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Gadgets For the Ghosthunter
Zothecula sent us a sad story about the gadgetry scammers use to take money from people who believe in the pretend: "In a survey conducted by CBS News in 2005, it was found that 48 percent of Americans believed in ghosts. Other surveys have put the number at anywhere from around 20 to over 50 percent. While such figures certainly don't imply that ghosts are real, they do suggest that belief in them is relatively common. When someone does suspect that a ghost is present in their home or business, they will sometimes call in "experts" to ascertain if that is, in fact, the case... and what sort of gear do these ghost hunters use to detect said spirits?"
I mean, duh. How else will you detect ghosts? Also make sure you have your proton pack and trap, to catch them once you find them!
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
But those sound recordings played backwards still creep me out...
All religious people believe in ghosts.
Ghosthunters don't need gadgets. The only thing they need is the desire and ability to separate idiots from their money.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
about the gadgetry scammers use to take money from people who believe in the pretend:
It's called a "collection plate."
Trolling is a art,
"In a survey conducted by CBS News in 2005, it was found that 48 percent of Americans believed in god. Other surveys have put the number at anywhere from around 20 to over 50 percent. While such figures certainly don't imply that gods are real, they do suggest that belief in them is relatively common. When someone does suspect that god is present in their home or business, they will sometimes call in "experts" to ascertain if that is, in fact, the case... and what sort of gear do these god hunters use to detect said spirits?"
In other news, approximately 50% of people are of lower-than-average intelligence :-)
It's a 20 lb grain of salt.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'll keep fast-forwarding through each episode, just in case they do stumble upon something.
If they do actually stumble upon something real and get real evidence you don't need to wait for it on the show - It will be front-page news on every newspaper and news site in the world.
The word 'scammers' does not belong in the summary. If someone voluntarily requests a service from a ghost detection agency and receives a service that appears to detect ghosts then a commercial transaction has taken place, nothing more. No different than giving money to a priest for telling you the invisible sky wizard loves you. No scam here, just mindless gullibility.
I always just leave books around, hoping that they could be stacked inhumanely high.
Wow, love the image of a possible ghost.
Nothing about that says "possible ghost" to me, but "tombstone in background with light on it" -- these people seem to be really reaching.
The few times I've tried to watch any of those ghost hunter shows it always seems like it's dramatized, or a bunch of people sitting around convinced that everything around them is proof of a ghost. "Zomg, the floor creaked".
Hard to say if it's a hoax, or people looking too hard for something, and interpreting everything they see as 'proof'. It's hard not to cynically think that someone off camera who is part of it is scuffing their feet or something.
I remain unconvinced.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"When somebody dies, do they go into another dimension, with a very thin wall?" asks her partner, Ben Myckan. "I think that's sort of what it is. You can't destroy energy, it's just in a different dimension."
Says the ghost hunter in the article. Really? So does that mean when my Atari finally died in 2000-something, that it's energy still lived on? Is that why I still hear Pacman and ET sounds?
Uh. No. When the machine dies so too does it's energy. There is no atari ghost left behind, and the same is true for the carbon-based machines we call animals/human beings. The brain loses oxygen, the nerves shrivel & disconnect from one another, and the personality erases.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I think the reason many people either "believe in ghosts" or, at a minimum, lean in that direction (I'm in the latter category) is most people seem to know someone they trust who has seen or experienced something weird. In my case, my sister and several friends have seen apparitions at a rustic old resort we go stay. They have no reason to make up stories. In my case I've never seen anything, but odd stuff happens from time to time in my old house. I'll turn out all the lights before going to bed, then I'll take the dog out for his business and come back to find all the lights turned on again. In the middle of the night, with everyone asleep, I'll hear footsteps in the house and get up to find the house empty. I'll put books away in then in the morning find them lying on the floor. Ghosts? I dunno. I trust the scientific method and they say there are no ghosts. But weird? For sure.
By far the best tool for any "ghost" hunter.
"and what sort of gear do these ghost hunters use to detect said spirits?"
My guess is that other spirits are heavily involved, those of the distilled variety....
Monstar L
It was discovered that 48% of Americans are also fucking morons.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Atlantic City, Mohegan Sun, Atlantis, yadda yadda.
Any place there is a casino there's an entire city devoted to separating gullible people from their cash. How is Ghost Hunting any different?
I can also name hundreds of products that do not work as advertised (The Sony PS3 being a prime example, Other OS anyone?), and those people that bought these products are just as blinded.
Hasn't anyone heard of P.T. Barnum?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Me, I'm not a believer; but I'm always amazed by how much power religious types insist on ascribing to their assorted devils, spooks and spirits.
48 percent of Americans are idiots
In a free market, those that wish to improve their lot in life will seek further education on their own. So if being educated is rewarded with greater potential for wealth, why do we still have idiots that look for handouts? Simple. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force him to drink it.
Life is not for the lazy.
Most Americans pay for Insurance that will never have to be paid out. For some it only gives them peace of mind although many would say the insurance companies are crooks too. In fact come to think of it there are many American businesses that do not actually produce anything of value. It's just money changing hands, mostly from the middle-class to the upper-class. It's been this way since money was invented.
So, would it be fair to state that the number of stupid people isn't going to decline, regardless of how nice that would be?
Let's, instead, encourage them to purchase various bits of legitimate scientific equipment, preferably in large lots or bulk. They'll drop the price of both new and used equipment of that sort, and at best some of them may actually discover something useful.
The best gadget for making money off of people who believe anything, by far, is the radio/TV.. Look around at what's happening and tell me it ain't so.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Everybody knows, er should know, ghosts are programs doing things they shouldn't do. They're bad or misbehaving.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The problem is Stupidity.... not capitalism, not socialism, not any "ism" just stupidity. Unfortunately, there are enough stupid people out there paired with people wishing to exploit others = our current society. Education represents the only true hope for America, unfortunately, we end up dumbing it down for the common idiot, then the effect is lost. . . Offtopic I know! Flamebait possibly sorry!
What's the point of Mod points over a long weekend?
Here's Penn & Teller's take on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09eBzjxlu1s
so... who you gonna call?
Because, as we all know, there's only one substrate that could possibly hold consciousness.
I mean, you'd have to store neural processing algorithms, lots of data, current system state...
Hold on. I'll finish that thought right after I finish copying this app to my thumb drive.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Bullwinkle: "Illee-beenie-chili-beanie. The spirits are about to speak!"
Rocky: "Are they friendly spirits?"
Bullwinkle: "Friendly? Just listen!"
That's why we need strong support for education.
What, and destroy all this beautiful chaos gifted by nature?? Conformity is not a virtue.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Ghost Hunters is just like Monster Hunters -- don't you think if they found concrete proof of the existence of something unusual that news of it would leak out BEFORE they aired the episode???
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Nothing like an unlicensed cyclrotron on your back.
Scanning radio signals for unusual signals can lead to new science, even if it doesn't provide proof of extraterrestrial intelligence.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I have seen studies (although I no longer have links to them) that said that self-professed atheists were more likely to believe in ghosts than self-professed Christians. This made sense to me since the concept of ghosts is contrary to Christian theology.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yeah, seriously. I'm pretty sure the news of "ALL SCIENCE INVALID!" won't wait for that primetime special on Sighfi
My ex is a "ghostbuster" and spend his money on this sort of crap instead of child support. The foolish can be easily persuaded to part with their money. I think IT geeks are in the wrong profession, everyone should switch to selling snake oil and ghost detectors....could make more money.
"Don't Panic"
Regardless of the nuts and all of those that prey upon the weak minded there really is something of great substance and power around us that we can not normally perceive. I wonder how many minds would crack the first time they got a really good glimpse of the other side of the mirror.
Simple. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force him to drink it.
True, but he's stressing education and not handouts because if you build a man a fire and he'll be warm for just a few hours, but if you light a man on fire he'll be warm for the rest of his life....Though I do often get the feeling I'm not doing it right.
"You can't leave it up to "free market solves everything" magic."
It seemed to work pretty well until the government you worship decided it would be a good idea to not tax corporate profits made overseas. We dump more money into education per capita than any country on earth, and we're still falling behind. I submit to you that we're falling behind because more and more people in this country are looking to the government to make their life comfortable, and so they are becoming physically and mentally lazy.
Apples and oranges.
Extraterrestrial intelligence, if it exists, is not (necessarily) supernatural.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
If the word "Ghost" in the article were replaced by "god", the article would still be correct, but it would have never been posted.
If I say "Ghosts aren't real", I get moderated informative. If I post "That particular Ghost you call god isn't real", I get moderated troll.
Irrational, isn't it?
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I don't really care if people believe in ghosts, but please stop making horrible TV shows about trying to "find" them.
No, because even if they got a video of a sit-down conversation the process wouldn't be reproducible, which is what the "scientific" types want.
The scientific process limits science from being able to possibly consider certain topics, at least with current technology, which is not necessarily a criticism of science, simply a fact.
FanFictionRecs.net
I'd love to see some ghost hunters on TV wander around with an infrasonic detector. I suspect that almost all 'confirmed hauntings' could be debunked fairly quickly.
(ref: Wikipedia entry on infrasound)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
we're dying here. as per pd, pdq would be better, please implement intervention on censorship/mass miscommunications barrage. we need more channels, lots more live/real video feed etc... it would be the least you could do to 'give back', help at all. thanks. we're finding 'ghosts' 'skeletons' everywhere, so no need to fuss about that. key words; play-date, survive, thrive.
So does that mean when my Atari finally died in 2000-something, that it's energy still lived on? Is that why I still hear Pacman and ET sounds?
Uh. No. When the machine dies so too does it's energy.
Actually the energy does live on, it's called Conservation of Energy and it's an empirical law of physics. Whatever energy was there is still there, dissipated into the environment, or converted to another form of energy. Energy doesn't just "die".
"When the machine dies so too does it's energy. There is no atari ghost left behind, and the same is true for the carbon-based machines we call animals/human beings. The brain loses oxygen, the nerves shrivel & disconnect from one another, and the personality erases."
But what about the THETANS!!!???
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
what are you saying exactly: trash the system or fix the system? i say fix it: insist on financial accountability. what we spend better show results in terms of an educated youth
if you say trash it, what will work for those without financial means? magic free market fairy will fix everything and make everything ok?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Uh. No. When the machine dies so too does it's energy. There is no atari ghost left behind...
Do you mean there is no such thing as Silicon Heaven? Then, where do all the calculators go?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Okay, so belief in ghosts pretty much requires a belief in the supernatural, including various God concepts, right?
One would think so. At least that would be the logical consequence.
Oddly enough, many people belief in some sort of spirits but not in God. Ghosts, spirits, or some vaguely defined non-material-being-world have become a replacement for old fashioned religion. You will find people defining themselves as atheists, who still try to communicate with transcendent beings.
no, the saying is if you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, but if you threaten to feed the man to the fishes, he'll stop complaining about his empty stomach and get back to work
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's simply more fun to believe in my opinion. To declare that there is no existence outside the physical makes life mundane and less interesting. Although, we really do have to assume that they don't exist because we can't prove otherwise. All evidence in favor of their existence is either anecdotal or not reliably able to be reproduced or is too easily falsified. I'd really like it if more people would visit the subject with a scientific approach instead of the typical religious/spiritualistic approach that discredits it from the start.
Most of the tools in the article seem entirely rational and not oddball snake oil contraptions. If ghosts are made of energy, you'd only need a simple tool to check for pockets of energy, right? Not something weird like a seance or dowsing rods. If they are supposed to create temperature fluctuations, a simple digital thermometer would be all you need.
When I was younger, years ago, I had an interest in the subject and got a book on it. The book was very practical about it - it didn't advise the use of spiritual techniques and instead focused on a more scientific approach. It also covered safety and legality.
The most interesting part of the book in my opinion was that it focused on the idea that a ghost hunter should focus on collecting proof, and take means to prevent the proof from being contaminated by human things like smoke, stirring up dust, long hair getting in the shot, keeping out of other people's sight when they were taking pictures ( so you don't get someone walking in the distance and creating a false positive ), and other common sense things.
It also talked about standard safety stuff - bring a powered cellular phone, extra batteries, flashlights, a first aid kit, bottled water, and some sort of food. You don't know what will happen when you go somewhere. Someone could break a bone, get a cut badly or any number of things that would require emergency care. You would really need each person to carry their supplies so they don't get lost or trapped somewhere and can't get out or get help.
The other topic was legality - don't go breaking and entering or trespassing, don't steal things that are there and most importantly, GET PERMISSION FIRST. Not only are these all things that could get you in legal trouble, but you ruin the reputation of anyone else who wants to hunt as well. Arguably they already have a reputation for being superstitious and other applicable ones, but still.
I have seen studies (although I no longer have links to them) that said that self-professed atheists were more likely to believe in ghosts than self-professed Christians. This made sense to me since the concept of ghosts is contrary to Christian theology.
Apparently you are not overly familiar with Christian theology. Most Christian sects believe in the ability of various human spirits to materialize before the living, especially in the area of so-called "saints." In addition, ghosts are referenced in their holy books. Are you not aware of the story of Saul and Sammuel? Or that the Jesus character affirms the basic characteristics of ghosts in the gospel of Luke?
Atheism is a lack of a belief in a deity. While it is likely strongly correlated with a rejection of all supernatural entities or events, I'm sure there are some self described atheists out there who accept whacky ideas like that. But to think that they are statistically more likely to believe in ghosts? I'm sure you would have to pull a "no true scotsman" and heavily restrict your definition of Christian to make that fly.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Okay, so belief in ghosts pretty much requires a belief in the supernatural, including various God concepts, right?
Not really, there are a whole lot of belief structures out there. You don't need to believe in gods to believe in spirits, or at least the kind of gods that created everything. Various tribal traditions work along those lines, where powerful spirits were more of a result of natural forces than the cause of them. An all powerful deity is just handier if you want to control people and take all their money. I'd say this is different to "ghost hunters" though, lots of them genuinely believe what they are peddling, and don't particularly seem to want to form a hierarchy of control. Relatively harmless.
And society often pays it, not just individuals. That's why we need strong support for education. You can't leave it up to "free market solves everything" magic.
It amazes me how people can turn any problem, even that in which there is not a free market, from blaming problems on that non-existent free market. They're just as bad as Communists who believe only if communism is tried will it work.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. The problem, as I have seen first-hand, is that you cannot force education upon a person who wishes to remain ignorant. I am specifically thinking of a black kid in my middle school gym class who made fun of me because I planned to go to college. There is no helping a person like that, because they are too ignorant to 1) understand that they are ignorant, and 2) they do not wish to help themselves. If they want to wallow in poverty and ignorance, then we need to build a special place to store them. It's called "prison."
I think there may be something behind the idea of hearing voices in white noise. I leave my floor fan on all night in the hallway. Sometimes, I wake up thinking I am hearing garbled voices or screams. When I turn the fan off, it disappears. I wonder if this is an audio illusion. It may be the mind trying to make something sensible out of the fans white noise, in the same way your mind makes faces out of the clouds.
Christian theology contradicts itself on many subjects. You say the concept of ghosts is contrary to Christian theology. Would you also say that the concept of zombies is contrary to Christian theology? Now pick up a KJV and read Matthew 27: 53-53.
27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 27:53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Now, were these saints zombies with flesh and bone or were they incorporeal ghosts? They'd have to be one or the other, wouldn't they?
...I think they are big fakers...
I don't believe in ghosts, however, I enjoy ghost stories, and urban legends associated with them.
Do you mean there is no such thing as Silicon Heaven? Then, where do all the calculators go?
No, there isn't. But Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.
I'm conflicted on this. Almost all these products are made in the US. At least the US can still produce useless things!
In places like China and India, I agree with you. But in America, there's no fucking excuse. If you're able bodied, in good health both mentally and physically, but choose NOT to become educated through public assistance and resources.... Well, they can stay poor for all I care. I'm sure they enjoy it based on their actions. Or should I say inaction in this case.
Oh, and if you truly feel sorry for the children, then why don't you confront their parents directly. They're a great deal of the problem holding back their potential. Unless you smash the family unit and take their kids away, you're not going to be pro-active about it. Only reactive.
Life is not for the lazy.
I am very familiar with Christian theology. The only Christian sects which believes in so-called "saints" as a special class of believers is Roman Catholic and Orthodox. All other Christian groups hold with biblical teaching that all believers are saints.
According to traditional Christian theology, when one dies one goes either to Heaven or Hell and the soul/spirit does not remain in contact with this world.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
IR camera's can detect heat flows but a heat flow that randomly appears lasts for 5 seconds and disappears is unusual.
I just had some beans. Give me an IR camera and I'll show you a randomly appearing heat flow. Might last longer than 5 seconds in some cases.
You might need to open a window when it appears though. Which would cause a - guess what? ANOTHER HEAT FLOW!
Only that one may not have the "aroma" of the ones I produce.
And you know what all those "haunted" places have in common?
Lots of holes (in walls, floors, door frames, ceilings...) and decomposing organic matter (wood, rugs, wallpaper, dead rodents in the walls...).
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How to skip watching ghost hunting shows:
1. Was there a massive news story about the proof of life after death?
2. They didn't find anything.
This sentence no verb.
Yeah, seriously. I'm pretty sure the news of "ALL SCIENCE INVALID!" won't wait for that primetime special on Sighfi
I can't wait to hear your explanation for how discovery of life after death would invalidate all of science. You may begin any time...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
you're talking about children. in most moralities, we understand that children aren't completely culpable for what they say and do
the parents share the blame. and how did the parents get like that? because they were dumb kids once to
we all start at dumb kids. unless you intervene, it's dumb kids in an endless cycle forever. what is the cost of intervention? what is the cost of not intervening at all? compare those two costs, to society, and to you, in insidious quality of life ways, not just direct financial ways, and you can see my point
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, I think you'll find those Christians refer to them as "angels"...
A video proves nothing, which is why "scientific" types won't believe in it. It's simply not good science to take a video at face value.
At least some hauntings are allegedly reoccurring, meaning that they are in the realm of science, and are therefore open to investigation. The fact no one has yet to find anything concrete speaks against the likelihood of ghosts existing.
Obviously a typo introduced by some ghostly presence that didn't want to be detected by your TWR... TWR.... TWR.... ack.... help.... me...
That joke reached its peak when it was spoken and both the teller and audience had the subtlety to notice the difference between light a fire and light afire.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
agreed. communism fails because it believes altruism trumps all. but why work when i am guaranteed the same as the guy who busts his ass? likewise, free market fundamentalism fails because it believes selfishness trumps all. why give back to the society that made my riches possible when everything i have is because of me and me alone? and thus society gets poorer and creates less riches which you partake less of yourself
the truth of course, is balance: capitalism with social safety nets. but some asshole believe that just modest social safety nets is some unstoppable slippery slope into north korea style communism. what moronic hysteria, or clever faux news style corporate propaganda. because why should corporations taxes to support the well being of their workers? it hurts the bottom line. whipping them harder and lying to them seems to work
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I really doubt that the existence of ghosts would invalidate ALL science. It might invalidate some parts of science. But that's not unusual; there are thousands of people out there, right now, whose job it is to prove parts of science wrong. They're called scientists.
Allegedly, the "ghosts" represent a sapient consciousness. Which makes reproducible experiments even in reoccurring hauntings troublesome, ensuring that no real science can be done on them. It's the same reason most psychology science is done through case studies and statistical studies, because true reproducibility is difficult when your test subject involves a being that can (allegedly) make judgmental decisions.
FanFictionRecs.net
I think of myself as agnostic. I'm unsure how much of what I've experienced is explainable by science, caused by imagination or over thinking, and perhaps influenced by others who had more belief in a higher power than I did/do. Below is about what I called the energy ball and black shadows that seemed free from touching objects that would cast shadows.
Energy Ball
Back in my jr high school years (12/13 yrs old) and in an area where the closest city with more than 15000 people was roughly 30 miles away from the county, I experimented with meditation that left me questioning the typical placement of your hands. I ended up holding my hands out in front of me like a prayer with my hands held parallel to my lap and my hands about an inch apart. After meditating like that for 15 minutes or so, I felt a tingle sensation or two that I hadn't been expecting between my hands. Instead of trying to blank my mind I focused on that feeling between my hands which then grew.
I was always the silly/corny humor type around girls. So when I suggested to a few them that I put their hand between mine, they thought it odd, but i was a silly guy anyway so why not. There was the obvious girl that giggled at everything, and a few others whom I had tried to tickle the normal way and were not very ticklish or if they were ticklish were very minor compared to the girl who giggled about everything. When their hand was placed between mine 3 of them found it tickled them. Even into the wrist and forearm. The other girl said she felt something but it wasn't tickling her. When I got to her forearm, it turned into a very sharp static shock. When I think back on it, that seems to be more obvious that it was static based because of the girl that shocked (or at least I think it was a shock like static electricity; however, I hadn't felt a shock myself - just the sensation between my hands), but I do find it curious of the girls that said it was ticklish. Was it because it was flirting or a weird situation for them? Are their instances where static electricity would tickle?
As I got older, I kept trying to understand the feeling between my hands and I was told by a few people who were pagan, wiccan, or a mix of the two that you could mold and use for shields to protect against demons, which i didn't and still don't believe in by the way, but these people did and perhaps still do. Upon the suggestion of one of them, three of us combined our hands to form a cube and focused on creating that feeling between our hands. What resulted was the feeling of a tornado or some or rapid moving of a chaotic thick wind if you will. it was very interesting feeling and I'm not sure how static electricity would play into that, but it is what I felt.
Black Shadows
I suppose I was about 16 or 17 (driving age for where I lived) when one of the group from above decided to drive me around in an attempt to prove that demons and other things exist. It, for the most part, was a waste of time, but I found it interesting as I was still exploring other people's beliefs at the time to get an idea of where I stood (Christianity, Wicca, atheism, etc. One day, when we were driving around we had stopped at a dock that was secluded. There were a lot of trees around and the lot itself was about 30 yards square. It was there that I saw my first black shadow that was seemingly very dark for a moon lit night and still. After the one showing me being excited and pointing it out and rambling for a few minutes, I noticed that the shadow seemed to have started to gliding towards us. The shadow was human shaped, but fuzzy on the outlines of it. The bottom did not seem to fully touch the ground. The middle of the shadow seemed to have depth to it instead of the flatness one comes to expect from shadows that lay on the ground; however, this shadow was not laying on the ground. It was vertical. I'd say from my memory that it was roughly 7 feet high. We left before it got too close.
I was intrigued by wha
Ghosts and aliens, if they exist, are by definition, not supernatural. If they exist, of course there's a "natural" / "scientific" explanation for them. It would simply mean that our present models of the world are insufficient to explain their existence. Remember that hundreds of years ago, geocentrism was accepted as fact, and germ theory of disease hadn't been discovered. Assuming that we have discovered "everything there is to know" about the universe is not only unscientific, it's flat out wrong.
Since we can't prove they DON'T exist, and the same amount of evidence exists for them as for intelligent alien life, criticizing the use of gadgets to attempt to find proof for the one one while offering a full-throated endorsement of the other just strikes me as very rich irony. One is a "completely scientific use of resources," the other is a completely frivolous waste of time, right up there with belief in god and doubting anthropogenic climate change, right?
There used to be a time when idiots like that just starved to death. That costs me absolutely nothing, especially sleep.
But he only tunes in after the last commercial break, where they summarize their laughable "evidence".
I've never actually watched the show, but I highly enjoyed his impression of them playing back the recording they made (with the gain all the way up, of course, because ghosts are quiet). Presses play: "Zrgthvrbhk" "Did you hear that? It said 'Get out!'" Plays it again: "Zrbhthrbark" -- "See? 'Get out!'"
It apparently adds a lot to the humor value that the people in the show seem so earnest about it all.
The enemies of Democracy are
Speaking of ignorance and needing an education, Marie Antoinette never said that, or anything of the sort.
About 15 years ago in college I was invited into a dorm room by some of my girlfriends friends where they played around with a ouija board. I was as skeptical as they come and insisted that it was all BS until one of the girls ask "Kevin" (the "ghost") to make it clear to me that it was real. "Kevin" then caused the empty Pepsi can that I had drank up and set on the table to fly off the table by itself. (and no there were no doors or windows open and the can was one that I had brought into the room myself) I will never forget that and I am still puzzled to this day as to what the cause may have been. I assume that these type of incidents are quite common among college students and now with ubiquitous camaras I'm surprised that there is not any newer video about this type of thing. And no, I am not religious but I would really like to know wtf moved that can and other objects I saw that night. It freaked the hell out of me.
Bad example. At what point was your Atari actually "alive?" If by "died" you mean "ceased functioning," the energy still didn't disappear. The energy stored in its molecular bonds didn't disappear, though over time those molecules may break down in part, releasing that energy in another form. The electrical charges in its components didn't disappear, though it likely discharged from the device eventually reaching the ground.
Scanning electromagnetic fields for unusual anomalies can lead to new science, even if it doesn't provide proof of ghosts.
Ghost Hunting 101
Step 1: Turn off all the lights for some reason
Step 2: Walk around in the dark, expressing surprise and shock every time you stumble.
Step 3: Use flashlight, gasp and/or scream every time you see a shadow or reflection of light
Step 4: say "What was that?" or "Did you see/hear that?" every couple minutes, alternating between the two
Bonus points given for using scientific equipment incorrectly, interpreting results incorrectly, and not having any idea why such instruments would detect ghosts in the first place.
Prerequisites: Lack of understanding of principles of logical fallacies is required.
For starters, I get it, far more than you do. So please, spare me your tripe. It's insulting!
You *must* understand that there are two primary groups (with some shades of gray) in which people are poor.
1. The disabled and/or politically and socially oppressed. These are the people that need help. These are the people that have the capacity to want the assistance to help them help themselves out of poverty and into prosperity. Public services and assistance provides where the free market does not. But when possible, the free market is a much more dynamic path to choose. Such examples include rural China and India. Oppression by the Chine government, and oppression by the social caste system of India culture.
2. Those that have all the western assistance possible, but remain poor because of CULTURE. The culture of victim-hood, the culture of entitlements, the culture of anti-enlightenment. A culture that pro-actively seeks a rebellious lifestyle that's self-destructive to themselves and the people around them. A culture of being lazy. Such a culture wields a vast amount of political power and influence for what little effort is put into maintaining its perpetuity.
For reason #2, those people can rot in hell. In fact, they out-right piss me off and deserve to be poor. Good riddance. Bunch of parasites! They will NOT be getting any cake from me.
Life is not for the lazy.
It is a well-established phenomenon that fluctuating EMF can change human perceptions and interfere with electronic equipment, causing a variety of phenomena very much including the feeling of being watched by an unseen presence and alterations in visual interpretation.
Meaning regardless of your degree of skepticism, if you spend enough time in a "haunted" area that shows the right kind of EMF activity, you will more than likely believe it to be haunted, sooner or later.
Such areas include granite deposits, which contain piezoelectric crystals that tend to generate the fields. People like to build buildings on them, and they tend to last awhile due to the solid foundation. Old buildings tend to be haunted, as a result.
No, it's not "just in your imagination", because for it to be "just in your imagination", you'd have to not be subject to fluctuating EMF, wouldn't you. If you see something, you may not be seeing a long-dead Civil War colonel, but you are percieving a measurable external phenomenon. You're just not good at sensing it accurately.
Incidentally, this all means that first bit of gear is 100% legit, even if the cause/effect relationship given is inverted (""At a haunted location, erratic and fluctuating EMF levels are likely to occur," should be "At a location with erratic and fluctuating EMF levels, haunting is likely to occur").
(cue the french revolution, and marie antoinette before the guillotine looking dumbfounded)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
there's lots of anecdotes in this world that may not be 100% historically accurate, but teach valuable moral lessons. in fact, there are outright fictions that teach valuable moral lessons. "A Christmas Carol" has a lot of relevance to this particular thread, but there's no such things as ghosts. The idea that what I am saying is disproved because an anecdote I allude to might not actually be 100% historically accurate is just a form of social autism on your part, for not understanding the value of stories in teaching human beings morality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. The most honest people in the world have reasons to make up stories, the most common being the ever-present desire to be entertaining/interesting to one's friends. Also, people who do not normally think with scientific rigor will tend to add quite a lot of imagination to ordinary events, and then "remember" more of what they imagined than what really happened...especially when it makes for a more interesting story.
2. You are not the only person living in your house. Other people can find reasons to do stuff when you think they are in bed, like, I dunno, rummage through the bookshelf looking for a book they suddenly remembered they wanted to read, leaving a pile of other books on the floor before going back to bed.
3. Your memory is not perfect. It only gets worse with age. Sometimes people intend to do things, forget about them, and then later "remember" having done them even though they never did them. Also, sometimes people turn the lights on while walking their dog to the door of the house, but not remember doing it because they were still half-asleep at the time and operating almost entirely out of habit.
4. The human brain tends to interpret things in a familiar way. The sound of walls/pipes expanding/contracting due to temperature can become footsteps to a partially distracted mind.
Your stories don't sound weird at all to me. They sound very normal for humans.
A bullshit detector would be critical for anyone who is a ghosthunter.
yes, that was a time when there was slavery, children were married at 13, people were lynched by angry mobs based on rumors, etc. a more brutal time. which is of course exactly what your ideology is all about: moving backwards to a less civilized more brutal past that is behind us. the right in the usa will not be happy until we are like somalia: no taxes there! no meddling government! tea party utopia!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Burning some mod points, but "ghosts" doesn't always mean a sapient consciousness is going around pulling doors closed or the like. Some ghost hunters (for lack of a better phrase) believe that some of the "ghost phenomenon" is a recording of some significant event that occurred in a given location (i.e. Gettysburg). The mechanism behind how such a recording could take place is not known, but a good number of the ghost stories out there don't really have said ghost interacting with people but rather playing out the same actions time after time (i.e. ascending the stairs and vanishing at the top).
Okay, so belief in ghosts pretty much requires a belief in the supernatural, including various God concepts, right? Do so many people believe the Universe is so poorly constructed?
Me, I'm not a believer; but I'm always amazed by how much power religious types insist on ascribing to their assorted devils, spooks and spirits.
Roughly 61% of Americans believe that Gawd created the universe without evolution, so yes. FFS, probably about half of that 60% believe the Earth is 6000 YEARS OLD, so that's gullibility for ya.
If folks want to believe in ghosts and want to pay people to check for them then why not? The service being provided is really just roleplay anyway... humoring the customers desire to believe in ghosts.
A smart service provider would report results based on the customers hope to prove/disprove the presence of ghosts.
Why do you assume that our "present models of the world" are insufficient to explain the existence of extraterrestrial life?
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Because 0% of slashdot readers believe in ghosts.
Hmmm. Sounds like a string theorist.
As all REAL ghost hunters know, dragons are attracted to ghost infestations. As such, if you are going ghost hunting, you really need some Dragon armor. Anything less is simply foolhardy.
Also, don't forget my patented +5 Dragon Killing sword. Because the best defense is a good offense.
That fat bastard never seemed to get me what I actually wanted. I need to have a little discussion on why.
so sensible that can detect minimal air currents, even a Burrito Phantom coming out of the inner realm :P
I am very familiar with Christian theology. The only Christian sects which believes in so-called "saints" as a special class of believers is Roman Catholic and Orthodox.
I misspoke. I meant that most Christians have those beliefs, not necessarily the number denominations. Even assuming that the saint idea doesn't exist in anything aside from Catholics and Orthodox, they outnumber the rest quite handily. See here.
All other Christian groups hold with biblical teaching that all believers are saints. According to traditional Christian theology, when one dies one goes either to Heaven or Hell and the soul/spirit does not remain in contact with this world.
You'd better get to editing your holy book, then. And while you are at it, edit out the references from early Church Fathers about ghosts and such, too. A fictional setting should at least be self-consistent if it to be at all believable.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Firstly, I agree with you in principle.
However, good luck with that! How do you measure educational outcomes? What happens when you do it? Look at South Carolina if you want to see what happens. They teach to the PASS test (PASS is the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards), the of the PACT test (Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests)
Science doesn't preclude wishing or fantasy. You can search for ET scientifically. SETI might be considered "out there" by people who don't believe they are wisely spending their time, but they're not going to say that SETI isn't doing real science - they're just doing "probably useless" real science.
And this might change due to other science. What if the SETI@home crowd were told that they were consuming so much electricity that PGE was going to build a new nuclear reactor just to power their project? They might rationally evaluate the situation and decide it's no longer worth it.
For now, the SETI volunteers all seem to be happy to donate their money to power the search. That might be because they don't understand that the client is costing them perhaps $12.00 per day in additional electrical costs (idle CPUs and GPUs don't consume nearly as much energy as active processors.) Or maybe they do know, but feel the research is important enough to warrant the investment.
John
Me, I'm not a believer; but I'm always amazed by how much power religious types insist on ascribing to their assorted devils, spooks and spirits.
They need to. If you don't portray a really scary threat, why would anyone spend anything defending against that threat? Consider these two sentences:
One is slightly more compelling to a seven year old kid.
For a more realistic example, consider Faux News talking about terra'rists because their buddies want to sell these really expensive whole body scanners to the airlines.
Talking head #1: "We need to spend $365 million dollars on full body scanner systems for airports."
Talking head #2: "That's a lot of tax money."
Then one week later, some liar on Faux News claims that a guy wearing a clay model pancake on his butt that "could have been made from a real plastic explosive" makes it through security. OMG, we're all going to die, its the Islamists, bin Laden, 9/11 all over again!
Two weeks later:
Talking head #1: "We need to spend $365 million dollars on anti-butt-pancake-explosive scanner systems for airports."
Talking head #2: "Yes, please save us from the butt-pancake-explosive-bomber-terrorists!"
See how that works? Invoke the name of the bogeyman, and the cowards listen. Get enough cowards together, and we call the results "Congress".
John
free market fundamentalism fails because it believes selfishness trumps all.
Another misinformed poster. Not one free marketer I know of believe that at all. Try to find "selfishness" in wiki's Free market article. The father of free markets was Adam Smith and he definitely didn't. Beside writing "Wealth of Nations" he also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. One description says "Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.." His invisible hand is the conjunction of "the forces of self-interest, competition, and supply and demand". Also he says of the invisible hand:
"The rich consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for".
Dispite what people say or believe today's poor in the US have better lives than the poor a century ago.
why give back to the society that made my riches possible
Yea, why did Rockefeller, Hughes, Vanderbilt, and so many other wealthy people leave fortunes to non-profits or set up foundations that financially support non-profits they like? Bill and Melisa Gates are leaving their wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett has pledged to donate to the foundation "approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares spread over multiple years through annual contributions, worth approximately US$30 billion in 2006." George Soros uses his wealth to fund his Open Society Institute. Its aim is to "to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform." Business tycoon Armand Hammer was friends with both Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan.
the truth of course, is balance: capitalism with social safety nets. but some asshole believe that just modest social safety nets is some unstoppable slippery slope into north korea style communism.
The truth is that the
Should there be a Law?
Because, like the existence of ghosts, there is zero evidence that extraterrestrial life exists. Any speculation about its existence is merely that: speculation. So why is any attempt to calculate, detect, or measure the existence of one thing we "think" might exist somehow inherently more scientific and deserving of approval than attempts to detect the existence of another thing we "think" might exist?
500 years ago, if you told physicians that the reason people were dying to disease was because small foreign bodies were invading their body and overwhelming their immune system, they would have called you insane. The same, if you had told them that all of the matter we see around us is made up of incredibly small particles named atoms, and that a block of wood and a human leg had many of the same types of "atoms" in them. Science discovers new things all the time, and what seemed inconceivable last year is today's accepted theory. And today's accepted theory may very well have holes poked in it tomorrow by new discoveries.
There's a big difference between being poor and being broke. Being poor is a way of living and of (mis)managing money. Being broke is a temporary state. If a rich guy starts living with the mindset of a poor guy, he is on his way to being poor. If a poor guy starts living with the mindset of a rich guy, he is on his way to being rich.
The poor can tell you who is winning american idol, but not what their bank account looks like. The rich are the opposite.
Education represents the only true hope for America, unfortunately, we end up dumbing it down for the common idiot, then the effect is lost.
On the contrary, my friend. We try very hard to promote diversity and awaken the mind our youngs to debates. Want an example? Teaching creationism along with the evolution theory.
a sucker-o-meter. the higher it pegs, the more they charge.
There is NO EQUIPMENT for detecting ghost because they don't exist. That's a fact and people peddling otherwise should be forced shovel actual shit for the rest of their lives.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
this type of belief doesn't require anything, nor is it constrained by rational thinking.
I'm always amazed by how many believer don't even know their own religion.
How many times have you heard that 'The Antichrist' is coming? When, in fact, in the bible there is no antichrist. an antichrist is anyone who doesn't believe Christ returned.
And then you get people like Sarah Palin who goes on and waves her Christianity around like ti s a free pass to anything. When in timothy it clearly states women are NOT to be leaders or teachers?(2:11-14)
believer, what a bunch of whack a doodles.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
yes, but once used it can no longer do work.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
they go to 1134
unless they are good, then the go to the land of 5318008
If they use polish notation, then the get what's coming to them.
And that wraps up your calculator humor for the evening.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ghosts don't exist. Any questions?
If you want references, look up:
* Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
* Paranoid Delusion
* Extreme Schizoid Symptoms
Lots of "gizmag" stories on /. recently. Is there a business relationship between the two? I think we should be told.
Yes it can, just because its not in a form thats useful to you doesn't mean it can't do work. The work it did raised the temp of the air around it, which was dissipated to the rest of the environment. Its no longer useful to you, but the energy is still there and is part of the universe and may one day be used by something else productive to you.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
"The only Christian sects which believes in so-called "saints" as a special class of believers is Roman Catholic and Orthodox. All other Christian groups hold with biblical teaching that all believers are saints."
That's funny.
First. Those "only sects" - Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians - make up 1,4 billion people. While "all other" - Protestants and Anglicans - make up about 600 mil.
Second. Most "all other" Christian groups also believe in the original sin so they can't teach that all believers are saints.
Stop talking out if your ass.