Brian Dunning lawsuit

icerat said:
Let's cast a skeptical eye over this, shall we?
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Sure . . .

I'm unable to find any copies of signed Dunning books for sale, it would appear his signature is thus worthless.
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Really? This is what counts as a "skeptical eye"?

Your inability to find something for sale means that it is therefore worthless?
 
DuvalHMFIC said:
I don't believe it's just Kickstarter's rules that prevent "investing", I believe it's a federal law. IANAL though, so perhaps I'm mistaken.
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Correct to some extent. There are limits on how many investors you can have before certain requirements are triggered. Recent legislation has sought to increase those limits so that more crowdfunding type investment should be possible, but the SEC has not implemented that legislation.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Your inability to find something for sale means that it is therefore worthless?
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Cherry picking much? :)

Amazon is full of books listed as "collectors item" because the author has signed them. There are none I can find by Dunning.On self-published works -

However, the cookbook your Aunt Jane wrote, self-published, and signed is worth little, if anything, more than an unsigned copy. That’s because Aunt Jane’s signature, and her cookbook, are likely not objects of desire for book collectors.

If there's no market for something, it would appear to have no monetary value. If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'm open to it.
 
icerat said:
Cherry picking much? :)
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Yes, that quote is just complete nonsense. You could admit as much and move on . . . but . .

Amazon is full of books listed as "collectors item" because the author has signed them. There are none I can find by Dunning.On self-published works -

However, the cookbook your Aunt Jane wrote, self-published, and signed is worth little, if anything, more than an unsigned copy. That’s because Aunt Jane’s signature, and her cookbook, are likely not objects of desire for book collectors.

If there's no market for something, it would appear to have no monetary value. If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'm open to it.
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I have a painting in my office that is by a painter who has never sold a painting to my knowledge, and outside of my extended family is likely unknown. But, among my extended family her works are collected and I could easily find buyers. Is that painting likewise worthless, because you can find no market for it?
 
Dr. Keith said:
I have a painting in my office that is by a painter who has never sold a painting to my knowledge, and outside of my extended family is likely unknown. But, among my extended family her works are collected and I could easily find buyers. Is that painting likewise worthless, because you can find no market for it?
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You're making no sense. How can it be you can "easily find buyers" but there's "no market for it"?

Or are you claiming that there's a market even if I can't find buyers for it?

I stand by what I said - there's no evidence of a market for Dunning's signed books, I'm more than willing to change my view on that if you can provide some evidence to the contrary.

Actually I suppose we could consider the fact people have pledged $$$ to his kickstarter as evidence there's a market, since they're probably paying more for the books that way than if they bought them normally.

How about some evidence of a resale market? Got any?
 
icerat said:
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If there's no market for something, it would appear to have no monetary value. If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'm open to it.
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There is no market for my brain. And yet I would pay a great deal to keep it safe in my head. Probably as much as $560.75.
 
Hn. Weird. I could have SWORN I read somewhere that it's an investment in the sense that you are legally obligated (well, "obligated") it's a requirement by Kickstarter that you give people what you promised.

Looks like I was wrong.

In any case, I wasn't commenting on the worthiness of it. Hadn't read far enough.

ETA:
Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.
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(Terms of Use)

They ARE obligated to fulfill their end of their bargain, but that depends on how KS enforces their Terms of Use.
 
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icerat said:
I stand by what I said - there's no evidence of a market for Dunning's signed books, I'm more than willing to change my view on that if you can provide some evidence to the contrary.
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Those are collectable items. Collectable items cost more money because of that straight out, this is a very basic idea.

Actually I suppose we could consider the fact people have pledged $$$ to his kickstarter as evidence there's a market, since they're probably paying more for the books that way than if they bought them normally.
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Actually, no. The eBook is approximatly 3.33 each (10/3) when the normal Amazon price is 5.

That means that his signed paperback is 15, down 10 dollars. If you go up to 60, it's now another 17.5 per for the next two, but both books are 7.5 cheaper. And if you go to 100, you get the next two for 20 each, cheaper 5 each.

(250 is a personalized thanks, so that's an internal debate if you think 150 is worth it, or 1750 for writing the foreword, but at that point, you're not doing cost/return, you're going 'I really like this project.')
 
KoihimeNakamura said:
Those are collectable items. Collectable items cost more money because of that straight out, this is a very basic idea.
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Well, that's an ongoing debate. Are they collectible?

Actually, no. The eBook is approximatly 3.33 each (10/3) when the normal Amazon price is 5.
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That's if you pay the minimum, the pledge range is $10 to $24.99. For the majority of that range you're paying more than $5 per book.

That means that his signed paperback is 15, down 10 dollars. If you go up to 60, it's now another 17.5 per for the next two, but both books are 7.5 cheaper. And if you go to 100, you get the next two for 20 each, cheaper 5 each.
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You're assuming minimum pledges on each level, I assumed a wider distribution of pledges across the range. I've no idea, but you're probably more likely to be correct than I am.

Not really all that important to my main point, which is that the money isn't to fund publication, it's merely a marketing ploy to sell the books.
 
DuvalHMFIC said:
Then, at some point he started asking for the donations, and said he wanted this to become his full-time job. I realize a lot of research goes into some of his shows, but this is the same research most of us would do in our free time. Why does a guy think doing a 12 minute podcast once a week should be a full-time job?
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All the same, the thorough research he does must take time. Sure, he compresses it down to a 10-15 minute podcast, but we're still probably talking a good deal of hours each day. Far as I understand it, he also works on several episodes at once, so it is feasible that he fills his days with Googling, library vists, phone calls, etc. to gather info for his episodes.

I don't know how I feel about defending him what with the recent developments and all, but felt like writing this for fairness' sake;).
 
Safe-Keeper said:
I don't know how I feel about defending him what with the recent developments and all,
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Don't feel bad--the truth is the truth, after all.

A 15 minute talk is standard at the annual Geological Society of America convention--10 minutes of content, followed by a 5 minute Q&A session most often. Some people take YEARS to develop those talks. "Off the cuff" in those situations means you've only spent the last week working on nothing but but that project. And most scientists don't publish or give talks once a week, despite that being their full-time job. So yeah, I can see researching a weekly talk taking a fair bit of time. It's possible to do as a hobby, given that he's not developing new theories about the universe, but it's also possible to do full-time.

The thing to remember is that most of us scientists don't also write cookies to steal money from businesses. My point is just that it's not completely unreasonable to expect this to be a full-time gig.
 
Haven't been coming to JREF much and just saw this thread.

It seems the more one knows about gullibility and misdirection techniques, the greater the danger of using them oneself. It also makes any crime or unethical behavior all that more reprehensible. Sad story, indeed.

But the Jekyll & Hyde nature of the story really should not surprise too much. I can think of quite a few people whose commitment to science or unbiased pursuit of the truth does not prevent them from being simultaneously scumbags in other realms of life, and maintaining highly unscientific views in areas outside their expertise.

It's a lot easier to shine the light outward than it is to turn it on yourself and deal with all the crap that's there, if you are willing to look. Hypocrisy is rarely just a position on an issue, it's often simply the human condition at its truest.

Of course, none of that applies to me! ;)
 
Hlafordlaes said:
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It's a lot easier to shine the light outward than it is to turn it on yourself and deal with all the crap that's there, if you are willing to look. Hypocrisy is rarely just a position on an issue, it's often simply the human condition at its truest.
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The remedy may be to have a bunch of folks shining lights at each other, no?
 
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