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

  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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    9 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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        9 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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          8 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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            8 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.