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Comment by twojacobtwo | Hacker News Reader

Just to play devil's advocate, perhaps it has already been done (multiple people have won more than one ’1 in XX million chance' lotteries). And perhaps none of those who have the capability of something that specific/difficult (I.e. masters of the craft) want or care to have people know how real their abilities are.

I think it's all bullshit, but it doesn't hurt to play the other side sometimes.

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I don’t think the lottery is where to look. Look at hedge funds instead. If this stuff were real, hedge funds would be hiring them at insane salaries. There would be a pipeline for identifying, recruiting, and training people with the ability.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/808/

Cope! I like xkcd but this cartoon is wrong. There's zero doubt psi/RV is real.

I’m not sure that ‘would be used widely by business’ is a great test of anything. Business is pretty conservative. Observe their adoption of technology, of cyber, even of dress code. Not to mention remote work!

Many things that work, as you working in tech in a business context will understand, are specifically not adopted by business for reasons that often don’t make sense (or at least aren’t right) to those who know what works and its value.

Even so, this capability is used by business. It's like a high end sensor system used in D&D and corporate espionage, very discrete.

True, with the lottery the information density is a lot higher. In market predictions with binary outcomes, you really only need 1 bit of "information transfer".

And about the economic argument: let's continue the thought experiment I suggested above. Imagine a universe where psi exists as a real phenomenon of anomalous information transfer & manipulation. Assume anyone has some level of psychic influence on everything else. Let's say this explains the phenomenon of "hey I was thinking of this person and now they're suddenly calling me" (instead of it being purely confirmation bias).

In such a universe, you wouldn't want to publish much about your psi-based hedge fund, lest your profits would come under attack from the psi-influence of the active disbelievers... No, you'd keep it under wraps and do your recruiting secretly and selectively. And any disclosure would need happen very slowly and in the right way.

The rabbit hole goes deep :-)

This is used in finance, business, law enforcement, and other areas. In the same way that private security firms are used to dig up dirt on counterparties. It's very discrete.

Also, to run a real operation you can't rely on 1 talent. You need to run a team so it's typically outsourced. Companies don't have the political capital to run a real RV department due to stigma, which has surprising power: business is conservative and not always smart (think dress code, remote work, tech debt), so the test of "used widely by business" is not a great test. Many people in tech know that business decisions are not often rationally about what works best.

If you need external validation of why this works, try doing it yourself instead. Then you'll know! :)

My answer has all you need to get your first try: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

Wow, an open minded skeptic! Caught on in the wild - haha :)

Normally it's obvious why people think it's all bullshit, but you seem a little deeper, so I'm curious. What makes you say that?

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