Million Dollar Challenge - should it stay?

[Darth Rotor]

I just got a PM from a peterthomas, who has no posts. He asked me about why I don't see the Real Reason(TM) Mr Randi will discontinue the challenge, and asked me about my state of brainwashing.

Rather than flame him, per my usual stance on such an approach, I took a breath and sent a reply asking for a more genteel dialogue.

Here is what happened. I was unable to send a reply PM, and got this message from the board:

peterthomas has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her.

Did any of the rest of you get something from this fine specimen of an internet denizen, or was I the only lucky one?

I'd call him a one way check valve, which is biologically modelled very nicely by a certain end of the large intestine on the human body, but I'm trying to keep it civil and lively.

DR

 

[chillzero]

Yes, and he has been banned for spamming.

ETA: Any further discussion should occur in the Forum Mgt section, of course.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Yes, and he has been banned for spamming.

ETA: Any further discussion should occur in the Forum Mgt section, of course.

Ah, thanks. See you there.

DR

 

[Babylon Sister]

Did any of the rest of you get something from this fine specimen of an internet denizen, or was I the only lucky one?

DR

I got it too, but by the time I logged on and read it, he had already been banned.

 

[devnull]

As an almost previous challenger, I have to disagree here. That's actually quite an insulting statement.

I apologise!

The last challenge I read was to do with paranormal urination. Then there was the guy who could read minds after doing pushups and drinking coke. You can see how I got to my conclusion....

 

[The Atheist]

Randi mentioned at TAM 5.5 that a big problem with the challenge was the overhead expended by the JREF in negotiating protocols and such with applicants. I think he really would like all that to be over with. The average applicant can't even clearly state what it is he/she can do. It's the wasted manpower.

Pity there's no way to calculate what the MDC is worth in terms of publicity, and thereby membership and donations. That may be worth more than the cost of running it.

There wasn't time to ask Randi at TAM 5.5, but I wonder of the JREF could cut a deal with Lloyds of London to underwrite the challenge.

Too hard, Lloyd's won't touch it.

 

[chillzero]

I apologise!

The last challenge I read was to do with paranormal urination. Then there was the guy who could read minds after doing pushups and drinking coke. You can see how I got to my conclusion....

Yes, but as I said, by doing so, you over look the additional benefits of the MDc, and how it has attracted people to this site, this forum, and/or skepticism in general.

Pity there's no way to calculate what the MDC is worth in terms of publicity, and thereby membership and donations. That may be worth more than the cost of running it.

Indeed.

 

[Speed of Light]

It's the challenge that is synonymous with JREF.
The challenge makes it interesting, makes people get up and take notice.
Gets people talking.
Without the challenge, it will just become a hard militant pressure group - There are many of them about -E.g. Anti-abortion, etc largely ignored or thought of as unduly serious and not worth talking about or visiting their website.
The website will completely lose its appeal - It will die.
You will find that many people are attracted to the website beause of the challenge . Without it, there will be no focus, no interest, for anyone except the hard core out and out serious militant who wants to change the world - Whatever one may think, they are in the extreme minority - It's not the serious political militant people who make this website, but the interactions with the believers, who create 'colour' in the forums.
This is my opinion, for what it's worth - from someone who is intelligent and logical, but admittedly not a supporter of the 'aims' of the JREF, but I'm still trying to help as the forums provide interesting reactions/entertainment/interesting discussion, and provides a feeling of a 'community' for many people

 

[chillzero]

Speed of Light, Can you point me to anything about the JREF that is 'militant'?

 

[Crundy]

It would be nice to be able to have an automated system to get up to the stage of a proposed protocol, which would weed out more than half of the applications and therefore manpower required to run the challenge. Perhaps if standard protocols for things like dowsing and cold reading could be established then even the protocol acceptance portion could be automated for a large number of applicants?

So for example, a person could create a case file and enter all their details, their claim, and attach digital copies of their two notaries. They could then drill down into a predefined list of claimed abilities and see if there is a protocol they feel they could prove, and then the manual handling could start from this point. If they do not find a suitable protocol then they can specify full details of a proposed protocol which would prove their abilities which could then be manually approved.

I believe this would get rid of most of the timewasters leaving the available resources free to deal with the genuine[sic] claims.

 

[Speed of Light]

It's the challenge that is synonymous with JREF.
The challenge makes it interesting, makes people get up and take notice.
Gets people talking.
Without the challenge, it will just become a hard militant pressure group - There are many of them about -E.g. Anti-abortion, etc largely ignored or thought of as unduly serious and not worth talking about or visiting their website.
The website will completely lose its appeal - It will die.
You will find that many people are attracted to the website beause of the challenge . Without it, there will be no focus, no interest, for anyone except the hard core out and out serious militant who wants to change the world - Whatever one may think, they are in the extreme minority - It's not the serious political militant people who make this website, but the interactions with the believers, who create 'colour' in the forums.
This is my opinion, for what it's worth - from someone who is intelligent and logical, but admittedly not a supporter of the 'aims' of the JREF, but I'm still trying to help as the forums provide interesting reactions/entertainment/interesting discussion, and provides a feeling of a 'community' for many people

Speed of Light, Can you point me to anything about the JREF that is 'militant'?

I would have thought it was obvious -at least to outsiders who have a 'neutral' stance.
Actively Persuing , confronting and embarassing people, in persuance of the 'cause', sometimes in an aggressive manner, is what will put a lot of people off the JREF.
They are then no different from the 'Animal Liberationists' who adopt militant tactics.
We all have different aims and causes we believe in, and this makes life interesting, but when one group tries to impose their views in a 'unilateral' manner, by 'force, then this crosses the line.
This path - removing the interesting parts and keeping the 'hard' parts, will in practice, alienate the general population - At the moment, it is not doing that, mainly because the challenge has greater 'visibility', but without the challenge, the visibility will switch to other elements in the organisation.

As an aside - I'm probably wasting my time, but if the JREF seriously wished to find out whether paranormality exists, instead of parading people in public with ridiculous claims which are obviously going to fail, why not conduct their own scientific experiments, similar to those carried out in parapsychology departments of universities - Instead of criticising others' protocols - conduct their own tests. In other words, find out the truth for themselves, before trying to educate everyone else.

My main aim in saying this, is not to 'criticise' - It's more a 'practical' point of view - If they change, then in my opinion, this will cause certain adverse effects

 

[chillzero]

I'll try again.

Speed of Light, Can you point me to anything about the JREF that is 'militant'?

 

[The Atheist]

It would be nice to be able to have an automated system to get up to the stage of a proposed protocol, which would weed out more than half of the applications and therefore manpower required to run the challenge. Perhaps if standard protocols for things like dowsing and cold reading could be established then even the protocol acceptance portion could be automated for a large number of applicants?

So for example, a person could create a case file and enter all their details, their claim, and attach digital copies of their two notaries. They could then drill down into a predefined list of claimed abilities and see if there is a protocol they feel they could prove, and then the manual handling could start from this point. If they do not find a suitable protocol then they can specify full details of a proposed protocol which would prove their abilities which could then be manually approved.

I believe this would get rid of most of the timewasters leaving the available resources free to deal with the genuine[sic] claims.

Smart idea & welcome along!

Simple statement: These are the rules. Any correspondence sent not in terms of the rules will be deleted.

Can't be too hard.

 

[GzuzKryzt]

I would have thought it was obvious -at least to outsiders who have a 'neutral' stance.
Actively Persuing , confronting and embarassing people, in persuance of the 'cause', sometimes in an aggressive manner, is what will put a lot of people off the JREF.
They are then no different from the 'Animal Liberationists' who adopt militant tactics.
We all have different aims and causes we believe in, and this makes life interesting, but when one group tries to impose their views in a 'unilateral' manner, by 'force, then this crosses the line.
This path - removing the interesting parts and keeping the 'hard' parts, will in practice, alienate the general population - At the moment, it is not doing that, mainly because the challenge has greater 'visibility', but without the challenge, the visibility will switch to other elements in the organisation.

As an aside - I'm probably wasting my time, but if the JREF seriously wished to find out whether paranormality exists, instead of parading people in public with ridiculous claims which are obviously going to fail, why not conduct their own scientific experiments, similar to those carried out in parapsychology departments of universities - Instead of criticising others' protocols - conduct their own tests. In other words, find out the truth for themselves, before trying to educate everyone else.

My main aim in saying this, is not to 'criticise' - It's more a 'practical' point of view - If they change, then in my opinion, this will cause certain adverse effects

Speed of Light, the MDC protocols are mutually agreed upon. The JREF's criteria lean on current scietific methods. Specifically where's the unilateral and where's the force?

When you speak of "parading people in public with ridiculous claims which are obviously going to fail", does that include your own claim? How exactly are those people paraded when they have been made fully aware that their application and the ensuing process will likely be documented via randi.org?

 

[blauregen]

I see the importance of the MDC not so much in it's capacity as a tool to goad the psychic bigwigs, but in it's symbolic value for the skeptic movement.

Skeptics usually take some pride from the fact that they aren't easily fooled by superstitious beliefs but in the end they are human too, and as a group profit from a common focus for their engagement. Skeptics tend to belief in the scientific method and in the importance of spreading their message to the public. And this belief profits from a public symbol.

James Randi and his challenge have among the skeptics become such an icon and such a reinforcing symbol. For the more openminded skeptics as a statement of 'We are prepared to test your claims fair and square, and you even can win by doing it.' For the more competetive ones as an assertion of 'Hah!. Still not beaten. Screw you!' As such it is, i think, a focus of belief like a religious symbol and discontinuing it is a little bit akin to take the Virgin Mary out of catholic churches. Catholics can very well pray without statues and crucifixes, but having them makes it easier.

If the overhead from processing claims is really that taxing for the JREF's ressources, then it is this that should be streamlined. I actually think they could find enough people in this forum alone who would do it honorary.

 

[Crundy]

Simple statement: These are the rules. Any correspondence sent not in terms of the rules will be deleted.

Exactly. Look in the challenge applications forum. Count how many of them do not progress past the "Please provide two notaries" or "Please specify a protocol which will prove your abilities" stages. Automating this portion will vastly free up the available resources. I'm willing to write an application to this end if anyone wants to help?

As an aside, I do think it's a shame that the MDC is ending, but would like to see some kind of replacement. Perhaps a "Certified Psychic" system? So no monitary prize, but just like when someone says they are going to perform a surgical operation on you, you would want to know that person has been tested to make sure they can perform the operation. Likewise, psychics would then have to prove to their clients that they can do the job. Have it so people who pass have to renew each year, just like a standard regulatory body. See how many certified psychics we have each year