Story kind of bothers me. Yeah, you can get someone to pretend not to believe something by offering a fiscal reward, but that doesn’t prove anything.
If I were a geologist and correctly identified the crystal as the rare and valuable mineral unobtainite which I had been desperately seeking samples of, but Tony stubbornly insisted it was quartz—and if Tony then told me it was $150 if it was unobtainite but $15 if it was quartz—I’d call it quartz too if it meant I could get my sample for cheaper. So what?
I think the interesting part of the story is that it caused the power crystal dude to shut up about power crystals when he’d previously evinced interest in telling everyone about them. I don’t think you could get the same effect for $135 from a lot of, say, missionaries.
Story kind of bothers me. Yeah, you can get someone to pretend not to believe something by offering a fiscal reward, but that doesn’t prove anything.
If I were a geologist and correctly identified the crystal as the rare and valuable mineral unobtainite which I had been desperately seeking samples of, but Tony stubbornly insisted it was quartz—and if Tony then told me it was $150 if it was unobtainite but $15 if it was quartz—I’d call it quartz too if it meant I could get my sample for cheaper. So what?
I think the interesting part of the story is that it caused the power crystal dude to shut up about power crystals when he’d previously evinced interest in telling everyone about them. I don’t think you could get the same effect for $135 from a lot of, say, missionaries.