My loathe for conspiracy theorists-flat earthers especially-kind of makes me want to watch this.

  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Didn’t work when Chris angel offered 1 mil to prove magic is real.

    The crazies spun a “noble witch” narrative that anyone who practices magic is above materialism. As if fortune tellers aren’t more aggressive than knife salesmen.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        If you can explain how magic works, it isn’t “real magic”. Sort of the paradox of magic as a concept.

        If I can dangle a steel penny in the air with a couple of magnets, is that a miracle? Only if I don’t know how magnets works.

        • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Iirc the rules were prove magic is real as described. Ie. Prove the rules of divination as written in their belief system. Of course it’s a scientific approach, and it would make the unexplained explained, conventionally that means it “stops being magic” but all they had to do was prove their beliefs aren’t bullshit.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Ie. Prove the rules of divination as written in their belief system.

            Traditionally, you prove (or more practically refute) the efficacy of a magical system like divination through empirical consistency.

            Divination doesn’t work because it is unreliable. I can predict, say, the next week of weather or the outcome of an athletic game through climatology or sabermetrics far more reliably than the I Ching or Tarot.

            But let’s pretend it did work. I’m not sure how you’d functionally prove it.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        These people already cling to fringe beliefs because they feel marginalized by society. Bullying them on national television is not going to make them any more likely to change their beliefs. It’s only going to make them double and triple down.