6 ms·

After all the help she gave all those people, she quit because someone called her a fraud and refused her help? I think this woman needs to stop and revisit wh

After all the help she gave all those people, she quit because someone called her a fraud and refused her help? I think this woman needs to stop and revisit what she was doing. She wasn't a fraud. She was exactly what those people were paying for. For many, it was someone to talk to. For some, it was someone who could look past their biases and clear their minds. For some, it was a magic trick. Her mistake wasn't the advice, but in not giving it in the accepted way: As mysticism. Tell him to go to the doctor, but have an in-character way of doing it instead of using logic. If they were willing to listen to logic, they wouldn't be there. I'm sure it's stressful to "lie" to people all the time in this way, but all jobs are stressful in their own ways. And I see nothing in this article to indicate the author has any other options open to them at the moment. Edited: Replaced "he" with "she". I was mislead by the image at the top and actually had to search for the author's name.

k__ 7y ago
Felicity who wanted a "hot boyfriend" and studied theater is probably a woman, I think.
- tshanmu 7y ago
  your unconcious bias is at work my friend, we are in the woke aqaurian age: Felicity could be a man looking for a hot boyfriend! gender identity is fluid - please dont box people into your preconceptions!
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    Straight women still outnumber gay men by a lot, so it's still the safe bet.
    - tuesdayrain 7y ago
      That's why I just refer to everyone as a chinese male unless they ask me to stop.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        In China, that wouldn't be an unreasonable policy.
      - davemp 7y ago
        That's probably something like a ~10% guess--GP's is more in the ballpark of 90%
    - mcv 7y ago
      That doesn't make it safe to assume minorities don't exist. In this case assuming she's a woman is absolutely more likely than the opposite, but there are many cases where blindly assuming someone is representative for a majority ends up erasing minorities.
  - k__ 7y ago
    That's why I said probably.
  - gutnor 7y ago
    BTW gender identity is working the other way around. If someone identify as a woman regardless of her genitals, then it would be rude not to call her a woman, especially on the internet where she can live her gender fully without the stress of conscious bias like physical clues.
- azangru 7y ago
  Notice how nobody got outraged by the "and studied theater" stereotype? ;-)
  - k__ 7y ago
    at least someone noticed, lol
- wccrawford 7y ago
  I missed the "hot boyfriend" entirely and was mislead by the stock image at the top of the article.
mcv 7y ago
Someone who can read people that well won't have much trouble finding interesting work, I think. I find this issue ethically interesting: she lies to people to help them. Or just to entertain them, but when people need something specific, she uses their irrational superstitions to convince them to do something that would be the rational thing to do. It also touches a bit on the placebo effect: should a doctor be allowed to present a placebo as real medicine because that might enhance the placebo effect, which may still be better than nothing?
thanatropism 7y ago
Yeah. This is (100-eps)% of classical psychoanalysis (including the extensive word association, etc.) except for the crucial bit that's transference -- the long term relationship between patient and analyst. Psychoanalytic theory (at least Lacanian theory, which is what I'm studying at lunch hour) explores a lot of this stuff -- the healing of people by prodding them to heal themselves and maybe grasping a clue here and there. I wouldn't recommend analysis (or astrology) to anyone in pain, but if you can read French (translations of Lacan are atrocious, and I'm told Freud is even worse) reading seminars I and XV are a great investment of time.
gwd 7y ago
> Tell him to go to the doctor, but have an in-character way of doing it instead of using logic. If they were willing to listen to logic, they wouldn't be there. Actually, I'd say the problem was that she did stay in character. I don't understand why she couldn't just say the truth: "I was just reading about a neurological condition with these exact symptoms. You may have $name, and if you don't get it treated immediately $bad_thing may happen."
guhcampos 7y ago
No. She was an untrained individual providing unprofessional and unproven mental health and potentially life changing advice to fragilized people. That's called charlatanism and has a tremendous potential for causing serious harm on scales we sometimes can't even think of. Just from the top of my head: South Korea was until recently governed by someone who took official decisions from faeries advices, and Brazilian right wing extremism is fueled by a former astrologer turned political influencer. There used to be a nice collection of similar stories in this website http://whatstheharm.net/ http://whatstheharm.net/ and while it hasn't been updated in a while, I believe it still serves as a decent repository of examples.
exikyut 7y ago
Reading between the lines a little, maybe that example summarized multiple similar incidents that built up to a point where this person simply couldn't accept the premeditated context projected onto each session. Never really thought about it that way before, but I can imagine that would get old/draining pretty quick.
LoSboccacc 7y ago
in general people are too fast to drag a hard line between scientific and hogwash, as if wisdom is useless without proof or p-values
conistonwater 7y ago
Doesn't this kind of argument work for almost every type of fraud though? "The customers were paying for the fraud, not what was advertised."
- criley2 7y ago
  Would a magician then be fraud? They purport to move a card, force a coin, etc, but they do not do those things, they trick you instead. How about "sports entertainment" like professional wrestling? They purport to provide a sport, but in reality it's a fraudulently scripted drama. Would that be a fraud? Customers appear happy to buy into many things even with the full knowledge of what it is.
  - jedimastert 7y ago
    There's a kind of ethos in magic and illusion: "being honest about dishonesty". MAny many magicians are very upfront about their "dishonesty" and have a disdain for people who aren't. This is why you see many magicians rail against psychics and faith healers. Yes, they basically do the same thing, but the magicians label themselves as such to be honest about the dishonesty. See Derren Brown's stageshow "Miracle" or the & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour episode about the indian rope trick. It's a pretty big deal in the in the art.
  - rimliu 7y ago
    In the magician's case everyone, except maybe small kids, knows that what they see is not real and just the illusion. The entertainment comes from the fact that we don't know how that illusion is done or even if we do know we still admire the mastery. In the case of astrology, cold reading, etc. many sincerely believe that there are some higher forces at work.
    - criley2 7y ago
      I don't agree. Magic works on a lot more people than you're willing to admit, and a lot less people truly believe in psychics than you think. I also notice you didn't touch professional wrestling, another case where while many know it's fake, many others enjoy it as if it were real. Or if we want to get political, let's talk about religion and Christian churches. Is it fraudulent to offer a religious service to people who believe it's real?
brazzy 7y ago
> After all the help he gave all those people, he quit because someone called him a fraud and refused his help? No, she quit because she she realized that the esotheric service industry, of which she was a part, was supporting and reinforcing that man's refusal to get medical help, which is what he urgently needed to prevent him from harming himself and possibly also others.
jedimastert 7y ago
Interestingly, Penn and Teller (although I've never heard Teller talk about it [har har] they seem to be in agreement) look at and talk about this sort of moral quandary a lot in the context of the tradition of magicians. For them, it's not enough to think think that "of course the audience knows" but to be honest from the get go. Darren Brown did a stage show called "Miracle" (which was fantastic, but a different discussion) where he talks about his experience with faith healers and the like and says at the beginning that, which he doesn't like people getting suckered or lying, the experience is one that people should have, and goes on to spend the rest of the show "in character" as a faith healer. The movie Leap of Faith also explores this moral dilemma. I've never been upset at people doing whatever it takes to survive, but I don't think that it excuses you from the ethics of what you do. I definitely wouldn't consider what he did 100% ethical and it's OK to question what you do. Do address something else: > I think this guy needs to stop and revisit what he was doing. He wasn't a fraud. He was exactly what those people were paying for. The cursed man didn't come in to see a magic trick or to be lied to, he came to have his curse lifted. There are many many people, whether ignorant or ill, who do not see this as some sort of entertainment or escapism, but actually how the world works. This is where the morally questionable part comes in. It's like casinos or the lottery: plenty of people go in expecting to "throw their money away" on entertainment, but nothing is done to tell people that it's not wise to expect anything to actually happen, and over-correlation can lead to addiction (and yes, addiction to psychics can and does happen) It's far more grey than you think.
- dkersten 7y ago
  > although I've never heard Teller talk about it [har har] they seem to be in agreement He does actually talk in interviews and they are definitely in agreement. He also has a rather soothing radio voice, in a way its a pity he doesn't talk more, although I do feel his performances are stronger because of his silence.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    I think I recall seeing him act in Big Bang Theory, acting as Amy's father.
- 7y ago
Iv 7y ago
I think that was just what tipped the scale, looks like she could not handle selling psychic powers she did not have. You may not see it like it, but this fits many definition of a fraud. The fact that her clients were delusional does not make it much more ethical. If I made a business selling cheap plastic Shenzhen baubles as potent magic pendants, would it be a legitimate business just because I find people willing to pay?

k__ 7y ago

Felicity who wanted a "hot boyfriend" and studied theater is probably a woman, I think.

tshanmu 7y ago
your unconcious bias is at work my friend, we are in the woke aqaurian age: Felicity could be a man looking for a hot boyfriend! gender identity is fluid - please dont box people into your preconceptions!
- Scarblac 7y ago
  Straight women still outnumber gay men by a lot, so it's still the safe bet.
  - tuesdayrain 7y ago
    That's why I just refer to everyone as a chinese male unless they ask me to stop.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      In China, that wouldn't be an unreasonable policy.
    - davemp 7y ago
      That's probably something like a ~10% guess--GP's is more in the ballpark of 90%
  - mcv 7y ago
    That doesn't make it safe to assume minorities don't exist. In this case assuming she's a woman is absolutely more likely than the opposite, but there are many cases where blindly assuming someone is representative for a majority ends up erasing minorities.
- k__ 7y ago
  That's why I said probably.
- gutnor 7y ago
  BTW gender identity is working the other way around. If someone identify as a woman regardless of her genitals, then it would be rude not to call her a woman, especially on the internet where she can live her gender fully without the stress of conscious bias like physical clues.
azangru 7y ago
Notice how nobody got outraged by the "and studied theater" stereotype? ;-)
- k__ 7y ago
  at least someone noticed, lol
wccrawford 7y ago
I missed the "hot boyfriend" entirely and was mislead by the stock image at the top of the article.

mcv 7y ago

Someone who can read people that well won't have much trouble finding interesting work, I think. I find this issue ethically interesting: she lies to people to help them. Or just to entertain them, but when people need something specific, she uses their irrational superstitions to convince them to do something that would be the rational thing to do. It also touches a bit on the placebo effect: should a doctor be allowed to present a placebo as real medicine because that might enhance the placebo effect, which may still be better than nothing?

thanatropism 7y ago

Yeah. This is (100-eps)% of classical psychoanalysis (including the extensive word association, etc.) except for the crucial bit that's transference -- the long term relationship between patient and analyst. Psychoanalytic theory (at least Lacanian theory, which is what I'm studying at lunch hour) explores a lot of this stuff -- the healing of people by prodding them to heal themselves and maybe grasping a clue here and there. I wouldn't recommend analysis (or astrology) to anyone in pain, but if you can read French (translations of Lacan are atrocious, and I'm told Freud is even worse) reading seminars I and XV are a great investment of time.

gwd 7y ago

> Tell him to go to the doctor, but have an in-character way of doing it instead of using logic. If they were willing to listen to logic, they wouldn't be there. Actually, I'd say the problem was that she did stay in character. I don't understand why she couldn't just say the truth: "I was just reading about a neurological condition with these exact symptoms. You may have $name, and if you don't get it treated immediately $bad_thing may happen."

guhcampos 7y ago

No. She was an untrained individual providing unprofessional and unproven mental health and potentially life changing advice to fragilized people. That's called charlatanism and has a tremendous potential for causing serious harm on scales we sometimes can't even think of. Just from the top of my head: South Korea was until recently governed by someone who took official decisions from faeries advices, and Brazilian right wing extremism is fueled by a former astrologer turned political influencer. There used to be a nice collection of similar stories in this website http://whatstheharm.net/ http://whatstheharm.net/ and while it hasn't been updated in a while, I believe it still serves as a decent repository of examples.

exikyut 7y ago

Reading between the lines a little, maybe that example summarized multiple similar incidents that built up to a point where this person simply couldn't accept the premeditated context projected onto each session. Never really thought about it that way before, but I can imagine that would get old/draining pretty quick.

LoSboccacc 7y ago

in general people are too fast to drag a hard line between scientific and hogwash, as if wisdom is useless without proof or p-values

conistonwater 7y ago

Doesn't this kind of argument work for almost every type of fraud though? "The customers were paying for the fraud, not what was advertised."

criley2 7y ago
Would a magician then be fraud? They purport to move a card, force a coin, etc, but they do not do those things, they trick you instead. How about "sports entertainment" like professional wrestling? They purport to provide a sport, but in reality it's a fraudulently scripted drama. Would that be a fraud? Customers appear happy to buy into many things even with the full knowledge of what it is.
- jedimastert 7y ago
  There's a kind of ethos in magic and illusion: "being honest about dishonesty". MAny many magicians are very upfront about their "dishonesty" and have a disdain for people who aren't. This is why you see many magicians rail against psychics and faith healers. Yes, they basically do the same thing, but the magicians label themselves as such to be honest about the dishonesty. See Derren Brown's stageshow "Miracle" or the & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour episode about the indian rope trick. It's a pretty big deal in the in the art.
- rimliu 7y ago
  In the magician's case everyone, except maybe small kids, knows that what they see is not real and just the illusion. The entertainment comes from the fact that we don't know how that illusion is done or even if we do know we still admire the mastery. In the case of astrology, cold reading, etc. many sincerely believe that there are some higher forces at work.
  - criley2 7y ago
    I don't agree. Magic works on a lot more people than you're willing to admit, and a lot less people truly believe in psychics than you think. I also notice you didn't touch professional wrestling, another case where while many know it's fake, many others enjoy it as if it were real. Or if we want to get political, let's talk about religion and Christian churches. Is it fraudulent to offer a religious service to people who believe it's real?

brazzy 7y ago

> After all the help he gave all those people, he quit because someone called him a fraud and refused his help? No, she quit because she she realized that the esotheric service industry, of which she was a part, was supporting and reinforcing that man's refusal to get medical help, which is what he urgently needed to prevent him from harming himself and possibly also others.

jedimastert 7y ago

Interestingly, Penn and Teller (although I've never heard Teller talk about it [har har] they seem to be in agreement) look at and talk about this sort of moral quandary a lot in the context of the tradition of magicians. For them, it's not enough to think think that "of course the audience knows" but to be honest from the get go. Darren Brown did a stage show called "Miracle" (which was fantastic, but a different discussion) where he talks about his experience with faith healers and the like and says at the beginning that, which he doesn't like people getting suckered or lying, the experience is one that people should have, and goes on to spend the rest of the show "in character" as a faith healer. The movie Leap of Faith also explores this moral dilemma. I've never been upset at people doing whatever it takes to survive, but I don't think that it excuses you from the ethics of what you do. I definitely wouldn't consider what he did 100% ethical and it's OK to question what you do. Do address something else: > I think this guy needs to stop and revisit what he was doing. He wasn't a fraud. He was exactly what those people were paying for. The cursed man didn't come in to see a magic trick or to be lied to, he came to have his curse lifted. There are many many people, whether ignorant or ill, who do not see this as some sort of entertainment or escapism, but actually how the world works. This is where the morally questionable part comes in. It's like casinos or the lottery: plenty of people go in expecting to "throw their money away" on entertainment, but nothing is done to tell people that it's not wise to expect anything to actually happen, and over-correlation can lead to addiction (and yes, addiction to psychics can and does happen) It's far more grey than you think.

dkersten 7y ago
> although I've never heard Teller talk about it [har har] they seem to be in agreement He does actually talk in interviews and they are definitely in agreement. He also has a rather soothing radio voice, in a way its a pity he doesn't talk more, although I do feel his performances are stronger because of his silence.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I think I recall seeing him act in Big Bang Theory, acting as Amy's father.
7y ago

Iv 7y ago

I think that was just what tipped the scale, looks like she could not handle selling psychic powers she did not have. You may not see it like it, but this fits many definition of a fraud. The fact that her clients were delusional does not make it much more ethical. If I made a business selling cheap plastic Shenzhen baubles as potent magic pendants, would it be a legitimate business just because I find people willing to pay?