Probably helps to live in Europe so you can get Google to delist anything you said that didnât pan out. You donât want any pesky internet caches around ruining your con.
Just copy The Onion. Eventually youâll be right.
You are right. One of the things they said was, 'Never trust a prediction that is revealed after the outcome."
What they also donât say is that when there are no consequences for the failed predictions there can be multiple failures.
Think about the Iraq war, the Bill Krystals of the world were wrong and they never faced consequences. Who did? The American and Iraq people who died. Plus all the money that was spent.
Also think about torture. It is used to get information from people that is often wrong. The way that it is set up is that there are no consequences for the people doing the torture if they are wrong. I understand that in Israel if you are in a real âticking bombâ scenerio and you torture someone you have to take responsibility if you are wrong (and tortured an innocent) the person might still go ahead and torture, but they will think twice and it will also make others think twice before using a technique that is not as reliable at they want it to be, yet is often used as a short cut based on all the great episodes of 24 where it does work.
Cherry picking predictions and then massaging them to fit actual events can make you look like a real Nostradamus.
I once read an analysis that showed clearly thatâs how Jean Dixon worked. Also, be sure your predictions are vague - bonus points if theyâre really cryptic.
This process works to convince yourself, too, if youâre susceptible to that sort of thing. There is a obscure corner of teh intarwebs inhabited by a group of people whoâve convinced themselves and each other that they can sense impending earthquakes, and the intensity of the impending quake can be estimated based on the severity of symptoms experienced. They then retrospectively link significant earthquakes with their experienced symptoms. For example; on Monday night they have a migrane, then on Tuesday thereâs a Magn 6 earthquake in Chile. See! Told you!
Of course, there is a Magn 6+ quake every 48 hours, and a Magn 5+ roughly every 8 hours. Naturally the predictions are never about where the quake is going to occur, just that there is going to be one. Which is a trivially pointless prediction. By which I mean that I can, with full confidence, predict there will be a Magn 5+ earthquake within the next 24 hours. And another within the 24 hours after that. And the 24 after that, and so on and so on, for as long as you like. And I will never be wrong. Earthquakes occuring is a statistical certainty.
Self deception is a painful thing to observe. Iâve had the misfortune of interacting with one of these folks over an extended period. If youâre interested in this particular rabbit hole (I strongly advise against it) google for âearth sensitiveâ âearth groansâ or âearth boppinâ.
ObSF: A similar scam was mentioned in âAdam had three brothersâ by R. A. Lafferty
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
