Too stupid!!

[Tompet]

Watched part of an Episode of "Dream House" on HGTV last night. There were job delays, misscommunications, etc., during the building process, so the home owner decided to bring in a Feng Shui Expert. She told him that the "Flow of Chi" (or something like that) was blocked, and he had to bring in plants and place certain objects around the house. I can't believe anyone buys into this crappola.

[Yahweh]

Applying Feng Shui is the techinical description of making your house look tacky...

[Ratman_tf]

Anyone watch the episdoe of Sealab 2021 with the Feng Shui guy?

"Are you sure you're out of money?" :D

[pupdog]

From Tompet:
I can't believe anyone buys into this crappola.

You really can't? Just open any newspaper and read the obigatory astrology column, ads for healing magnets, psychic readings, etc. Then check the front page articles to see how our government buys into this--Alternative "Medicine", polygraph testing, Star Wars, etc. The difference between the Medieval age of superstition and the Modern age is, well, er, uh...we have television. (And during pledge month, you can see an assortment of quacks selling their products on "educational" TV).

[Bikewer]

I was thinking of starting up an online Feng Shui service. Just e-mail me a pic of your house or office, and I'll haul out the old yarrow stalks and all and tell ya what you need to move.

Mastercard and Visa accepted, of course....

[Goshawk]

Heh. I once flipped briefly through a cut-rate "How To Redesign Your Home" feng shui manual at the bookstore, and I was fascinated to find that the advice for redecorating your bathroom involved rehanging the bathroom door so it opened from the opposite door jamb. The end result was that although the feng shui might have been optimal, it also meant that as soon as you opened the door, the Thinker seated upon the throne would be fully exposed to anyone out in the hallway, instead of being discreetly hidden behind the open door as the (presumably feng shui-ignorant) architect had designed it.

[voidx]

My favorite example of the reality behind Feng Shui was on Penn and Teller's BullSh*t episode. Where upon the feng shui guy rearranging the dining room, and having gone on and on about how the chi now flowed properly, was then recorded unbeknowst to him saying the following, "It still looks like sh*t." I couldn't agree more :D

[Rolfe]

Somebody posted a story (another thread, I think) about research labs calling in feng shui practitioners to get the chi flowing right in the workplace. Some smart-aleck remarked that this would surely invalidate everything they were doing. Why? Because obviously pretty much all research is done in horrible little basement holes with about as bad a feng shui profile as you could imagine. Change that baseline and who knows what you'll get? Start stagnant energies flowing and you might never get a repeatable observation again! :D

Rolfe.

[Psiload]

My favorite feng shui story...

A girl I used to know worked as an interior decorator for the hoi polloi of the Hamptons on Long Island, NY. Her clients would invariably ask her to reference a feng shui expert. At first she told them she had no idea, but then she did a little research, and decided, "What the hey?" The next client that asked for a reference, she said, "I know just the person... a real pro." She sent her sister over dressed in some kind of goofy kimono. Her sister was a school teacher who barely knew how to spell feng shui, and she instructed her to just move some furniture around, and randomly drape red scarves around the house while chattering about "balance, flow, and harmony". Her sister ended up getting rave reviews from her customers, and soon had people lining up to pay her $500/hour fee. Not a one of them was ever dissappointed with her services. She milked that cow for about a year before her conscience got the better of her, and she hung up her kimono.

[Soapy Sam]

How many feng shui masters does it take to change a lightbulb?

(This is not a joke. I just wondered.)

[bjornart]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
How many feng shui masters does it take to change a lightbulb?

(This is not a joke. I just wondered.)

None. The Feng Shui Master will just point out that the bulb needs to be changed, preferably for one of a happier colour, and the fixture has to be moved, since it's obvious that it was bad chi that made it fail in the first place. Also you need to replace your wires with some that have been holistically shielded, to avoid all the dangerous electro-magnetic radiation. If at all possible you should have only crystal chandeliers where each crystal as a different healing potential, giving your rooms a beneficial aura, which will massage the, scientifically proved, force field that surrounds and protects your body from physical and spiritual harm. (Which are one anyway.) You should also have a homeopatic water filter.
That'll be $2000 all i all. Cash please, banks give you bad karma. Oh, and you need to replace that light bulb over there.

[roger]

There was a very interesting passage in the book I was reading last night, River Town, which is a first person acount of a Peace Corps ESL teacher stationed in Fuling, China. The person he was talking said something about how fengshui was an ancient superstition that the peasants now knew better than to believe.

I found it both amusing and sad - uneducated Chinese have given up on this belief while we in the west are actively promoting this nonsense.

(an excellent book, BTW, I highly recommend it)

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Everyone who is not a hard-core skeptic is stupid! We have a monopoly on being smart!

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by roger
I found it both amusing and sad - uneducated Chinese have given up on this belief while we in the west are actively promoting this nonsense.Go see in a Chinese hospital just how much Traditional Chinese Medicine or acupuncture is going on. (Might be a bit of acupuncture round the edges for cultural reasons and to show to the foreign visitors, but the locals are queueing up for the stuff that works, thank-you-very-much.)

Rolfe.

[SteveGrenard]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Go see in a Chinese hospital just how much Traditional Chinese Medicine or acupuncture is going on. (Might be a bit of acupuncture round the edges for cultural reasons and to show to the foreign visitors, but the locals are queueing up for the stuff that works, thank-you-very-much.)

Rolfe.

Yes, very true. But its amazing how many researchers with Chinese or Japanese names are still working on this stuff.

http://www.worldscinet.com/ajcm/ajcm.shtml

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard


Yes, very true. But its amazing how many researchers with Chinese or Japanese names are still working on this stuff.

http://www.worldscinet.com/ajcm/ajcm.shtml
And how is that an endorsement of anything? I wonder what is the headcount in various scam boilerrooms around the world? How many Nigerian banking officials are there contacting Americans to help them take free cash? How many carnival barkers encouraging you to pay to go in the tent to see the bearded lady and the elephant boy? How many telemarketers phoning you that you've just won $200 in free gas coupons or a free trip to DisneyLand so long as you give us a phone check for a mere $1.95 for the shipping and handling? How many diet programs that promise they'll take off your weight and keep it off or your money back? How do they keep making money in an ever-fattening America?

So, I'm puzzled. How does the number of people publishing bullsh!t about a bullsh!t technique somehow tranform it to being an effective technique?

[Darat]

I'll make a prediction

Within a couple of years feng shui will have lost its lustre to a new fad.

It will be replaced by Vaastu Shastra - think that is how it is spelt - which is an Indian "science of the ancients" for where to put your garden shed.

[Thanz]

My favourite thing about feng shui is that you have to keep the lid on your toilet down whenever it is not in use, or all of your chi will go down the toilet. You can't make this stuff up.

There is also this book:The Little Book of Wrong Shui (http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0740704753/ref=sib_dp_rdr/104-2639863-1755168#reader-page) which is a parody that should be quite funny. I haven't read it, but I have read the author's Autobiography of a One Year Old which is hilarious.

I love the subtitle of this book: "How to drastically improve your life by basically moving stuff around. Honest." :D

[MartinGibbs]

Originally posted by Thanz
My favourite thing about feng shui is that you have to keep the lid on your toilet down whenever it is not in use, or all of your chi will go down the toilet.

Now, hang on. I keep the lid and seat down on my toilet when it's not in use because:

1) I'm a married male
2) I don't want the cat to drown

[voidx]

Originally posted by MartinGibbs


Now, hang on. I keep the lid and seat down on my toilet when it's not in use because:

1) I'm a married male
2) I don't want the cat to drown
annnnnnd because you don't want to misplace your chi :D. You just didn't know it. Congrats on your sub-conscious feng shui sensibilities.