Quackery

[claidheamhmor]

I wandered past the Gem and Mineral Fair at Cresta last week, and it was interesting, as always, to see all the different types of gems, semi-precious stones and minerals on show. Something that disturbed me was that almost every exhibitor had books or pamphlets or displays taking about the different magical properties of the various gems or crystals. Now, surely there are enough amazing things about these minerals without having all this absolute rubbish? Can't we be impressed about how good crystals look, and how they were formed, without having to see a book by some quack rambling on about how agate is good for the blood or whatever?

On the topic of quackery, while I was sick at home today, I was listening to prank calls made by Whackhead Simpson. For those who don't know, Darren "Whackhead" Simpson is the 94.7 Highveld Stereo radio station's resident prankster. He phones up random people, celebrities, or whomever, and plays pranks on them. (If you want to hear some of his stuff, do a search for "Whackhead" on YouTube - many of his better ones are there).

Anyway, here's one where he phones up a psychic/fortune-teller. Apart from the sheer pleasure of doing this to one of these people, it demonstrates, I think, how these scam-artists are either seriously deluded about their psychic abilities, or are greedy vampires preying on the credulity of other people.

And on the topic of gullible people, Whackhead here phones up not only a 419 scammer, but also one of the scammer's victims.

"Ylvis - The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) [Official music video HD]" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

[melancthe.livejournal.com]

I went past the Gem and Mineral Fair too, and I was horrified by the number of places that seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to sell quackery along trilobites. The mind boggles. :(

[windrider-09.livejournal.com]

Some people will always be taken in by anything that looks pretty and mysterious. It is true, that crystals can be used for helping in meditation and there are properties of various stones that are still unexplored by science.

Some people will just forever be gullible and silly and some people will always try to exploit it.