Corth vs. Kiryan

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Ragorn
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Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby Ragorn » Wed Oct 20, 2010 3:40 pm

Image
http://xkcd.com/808/

If prayer worked, the invisible hand of the market would find a way to capitalize on it. So what's stronger?

The Invisible Hand of the Market?

or

The Invisible Hand of God?

Round 1, FIGHT!
- Ragorn
Shar: Leave the moaning to the people who have real issues to moan about like rangers or newbies.
Corth: Go ask out a chick that doesn't wiggle her poon in people's faces for a living.
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby kiryan » Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:04 pm

LOL hillarious...

The invisible hand of God is restrained by his promises and contract with us.

The invisible hand of the market however has few constraints.

--
taking a stab at the cartoon.

dowsing is still used in business and its being researched by at least one university. There is some evidence that your inner ear is affected by the presence of water under the ground and throws your very slightly body off balance. If their theory is correct, oil may not affect the ear the same way.

homeopathy... there are people profiting on this, not sure if its snake oil, but I'm skeptical. Consumers are theoretically using homeopathy to reduce their healthcare costs.

prayer... lots of evidence prayer is effective... most research centers around a placebo effect. Most of us reject using prayer to wish for money... still theres the "hour of power" they "profited" handsomely.

Tarot... you'd be surprised. I watched a few episodes of "wall street" (i think that what it was called) and there are very very serious psychics out there advising bankers who manage hundreds of millions.
Sarvis
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby Sarvis » Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:14 pm

kiryan wrote:LOL hillarious...

The invisible hand of God is restrained by his promises and contract with us.

The invisible hand of the market however has few constraints.

--
taking a stab at the cartoon.

dowsing is still used in business and its being researched by at least one university. There is some evidence that your inner ear is affected by the presence of water under the ground and throws your very slightly body off balance. If their theory is correct, oil may not affect the ear the same way.

homeopathy... there are people profiting on this, not sure if its snake oil, but I'm skeptical. Consumers are theoretically using homeopathy to reduce their healthcare costs.

prayer... lots of evidence prayer is effective... most research centers around a placebo effect. Most of us reject using prayer to wish for money... still theres the "hour of power" they "profited" handsomely.

Tarot... you'd be surprised. I watched a few episodes of "wall street" (i think that what it was called) and there are very very serious psychics out there advising bankers who manage hundreds of millions.


Are these the same bankers that caused the whole market to collapse a couple years ago?
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teflor the ranger
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby teflor the ranger » Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:20 pm

Bankers only do what the people demand that they do - although sometimes they do it for themselves.
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kiryan
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby kiryan » Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:20 pm

I doubt its that wide spread, there was like 3 people in the office, they couldn't be advising more than a couple hundred people.
teflor the ranger
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby teflor the ranger » Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:21 pm

Ragorn wrote:Image
http://xkcd.com/808/

If prayer worked, the invisible hand of the market would find a way to capitalize on it. So what's stronger?

The Invisible Hand of the Market?

or

The Invisible Hand of God?

Round 1, FIGHT!

Teflor approves of this question. He also agrees with Kiryan's answer. If only Ragorn knew more about the major religions, we might not have to see such stupid questions.
Teflor does. Teflor does not.
Ragorn
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby Ragorn » Wed Oct 20, 2010 6:00 pm

kiryan wrote:homeopathy... there are people profiting on this,

The alt-text for the comic is "Not to be confused with 'making money selling this stuff to OTHER people who think it works', which corporate accountants and actuaries have zero problems with." There's a difference between "it works, so we use it to make money" and "people think it works, so we sell it to them."

prayer... lots of evidence prayer is effective... most research centers around a placebo effect

Placebo effect, and generalization bias. Generalization bias says that when you pray for something and it happens, you note that the prayer was effective. When you pray for something and it doesn't happen, you rationalize a reason and disregard the evidence of failure. It's the same phenomenon behind superstition... baseball players who don't wash their underwear during the playoffs, or people who play their "lucky numbers" in the lotto. Something works once or twice, you get it in your head that it works, and then it fails a hundred times and your faith is unshaken because you're already convinced it works.

The authors of the bible were already aware of generalization bias. They attempted to prevent people from performing scientific studies on prayer by including that bit about "do not put your Lord God to the test." That bit is actually one of the more ingenious passages from the entire bible... they have millions of people believeing "this works, unless you test it, in which case it doesn't work by design."

A: "Prayer works!"
B: "Prove it."
A: "Can't. God says if you try to make him prove it, he'll ignore you."
B: "Doesn't that mean it doesn't work?"
A: "Only if you try to prove that it does."
- Ragorn
Shar: Leave the moaning to the people who have real issues to moan about like rangers or newbies.
Corth: Go ask out a chick that doesn't wiggle her poon in people's faces for a living.
teflor the ranger
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby teflor the ranger » Thu Oct 21, 2010 1:42 am

Dumbass, then just try to prove that prayer doesn't matter.
Teflor does. Teflor does not.
Corth
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Re: Corth vs. Kiryan

Postby Corth » Thu Oct 21, 2010 2:25 pm

As we all know, God only answers the prayers of extremely virtuous and downtrodden orphans. Unfortunately, there aren't enough said orphans to fill a factory. Thus, capitalism has deemed God unreliable and resorts instead to mind reading and numerology.
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth

Goddamned slippery mage.

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