Okay, how about a$300 million a year estimate for the psychic hotlines alone?jzs said:
Consumer Reports for the Paranormal
- Thread starter IllegalArgument
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It always struck me as weird that a man who could write "Once you have ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable must be the truth" could be so deceived by cut out photos.jzs said:Why do you guess that?
I like the stories though, and Conan-Doyle as a man from what I've read.
IllegalArgument
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Re: Re: Consumer Reports for the Paranormal
Then I take back what I said. Though I do remember seeing that shirt somewhere on the net, just never knew someone who actually wore it.
The Bad Astronomer said:
Then I take back what I said. Though I do remember seeing that shirt somewhere on the net, just never knew someone who actually wore it.
Garrette said:
I understand that you didn't present any.
It is like I ask you how much people actually spend on Coke. You reply, hey, it is .75 per can.
And? So? So how much do people actually spend on it?
According to your illogic, .75 is the data. Nope. .75 is just a price.
Ashles said:
Yeah
, the comment is is I was responding to garret, not you.So how was the estimate of the cost of an average call (which is over 7 years old!) obtained? And of that, how much of it didn't help the person getting the advice? One can't implicitly assume that a large cost = large loss. That's not necessarily the case; one would have to demonstrate that.
Ashles said:That's true - maybe the money came from invisible pixies.
Your starting to edge into the "I just won't believe it" territory now.
You didn't rationally explain a thing.
Say I (hypothetically) spend $100 on a psychic. Do you necessarily view all of it as harmful?
Why do you do that?
Oh, my.
I suppose it is possible that you simply have not followed the conversational thread. But I begin to wonder if it is intentional.
Let’s follow the sequence, shall we?
CFLarsen posted this.
It is quite clear he is speaking about anecdotes, about specific instances.
Then Luke T wrote this:
Still referring to an incident, an anecdote, a psychic reading.
CFLarsen again:
Emphasis is mine.
The bolded part is the part you chose to quote, out of context, but the context makes it quite clear that it is still a discussion about individual incidents, about anecdotes.
So you said this:
In context, the question is an okay question. It seems as if you’re asking for the $ associated, anecdotally, with an incident.
So I answered it this way:
And I responded to the anecdote/data comment this way:
Then CFLarsen said this:
This didn’t satisfy you, though it was not at first clear why.
Your response was:
You were almost correct, he was saying use anecdotes in the face of anecdotes to demonstrate their unreliability.
But though you say you “got it†you decided to ignore it and later said this:
Ashles seemed to figure it out first and said this:
And when you didn’t respond to this, he asked:
To which your biting response was:
To summarize:
When the discussion was about anecdotes you asked questions about aggregate data.
When this was pointed out, you acknowledged it then ignored it.
When Ashles gave you what you requested anyway, you dismissed it because it didn’t come from the correct poster (me).
I find it more and more difficult to take you seriously.
To which I am predicting you will respond that you have no reason to care if I take you seriously or not.
I agree. Just as I have no reason to care if you care and recursively on and on and on.
Just letting you know.
Garrette said:
The point, which still escapes you, is that they said the cost of a reading is X dollars, and a psychic claims to do Y readings per day, therefore the total cost is 365XY.
I'm interested in the actual costs, not what is projected based on a rate and a claimed amount, and an assumption of the same number of readings done per day.
If you would focus on the data and not me, you might not get mistaken for a clausite.
Just out of interest jzs, do you dispute the £300 million figure?
If so why?
And do you have other figures of your own?
(With these questions I am, of course, assuming that you agree with the initial assumption that a certain amount of money is spent on these paranormal matters each year - If you disagree with that assumption I'd be really interested in your reasoning)
If so why?
And do you have other figures of your own?
(With these questions I am, of course, assuming that you agree with the initial assumption that a certain amount of money is spent on these paranormal matters each year - If you disagree with that assumption I'd be really interested in your reasoning)
Ashles said:
I'm asking you to show that the number means it is harmful. I'm not disputing the actual number.
But, the number is an estimate from 1997, and we have no idea whatsoever how it was obtained. All we have from your site is
"Mark Plakius, managing director of Strategic Telemedia, estimates that psychic hotlines are a $300 million-a-year industry in the United States and account for about one-third of the total "1-900" market. The average call brings in around $40 (SouthCoast Today, 03/22/1997). "
Which doesn't give me any information on specifics.