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[Merged] James Randi has died


Carnoferox

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Wonder when the “death bed” confession is going to be exposed? Much like Anton Lavey supposedly had before his death. (Shame on that person who tries to do that!)

Edited by newbloodmoon
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9 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

You do realise we can check this thru the JREF?  And that your proposal was NOT the sort of thing that the $1M Challenge was about, so of course they refused to accept your silly suggestion.  Seriously, what is wrong with you?

And...
 

 

What most often occurred with these applications was that the submitter could not coherently and concretely describe the phenomenon they wished to test, much less help develop a mutually agreeable testing protocol.  As you noted, the challenge also didn't test the untestable like the silly notion of cloud busting in which  the claimant alleged they could look in the sky and break up clouds with their mind.

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As much as I value critical thinking as a concept, the cult of James Randi is almost as obsessed with him, as the Trumper's are with his reality show. James Randi was a showman. I don't think a particularly good one, but to each his own.

My offer was made publicly many years ago, and I'm sure it's still available for anyone who wants to research it. I made the offer under the same username, on his forum thread about the million dollar prize. It's easy to find, and I don't recall being censored for it, so I give him credit for that. He never censored me for anything. 

I can't recall if the finer details of the offer were handled via Private Message on the web portal, but those items too, are also likely saved in my PM box over there. The last communication I remember, was I offered to have an escrow attorney hold my forecast of Randi's future date of death, in a sealed envelope. Again, however, no matter what I tried, they seemed to believe that the critical thinking world ended, with correctly forecasting the death of James Randi.   

Those who know me here, know this is exactly the sort of proof I would be willing to provide. Whether I could do it or not, is another matter, but I did make the offer, and they refused; I suspect, because they were afraid that I just might be able to pull it off. Of course, then James Randi's death would end in a disaster for the cult.  

The supposed critical thinking club, turned out to be a bunch of superstitious crybabies, who could only whine that someone would have the audacity to make such an offer of proof of the SUPERNATURAL. But what greater proof than the future death of their Dear Leader?

The truth is, the supernatural is real, and it's not "super" at all. It's all perfectly natural. We just don't have the full knowledge and capacity to explain it, yet.

Edited by Raptor Witness
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One of my fav's, local lecture from 2000.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

As much as I value critical thinking as a concept, the cult of James Randi is almost as obsessed with him, as the Trumper's are with his reality show. James Randi was a showman. I don't think a particularly good one, but to each his own.

My offer was made publicly many years ago, and I'm sure it's still available for anyone who wants to research it. I made the offer under the same username, on his forum thread about the million dollar prize. It's easy to find, and I don't recall being censored for it, so I give him credit for that. He never censored me for anything. 

I can't recall if the finer details of the offer were handled via Private Message on the web portal, but those items too, are also likely saved in my PM box over there. The last communication I remember, was I offered to have an escrow attorney hold my forecast of Randi's future date of death, in a sealed envelope. Again, however, no matter what I tried, they seemed to believe that the critical thinking world ended, with correctly forecasting the death of James Randi.   

Those who know me here, know this is exactly the sort of proof I would be willing to provide. Whether I could do it or not, is another matter, but I did make the offer, and they refused; I suspect, because they were afraid that I just might be able to pull it off. Of course, then James Randi's death would end in a disaster for the cult.  

The supposed critical thinking club, turned out to be a bunch of superstitious crybabies, who could only whine that someone would have the audacity to make such an offer of proof of the SUPERNATURAL. But what greater proof than the future death of their Dear Leader?

The truth is, the supernatural is real, and it's not "super" at all. It's all perfectly natural. We just don't have the full knowledge and capacity to explain it, yet.

Can you predict the day of my death please? I'll make sure you are delivered a well deserved "atta boy" if you're correct.

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35 minutes ago, Robotic Jew said:

Can you predict the day of my death please? I'll make sure you are delivered a well deserved "atta boy" if you're correct.

You know what you call a person who predicts your death day?

A murder suspect.

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48 minutes ago, Robotic Jew said:

Can you predict the day of my death please? I'll make sure you are delivered a well deserved "atta boy" if you're correct.

Raptor is just upset because no one takes him seriously. And they shouldn't. I think it's kind of messed up what he's doing in this thread. Don't worry RoboJew, you'll be an old man when you die.

Edited by XenoFish
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3 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

I'm sure it's still available for anyone who wants to research it

NO, you don't get to claim that.  The obvious implication is that you made the offer and named the date - either way, you don't get to claim something and not link to it.  It's not up to us to chase down your bull****.

 

So link to it or withdraw the claim.  And let's discuss what actually happened, and the rules (which are extremely fair) of Randi's challenge.

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11 hours ago, Peter B said:

If you truly had such a skill it would be easy to demonstrate it, and easy to publicise your success, Randi's prize or not.

You know - write your prediction, put it in a tamper-proof envelope, post the envelope to yourself to get it datestamped, put all this on a website which you advertise here, and break out the prediction when it comes true. I'm sure there would be plenty of UM members - skeptics and believers - who'd be happy to help you undertake this demonstration.

These days there are plenty of ways of getting publicity for genuine skills, and plenty of ways to monetise if you wish.

Exactly, although you need to be careful what you suggest.  I am reminded of Derren Brown, and the lengths he would go to, in order to set up a claim like this.  Let's face it, all you need to do is pick someone (or a few people) who's ..um .. older and not looking well, shall we say..?  Then do a mailmerge and get 365 letters printed, each showing a different date.  You could even include letters for a few persons in the same envelope, and/or perhaps put a tiny mark on the outside of each envelope so when you finally get a hit, you can just grab the correct envelope out of your collection, and then start videoing your amazing success...

In a country with low postal rates, this could be done quite cheaply, plus you could simply reduce your chances a bit (aka make the process take longer) by just randomly picking a pile of dates and then being patient.  The day will *have* to come...

There are, of course, some simple ways to prevent that type of fraud, and the Randi Challenge was designed to make sure that the claimant was given the freedom to design their 'claim', but they were prevented from using the opportunity to cheat.

 

Anyway, my point is that you should always look *very closely* at such claims, and think through how you could fake it - in most cases it's not that difficult, which is why we NEED people like Randi, Derren Brown, Penn & Teller, etc... - to keep people like Raptor Witness from suckering anyone.

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15 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

That’s when I knew that his million dollar prize offer, was a fraud. 

If you claim to have known or had the ability to predict his death why didn't you start a thread a few days ago?

JAMES RANDI WILL DIE ON 10/20/20?

Not that it would have been all that amazing considering he was a very old man in poor health for years.

He had coronary artery bypass surgery 14 years ago.

He was diagnosed with colorectal cancer 11 years ago and had laproscopic surgery and chemotherapy. 

He had a stroke in 2017.

So my question is did you ever actually predict the date he would die or are you saying you never actually did make such a prediction?

Edited by onlookerofmayhem
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39 minutes ago, onlookerofmayhem said:

So my question is did you ever actually predict the date he would die or are you saying you never actually did make such a prediction?

I suspect Raptor Witness is referring to this:

As usual, he is completely misrepresenting what happened.  According to that thread, Randi's 'crew' told someone else that the Challenge would not apply to such a ridiculous stunt.  If it did, they would be flooded with date predictions and someone would, eventually, be correct.  That isn't predicting, Raptor Witness didn't predict anything, and frankly, he should have NOT posted this stupid observation here. 

Edited by ChrLzs
clarifying
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I'll genuinely miss seeing those slacks pulled up to his nipples. 

Kidding, he did awesome work. Very smart man. Rip 

Edited by HandsomeGorilla
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6 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

As much as I value critical thinking as a concept, the cult of James Randi is almost as obsessed with him, as the Trumper's are with his reality show. James Randi was a showman. I don't think a particularly good one, but to each his own.

My offer was made publicly many years ago, and I'm sure it's still available for anyone who wants to research it. I made the offer under the same username, on his forum thread about the million dollar prize. It's easy to find, and I don't recall being censored for it, so I give him credit for that. He never censored me for anything. 

I can't recall if the finer details of the offer were handled via Private Message on the web portal, but those items too, are also likely saved in my PM box over there. The last communication I remember, was I offered to have an escrow attorney hold my forecast of Randi's future date of death, in a sealed envelope. Again, however, no matter what I tried, they seemed to believe that the critical thinking world ended, with correctly forecasting the death of James Randi.   

Those who know me here, know this is exactly the sort of proof I would be willing to provide. Whether I could do it or not, is another matter, but I did make the offer, and they refused; I suspect, because they were afraid that I just might be able to pull it off. Of course, then James Randi's death would end in a disaster for the cult.  

The supposed critical thinking club, turned out to be a bunch of superstitious crybabies, who could only whine that someone would have the audacity to make such an offer of proof of the SUPERNATURAL. But what greater proof than the future death of their Dear Leader?

The truth is, the supernatural is real, and it's not "super" at all. It's all perfectly natural. We just don't have the full knowledge and capacity to explain it, yet.

You really have no idea why people would think that your offer was in very bad taste ?

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55 minutes ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

You really have no idea why people would think that your offer was in very bad taste ?

The forecast would’ve been sealed, so no one would know, until after the man died. Even James Randi would not be aware of the forecast date, nor would I want him to be aware of the date that I had picked. 

As far as did I actually forecast James Randi’s death; I never made a conscious attempt to do so, because his cult gave me no reason. 

I did publish a mathematical formula on Randi’s forum, which turned out to be arguably correct, related to my announcement of the end of Manifest Destiny, and the Donner Party.  It’s probably just as interesting, if not more so than my proposed, contest forecast, because the odds were 1000 to 1, according to scientists.

It’s important to understand that I bore this man no ill will, whatsoever. I was putting my reputation on the line, much more than he was.

Edited by Raptor Witness
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15 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

Those who know me here, know this is exactly the sort of proof I would be willing to provide.

What proof do you provide though?  Your predictions are superstitious gibberish.  I recall one time you tried to use triangle windows as evidence of the illuminati, the topic was shut down by a mod for being so asinine.

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9 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

The forecast would’ve been sealed, so no one would know, until after the man died. Even James Randi would not be aware of the forecast date, nor would I want him to be aware of the date that I had picked. 

As far as did I actually forecast James Randi’s death; I never made a conscious attempt to do so, because his cult gave me no reason. 

I did publish a mathematical formula on Randi’s forum, which turned out to be arguably correct, related to my announcement of the end of Manifest Destiny, and the Donner Party.  It’s probably just as interesting, if not more so than my proposed, contest forecast, because the odds were 1000 to 1, according to scientists.

It’s important to understand that I bore this man no ill will, whatsoever. I was putting my reputation on the line, much more than he was.

So that's a no to my question I take it?

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On 10/22/2020 at 1:56 AM, psyche101 said:

Did you offer the information to anyone else at the time? 

Why would I offer the information to someone else? The point was made, when they turned me down. The million dollar prize was a fraud ... 

Edited by Raptor Witness
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11 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

I did publish a mathematical formula on Randi’s forum, which turned out to be arguably correct

In other words, it was incorrect ;) 

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11 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

The forecast would’ve been sealed, so no one would know, until after the man died. Even James Randi would not be aware of the forecast date, nor would I want him to be aware of the date that I had picked. 

As far as did I actually forecast James Randi’s death; I never made a conscious attempt to do so, because his cult gave me no reason. 

I did publish a mathematical formula on Randi’s forum, which turned out to be arguably correct, related to my announcement of the end of Manifest Destiny, and the Donner Party.  It’s probably just as interesting, if not more so than my proposed, contest forecast, because the odds were 1000 to 1, according to scientists.

It’s important to understand that I bore this man no ill will, whatsoever. I was putting my reputation on the line, much more than he was.

I've been on this forum for a long time and have never seen proof of what you claim you can do.  

If you really did offer to give Randi the date he will die, it was a very dumb thing to do.  It wouldn't be surprising if they turned you down.  

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Randi was a good man, and did some good work in his time.

R I P

 

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11 hours ago, Raptor Witness said:

....

36 minutes ago, Essan said:

In other words, it was incorrect ;) 

..... related to my announcement of the end of Manifest Destiny, and the Donner Party.  It’s probably just as interesting, if not more so than my proposed, contest forecast,

How convenient that you left off the rest of my post. 

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2 minutes ago, Raptor Witness said:

How convenient that you left off the rest of my post. 

I quoted the relevant part.  The bit that demonstrates that you clearly don't understand mathematics either.

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Enough folks with the bickering and predictions and death dancing please. Do not further derail this thread with such commentary. 

Leave it at respects for someone who has died. 

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