorandum on page 22, about fair use being an affirmative defense versus a basis for dismissal.
My case is described on my page:
Gregerson v. Vilana
www.cgstock.com
Despite your best efforts, your analysis is wrong.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
When you chase a dream, especially one with plastic chests, you sometimes do not see what is right in front of you.
Well, then you're still including folks like Uri Geller in the unethical category then.
1. Uri Geller himself claims that he has been employed by some companies to dowse for minerals or oil, though none actually admitted it. I'm sorry, but if that's true, that's _exactly_ fraud. He's taken some money for a service he can't provide, and based on some qualifications which are bogus.
2. There is a lot of damage done even indirectly in claiming to actually have psychic powers or being able to see into the future, for example by convincing people to lose their money on predictions and courses of action which don't work.
E.g., Uri Geller himself often tells people on what sports teams to bet, but it turns out most of the time his picks lose. E.g., dowsing, in addition to the money actually taken for providing that bogus service, usually results in a company wasting a lot of money to actually drill there. The whole buying the rights, hauling the equipment there, salaries, etc, adds up to a fair sum.
And while in this case it just boils down to money and faceless corporations, so I can imagine some people wouldn't feel much empathy there, but other quacks cause a lot more damage to normal people like you and me. E.g., psychic healers and the like routinely tell people to stop taking medicine, and are responsible for quite a few deaths. There have been even cases where some psychic or "holistic" healer quack told even people with _cancer_ to not have an operation, not take medicine, and ffs not even take the pain killers. So the they effectively have on their conscience (that is, if they had a conscience) causing someone to die in horrible pain over several months. How's that for damage done?
Way I see it, even if it's not done for money, convincing people to do harm to themselves is still morally wrong. And society as a whole already decided that the worst cases of it should be illegal. E.g., entrapment is not just morally wrong, but legally wrong too. E.g., claiming to be a medical doctor without a diploma is illegal in most places. Etc.
I don't have a problem there with those who admit they're just doing entertainment tricks, because then the audience knows it's just entertainment and won't base their RL decisions on it. E.g., not many people go and stake someone because they just saw a vampire movie. But claiming such powers to be real and giving people advice from a position of knowledgeable authority is an entirely different thing.
3. A lot of the charlatans claiming powers and secret knowledge are busy overtly attacking science and the scientific method, to make it easier for themselves to get their credentials accepted. This causes society as a whole a lot more harm than you'd think. If nothing else, by making more people susceptible to be harmed by the con artists from points 1 and 2.
But then that's the happy case, if only that was the damage done. It often causes people in positions of power and responsibility to put their funding and support in the quack camp, instead of doing some real science. When I hear stuff like corporations using numerology to thin the candidates pool, or using dowsing to find out where to drill next, that's not just directly X money which could be used on a more scientific approach and maybe discover something. That's also indication of a state of mind of trusting quacks over scientists, and I just don't see that company investing in scientific research the rest of the time.
To get back to Uri Geller, again, that's what he actively does all the time. To establish his credentials as the uber-psychic, he _has_ to attack the normal science, and that he does plenty.
So basically, to wrap this long rant up, there is no such thing as merely "hard" and "soft" psychics. "Hard" in that case invariably means a con artist who, directly or indirectly, does actual harm and is morally reprehensible in doing so. The question isn't just whether they bluff about their actual talents, but what actual harm they do based on that claim, or to support that claim.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Gag me with a spoon!"
Geller needs to get a life. Seriously.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
He harasses newspapers too.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Yes, I see no input devices tag here.
(IANAL)
You might be annoyed, you might have to put up with people talking about it, you might even have to put up with your politicians making laws based on it.
You might have to put up with politicians going to war because of it too.
You guys can believe whatever you want; just don't drag my country down with you.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
No one needs a damn 'complete' worldview in the first place. They need a reasonable worldview that is consistent with the facts, but they don't need to know about quantum mechanics or the causes of gravity or how airflow around a wing generates lift or anything like that.
Part of the worldview they must have, however, and one that schools seem loathe to teach, is knowledge of the scientific method and how it works, so they don't believe in crap like Uri Geller and his spoon bending. They don't even need to know why his claims are impossible (Hell, I don't even know if they are impossible according the laws of physics as we understand them.), but they need to know why there is a very good reason to disbelieve them unless they are tested in specific ways, which he refuses to do.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Ever heard of it? You are blaming people's character rather than their circumstances. That's usually wrong. Not only that, but it's usually just an excuse to brag about one's own character, which is another example of the same damn logical error.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The anti-evolution thing is just a soft target for anti-intellectuals in radical Christian churches and an offshoot loosely connected to Christianity. They were against educated clergy before and their new target is the educated secular authority figures. It's really just politics. People may dispute my use of the word radical - but remember that is not always necessarily a bad thing according to the dictionary definition. These churches, groups and occasionally businesses like to use the word "conservative" instead even when they are quite radical.
All words are "made up."
"Inculcate" was made up in the 1500's.
Not to be taken as defense of anyone's opinions.
Here's your sig.
Does the Pokemon use real psychic powers or pretend ones?
If it has real powers, I don't see what he's basing his lawsuit on, it's nothing like him.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
you can go straight to hell.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
I was temporarily hosting a video clip from a British hidden camera type show where you can clearly see Uri bending a spoon with his hands when he thought nobody was looking.
I got a cease and desist letter from his lawyer. It is one of my most cherished possessions.
I have plenty of karma to burn going offtopic. (See my Mr. Burns signature.)
But I think you're wrong about most people agreeing with this statement. It helps sometimes if you target something specific -- for example, my father might agree if I used it to apply to Christianity, since he's a Jew and finds much of Christian philosophy to be stupid and inconsistent.
But the reality is, we live in a world of religious tolerance, which generally tolerates other religions (the ones deemed "legitimate") more easily than with lack of a religion. It does seem almost arbitrary to me that, for instance, JudeoChristianity/Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Wiccan, and various Native American beliefs are things which must be treated with respect, yet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Uri Geller, the Psychic Hotline, and beliefs about UFOs must be ridiculed and disproved.
So my guess is, most religious people would have a hard time saying "yes" to that statement applied to other "legitimate" religions, unless they were willing to apply it to their own.
I admit my personal approach is arbitrary. I generally allow people to believe whatever they want, until they bring it up in conversation. Then, depending on how stupid I think it is or their application of it is, I may simply try to change the subject, or I may directly attack.
Actually, a lot of it hinges on how stupid I think the person is for believing whatever it is. So I do cut some slack to followers of "legitimate" religions, because they've likely been indoctrinated since birth, and it's hard to break away from that, even if you want to.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'd just like to know one thing. Does Mr. Geller weigh more than a duck?
You sound as if you think the bible/quran/tnch are peaceful books. I suggest you read them, they're full of rape, pillaging, infanticide, genocide, etc.
The godhatesfags for instance people are hatemongers, but they're only following the bible to the letter (yes, I'm aware that they too interpret what they read).
Reality has a notoriously liberal bias -- Stephen Colbert
">50% of the population has above-average intelligence."
>Is this OK for everybody else ? I have to ask how is the average calculated to get this result ?
It's more meaningful to divide the bell curve horizontally than vertically.
When you do that, you'll realize that most people are near average intelligence.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>Why not? Intelligence is normally distributed, isn't it? The mean and median should be close enough as makes no >difference.
Divide the curve horizontally, and notice where 50% of the values fall.
Dividing it vertically is just silly. Of *course* half the curve is to the left of the maximum -- it's a normal curve.
But that wasn't my main point.
My main point was that it was a Catholic school, one literally inside a monastery, that taught evolution in Life Science class.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I personally would much rather see a vertically challenged, palm-reading, murderer escape from jail.
The headline would be....wait for it...
"Small Medium at Large"
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I agree they aren't necessarily related but if you read the comment I was replying to the poster had outlined a very clear relationship between a personal set of beliefs and an intention to impose them upon others through the passing of legislation.
I have no problem with people believing in things which I don't believe in or agree with but I'd rather they came by their beliefs through a logical and sensible process rather than taking on the beliefs of an organised religion and allowing the teachings of that religion to short circuit their own critical thinking processes.
In extreme cases it certainly would make me uncomfortable if those around me believed in a religiously inspired jihad against non believers but that would be less to do with any insecurities about my own beliefs and more to do with general worry about the nutcases surrounding me.
This is why programmers don't make good lawyers. The law is not a programming language with hard and fast rules. Rather, it is interpreted by judges, and attempts to bend or manipulate the law are frowned upon.
Law makers and politicians represent the majority of the nation, or should. They fact that they make laws that reflect the morals and beliefs of the majority of the nation is no surprise, is it?
Who guys? People who are tolerant of religious people?
Well, you were lucky. The people at my workplace didn't go to monasteries to learn their religion, they learned most of what they know about their God from televangelists' sound bites and a few vague stories about hell from their parents. (And I believe most of them vote.)
ResidntGeek
I like to call it bittorrent ;)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
While that must be a crappy experience, I would hardly generalize their attitudes across a great number of the population. I've moved around a hell of lot across the South and Northern U.S. east of the Mississippi over the last few years, and have certainly met people who would be suited by your description, but most people have more sense than what you describe. I don't know where you live, but perhaps a move or change of jobs is in order if you find yourself feeling so different from those who surround you at work?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
You're kidding, right?
"Average," or mean, is a statistic with a value that falls in the middle of the data set. By definition, 50% of any population will fall both above and below the average, for any data you choose to analyze with regard to that population - height, intelligence, dick size, whatever.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
That's pretty close to my contention - I would say that it's a cultural phenomenon that has always been with civilization, and finds its expression in those forms today - so I suppose we're on the same page, at least.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
I should clarify that this is just a summer job, near-minimum-wage work at an electronics manufacturing plant. You're probably right that I'm not talking to the most educated or intelligent people here (I tend to be just a touch pessimistic sometimes, you might've noticed).
ResidntGeek
Oh yes, I can usually recognize a fellow pessimist.
I find that reason is often the best counteragent for instances of pessimism (and pessimism's close cousins, bitterness and resentment). When life finds me surrounded by folks I find unpleasant, pessimism makes it easy for me to project my impressions of those folks over American society at large, thus leading to further pessimism about the state of the country. As I've grown more accustomed to thinking critically about my ideas, however, it is easier to realize that while I may be right, I can't logically reach my conclusions based on my limited anecdotal experience, so reacting to them or perpetuating them is just as irrational as assuming that everyone is rationally looking after their own interests. (See Fallacies of Economics.)
Of course, reason may not always counteract pessimism: I believe the U.S. is headed for a major recession, and I have yet to see any logical reason why this should not be the case, so my pessimism is deepened further. Every case is different.
I suspect that this ability of critical thinking is what many of the people you describe from your job are lacking - indeed, nobody in my experience is anywhere near perfect in this regard (and I'm probably a bit below the average). I keep hoping that more and more folks will cultivate this ability, despite a culture and society that seems designed to discourage exactly that. Is that hope irrational? Sure, in the sense that I can't give it certainty through logic. Then again, the same applies to its opposite, so I'll stick with the irrational thought that isn't so damned depressing.
And now, signing off with a sig quote from the greatest pessimist of Western writing:
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)