Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/28/801627.html
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I used to know a pet psychic who would consult over the phone-- just as effective as in person! I joke, but actually she had a lot of success in helping people with pet behavior problems because she was very good at empathetically projecting herself into the pet’s point of view and communicating with the humans what the issue was. So regardless of the mechanism, they usually got a pretty good value.
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So, a minimum of six percent are really stupid liars.
The percentage of his students who believed in ghosts (spoiler, it’s a lot higher than 55%) was really what caused my father to lose all faith in humanity. They were in college, lived in the space age, and their world-view would have been contemptible to an educated person in the Middle Ages.
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Not necessarily. It may be that a minimum of six percent wouldn’t buy a house they suspected was haunted but don’t have to worry about it because they don’t believe in ghosts. No one likes roomies who don’t pay rent.
I give the existence of ghosts far less than a one percent credence, but in the remote chance I’m wrong, I’d feel bad for any spirits assigned to my boring ass.
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I’m…not following.
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Meaning out of the 45% percent who either don’t believe in ghosts or are uncertain about the existence of ghosts, up to 6% wouldn’t buy a house they suspected was haunted if ghosts did exist, while up to 45% would buy a house they suspected was haunted if ghosts did exist.
I’m not saying that’s the explanation. They may be bad liars as you say. Just that that’s not the only possible explanation for the discrepancy.
Personally I suspect the real explanation is that survey participants aren’t always especially logical in their responses, and that most people either intentionally or unintentionally hold many non-absolute beliefs, such as my own vanishingly small doubt in my own disbelief in ghosts which I regard as the logical conditional conclusion due the total lack of compelling evidence along with the inability to conclusively disprove their existence.
Extraordinarily claims require extraordinary evidence, and the “evidence” for the extraordinary claim that ghosts exist is not only not extraordinary, but ridiculous.
A good PR firm might be a better choice.
There’s this idea that somebody wouldn’t want to live with spirits. Think of the indignities that one could subject a captive spiritual audience to. “I’m not locked in here with you… you’re locked in here with me!“, to quote Walter Kovacs, also know as Rorschach as played by Jackie Earle Haley in 2009’s Watchmen.
Think of it. In a world where some people use social media to broadcast to absolute strangers, what could be more desirable than an audience that can’t cancel or unsubscribe. The spirts can’t troll or counter Tweet. Any suspected spiritual reprisal is just more validation then that they are being persecuted for their point of view.
Perhaps there is a new business for me; I can add spirts to homes or objects. What would the opposite of an exorcist be?
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As with so many things in the real estate business, this is a common but scammy business practice.
In 29 states and D.C., the seller is required to perform an exorcism no more than sixty days prior to the title transfer. Most home inspectors have a priest or shaman on call for this very reason. So the business model here is hoping you don’t notice this and buy a redundant exorcism.
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I’m gonna bookmark this. I have a certain …erm…white house in mind that’s gonna need this.
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Depending on video calls seems like it could really crater the vampire sensitivity of this plan.
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A Sherwood Schwartzorcist, as in to pretend to be ghosts to scare away prospective homebuyers:
Or Russian spies:
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