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Million dollar challenge not ending!

Azrael 5

Philosopher
Azrael 5
Joined
Sep 19, 2003
Messages
6,106
I met Randi today at Blackpool magician's convention and during an interview with him he told me the great news the challenge is to continue,he hopes forever.
He changed his mind after hearing psychics were cliaming it as a victory of sorts. :)


Just to add he was a very friendly humourous chap! ;)
 
Good! Now let's REALLY put the screws to these creeps!

I say, if it's at all possible, we find a way to boost the prize to $5,000,000. Randi can use the money, and the psychics can look even more foolish!
 
I'll wait for the official announcement. If such a decision has indeed been made, it will undoubtedly be announced on the SWIFT blog.
 
I heard Randi say this a few weeks ago. I can't remember where, I think it was on the SGU podcast? And I don't know if it was weeks ago, but not days ago. I do remember him saying it though. But I would not give my first born son, or even one of my stupid cats that are not toilet training correctly.

Susan
 
Roadtoad said:
Good! Now let's REALLY put the screws to these creeps!

I say, if it's at all possible, we find a way to boost the prize to $5,000,000. Randi can use the money, and the psychics can look even more foolish!
Click to expand...

Rather than that, I'd like to see an aggressive media campaign to go after some of the usual suspects. Full page ads in the NY Times (and elsewhere) or even cheap TV ads "calling out" Sylvia Browne, for example.

I'd donate money to that cause!
 
I'd be curious to know what the real reason would be. Randi knew from the beginning that abandoning the challenge would be construed as such, but felt the money would be better spent elsewhere. At least, that was the reasoning.

I'll also wait to hear more about it before forming any opinions.

Athon
 
Whichever way it goes, one thing has been shown to differentiate Randi from the Woos: Randi will examine the facts and react rationally to them. The Woos will hear the word "fact," and react in immediate opposition to them.
 
Rather than that, I'd like to see an aggressive media campaign to go after some of the usual suspects. Full page ads in the NY Times (and elsewhere) or even cheap TV ads "calling out" Sylvia Browne, for example.

I'd donate money to that cause!
Click to expand...

The idea of newspaper ads has been out there for awhile, even Randi announced that he wanted to go this way. But I think the problem is those nasty lawyers, they don't think it is a good idea for some reason. If it is done it will be done with all caution possible.

I would love to see it also. I think a picture of Randi thumbing his nose at Browne and friends would be priceless!

Susan
 
jhunter1163 said:
First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Best idea Shakespeare ever had.

(NB: All, that is, except those that are JREF forum posters.)
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It was Shakespeare's character Dick the Butcher in who's mouth Shakespeare put those words. Dick, a Bad Guy, was proposing it to do away with the Rule of Law which is defended and supported by the presence of lawyers.

It does not mean what you think it means. :mad:
 
I don't see how the legal problems would be different in a paid ad compared to the sort of thing Randi has already said in public.

Again, an ad going over the facts with regard to Sylvia Browne should present no legal problems.

She accepted the challenge; she accepted a protocol; the prize money is real; her claims about helping with missing children's cases are demonstrably false; etc.

ETA: It may even be possible to get a well written piece run as an op-ed article.
 
Just coming back to this thread,since I got the info from horse's mouth(sorry Mr Randi :D) has it been officially confirmed the MDC is continuing?
 
I wonder how many people the MDC has really convinced. Similar challenges exist to attack things we believe in, and we don't lend them much credence.

For example, there's a $250 000 prize out to anyone who can prove the Theory of Evolution. We don't care, as we know evolution is true, so it's far easier for us to believe that the challenge is a load of bull (which indeed it is). I fear it'd be similarly easy for a believer in the supernatural to shrug off the MDC. "There's no money". "He's never going to pay up". Et cetera, et cetera. Who do you trust the most as a believer in, say, spirit reading - some random "narrow-minded cynic" on the Web who says the prize is real, or your trusted circle of spirit reading friends, as well as the people doing the readings, who say it's hokum?
 
Great news! Now I´d love to know what to do to get the MDC to be known in spanish speaking countries... nobody´s ever heard about it over here.

(back to lurking mode)
 
Roadtoad said:
Good! Now let's REALLY put the screws to these creeps!

I say, if it's at all possible, we find a way to boost the prize to $5,000,000. Randi can use the money, and the psychics can look even more foolish!
Click to expand...

Seconding this. Unfortunately in this day and age with the news constantly quoting figures in the billions, $1,000,000 might not be enough to shake the big trees.

Randi wanted to bust the high-profile con artists, but Sylvia Browne and her peers are making way more than the MDC off their lemming-like followers. If I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, would I blow my entire reputation for a $1M? No I would not.

$5 million...? We could talk.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I don't see how the legal problems would be different in a paid ad compared to the sort of thing Randi has already said in public.

Again, an ad going over the facts with regard to Sylvia Browne should present no legal problems.

She accepted the challenge; she accepted a protocol; the prize money is real; her claims about helping with missing children's cases are demonstrably false; etc.

ETA: It may even be possible to get a well written piece run as an op-ed article.
Click to expand...

The difference could be that a published ad drags in lots more people with potential liability - including the newspaper itself.
 
Regarding the 5MDC idea, this seems like a silly use of funds to me. If someone is unwilling to be tested for $1M, they won't allow testing for any amount of money. Anyone who is convinced by the argument that $1M isn't worth the psychic's time would be just as easily convinced by the same argument regarding $5M. In the meantime, the additional $4M would be just as stuck as the $1M is currently. A million dollars is still a lot of money regardless of who is being tested. Maybe if Bill Gates started claiming psychic powers I'd buy the argument that the prize wasn't worth the trouble, but otherwise, no way.
 
Jason, you DO understand, don't you, that JREF derives some of it's operational budget from interest paid on the million?
 
Of course I do, however, the primary reason for ending the MDC was to free up that money for other purposes. Encumbering additional funds to sit as an odd sort of endowment seems to be a fairly radical shift in opinion. Again, the argument that someone would refuse a million dollars because it wasn't worth their time but would jump at five is flawed.
 
If the money sitting on the sidelines is the issue, perhaps the payout could be restructured: $x amount per year, for n years. That would allow needing less immediately available for distribution, and more for investment and other uses.
 
jasonpatterson said:
Of course I do, however, the primary reason for ending the MDC was to free up that money for other purposes. Encumbering additional funds to sit as an odd sort of endowment seems to be a fairly radical shift in opinion. Again, the argument that someone would refuse a million dollars because it wasn't worth their time but would jump at five is flawed.
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How can the argument be flawed when I just said I'd do it? :D
 
It would appear that none of us do. I personally have no reason to distrust the OP-er, but then again, you'd think that something like this would have been announced more broadly, or perhaps confirmed or denied by a person in power within JREF, rather than batted about by us. I think mostly we're having fun arguing...
 
The Professor said:
So none of you know if it's true or not? Even after all of this?
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Why would it matter to you, Professor? You have yet to write out a rational protocol for your own challenge, you have yet to comply with reasonable requests from JREF for what would or would not qualify as a hit, and when you're called on your ill considered behavior, you spam other boards and slander James Randi. Frankly, I would think this would be a non-starter for you. You aren't willing to act in a manner that suggests you're willing to deal in good faith, and in turn, when you're shown to be doing this, you lie about it.

So, no, we don't as yet know, and a great deal of this is conjecture, but at the same time, the majority of those posting are more interested in what's best, rather than stroking our own egos.
 
Roadtoad said:
Why would it matter to you, Professor?
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Because he's a troll. You're giving him far too much credit if you think his MDC application was genuine. As with Callahan, he makes a post and suddenly everyone's in a frenzy. Hell, people even follow him to the Magic Cafe just to stay involved. THAT is why it matters to him. He knows he has an effect on people and he enjoys it. It's a power-trip.
 
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