Thankyou.

. . . thanks.

WOW, I just got through reading this thread...

seems like everyone has had their say, here is my twopenne'th

the world wide web has information in it which is surfed mostly by using search machines. I have a friend who sells his original music online http://www.davebonney.com and hates it when I tell him no one sits down and types davebonney into the search engine but him... I was looking here for a handling of the spirit slates and stumbled upon this thread by accident. The upshot is this thread is an advertisement for the offending site and the more it is quoted the better "hit rate" the site gets...
so if I mention http://www.davebonney.com again that's two more hit possibilities I hope this does not offend and is not in contravention of the rules...

anyone with a great idea for spirit slates and wants to share, let me know...

Ahhhhhh. But Tommy was a real magician! This kid is nothing but a punk.

Posted: Apr 6, 2008 11:15pm
Latest exposure? Wayne Houchin's "Sinful"

These kids have absolutely NO respect for any of the values of magic we "old timers" were brought up on. Not a modicum.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

But...David J. Castle juggles with a rubber chicken, for god's sake!!! That in itself should be enough to explain his actions...or, not.

Posted: Apr 19, 2008 10:08pm
Okay, so let's say that we put a stop to David Castle's exposure ( we'll assume that we found out where he lived, went to his house pretending to be collecting for Unicef and when he opened the door, we blinded him with a FISM flash and then beat him senseless with our chinese sticks that we had beforehand fashioned into a crude set of nunchakus. We then threw him into the back of a van with a drunken Dan Harlan who inflicted all kinds of weird tortures on him with rubber bands)

Great!!! We've kept the magic world safe for democracy. Now we can go after the other 2 million people who are exposing magic on Youtube for no other reason than that they love to come on these forums and read how upset the magicians are (and of course for the fact that they are very shy and introverted and use the exposure to get attention from the pimply faced girls who think that they are cool because they know how these tricks work) I mean, after all, I'm sure that in our youth we all stopped doing things that we enjoyed doing just because it offended others.

Wow! I guess this could really work. I really want to go after that guy who is exposing the "pull my finger trick"...I hate that guy!!!!!!!

C'mon, guys. I understand Tim's point about how magicians have to be able to fool people as well as entertain them and I agree completely. But the fact is that even with all the exposure, the working magicians are still fooling their audiences. Anyone who goes to the Magic Castle regularly will agree.

I was at Magicopolis in Santa Monica california several weeks ago to see Steve Spill's stage show. During this show he did several tricks that have been exposed on youtube and the tricks got great responses from the audience of around 100 people. He used my bill for his bill to lemon and I enjoyed it as much as the rest of the audience even though I know how it is done. He literally got gasps with almost everything he did. And to be honest...he didn't do anything that isn't technically within the reach of any magicians with decent skills. His show was funny, entertaining and magical.

If it's your decision to oppose exposure by contacting the exposers and trying to stop them, great! I just don't think that it's ever going to go away so we should instead channel our energy into coming up with new tricks and being more intertaining when we do the old ones.

As far as exposure being immoral, I find it interesting that when the news broke of Dan Harlan's little escapade so many people came on the forum and defended him and pitied him. What HE did was immoral! So they have pity for someone who commits this type of drunken stupidity but we just cannot stand it when some kids (which it seems most of the exposers on Youtube are)who are trying to be cool by exposing magic tricks.

I don't condone it...but I have enough sense to know that fighting it will just make it happen more.

I truly don't think there are many people on this forum who can honestly say that when they did something stupid in their youth and some adult told/asked them to stop, they said " oh, of course, Mr. grownup, I'll stop my actions right now" Nor will these kids.

I suggest buying JK Hartman's new book. It's full of card magic that has not been exposed and probably never will be because it's too complicated.

As I've said before, contrary to what some magicians think, people are just not racing home to get on google and find out how that magician made that coin disappear . And for those few who are, so what?

How many working professionals, which I am not, by the way, can honestly say that they have had a paid show ruined by someone yelling that they saw that trick on youtube? Be honest. I think not many.

Howie stop now. Howie hungy...again.

Besides, maybe if enough people buy Castle's products, he can get something done about that whacked out hairstyle. I'm just sayn'...

Posted: Apr 20, 2008 12:11am
PS Even though the thumb tip is explained completely on Wikipedia and there are several sites that expose palming and coin shells, not a single person in Steve Spill's audience yelled out, "hey, magic boy, you're using a shell" when he did his shadow coins. Nor did anyone belittle him for using a tip in his bill to lemon routine.

Sorry, I ate and then felt like rambling some more.

Posted: Apr 20, 2008 9:47am
Psspssp: Several months ago I watched Whit Haydn do his "Chicago Surprise" at the Castle. Believe it or not, not a single person in the audience yelled, "hey, great double, Whit! Too bad I saw it exposed on Yutube! So I guess you'll have to give up magic now and get a real job, magic boy!!! Ha Ha!!!!!!!"

But yet...the dealers who are carrying items with blatant lies in the descriptions just keep on going without anyone saying a word.

In the words of those great magician/philosohers, Cheech and Chong..."this is the topper of all the toppers"

Posted: Apr 20, 2008 2:31pm
And by the way...

About the whole "exposure of magic is immoral argument"...as a moral subjectivist, I cannot really say that the moral outlook of others is right or wrong but I look at it this way:

The main morality arguments concerning exposure seem to center on:

A) It's immoral because it takes money out of the hands of the people who created the effect if one can learn it on the net instead of buying the trick.

B)It's immoral to divulge magic secrets in and of itself.

C)One is, in effect, betraying a tacit confidence created between himself and the creator/seller of the trick as well as the magic community as a whole by giving away magic secrets.

These are really the only ways morality could enter the picture when talking about exposure, I believe

Let's look at the first assertion. By implication, it must also be immoral if I tell a friend who is thinking about buying a certain magic trick that he should buy another version because I feel it to be a better trick. He then follows my advice, thus preventing the manufacturer of the trick that he did not buy from making money on the trick. Anyone who suscribes to the first assertion, then, must believe that I acted immorally since, strictly speaking, I did just what the Youtube exposers are doing (at least within the scope of this assertion)...I prevented the inventor of a magic trick from making money on his trick.

The second assertion, for the most part, is rooted in the age old adage, "a magician never tells how a trick is done". Keep in mind that this has nothing to do with a question of morality. It was thought of simply to keep the art of magic entertaining. Breaking this "rule" is in no way immoral. It might not be a very nice thing to do, but it is not immoral. In some states one can be fined or even arrested for spitting on the sidewalk. Does this make the act immoral? No...just nasty. There are many rules that have nothing to do with morality.

Exposure may not be a nice thing to do...but that is the most that we can say about it. It is neither illegal nor immoral

As for assertion C...I don't believe that betraying a confidence is immoral. Again, it might not be very nice, but it is not immoral. When someone puts his confidence in you that you will or will not do something or repeat something that he tells you, in this case telling how his trick is done on Youtube and you do it anyway, you are not acting immorally any more than my son would be acting immorally if I put my confidence in him that he will take out the trash every night and clean his room without my having to tell him to and he does neither.

The fact that some people don't live up to the confidence that you put in them does not "ipso-facto" (he,he...I learned that word from Andrew Wimhurst)mean that these people are immoral.

When a person asks you not to repeat something that they have told you, they have creatd a confidence, that is, they are telling you that they have confidence in you above all others that you will not repeat what they said. Are you acting immorally if you betray that confidence and repeat what was said? I don't believe so. Misplaced confidence has nothing to do with morality.

I leave you with the words of that famous philosopher/poet/magician/renaissance man, Steve Martin..."Pointy bird, oh pointy pointy...anoint my head, anointy nointy"

Sort of sums it all up, doesn't it?

Ciao

Howard--
You're such a blatant hypocrite that I cannot even respond to any one of your duplicitous comments... but you did make me laugh!
--Dan Harlan

DanHarlan, I wonder if you're alright. Lashing out like that. If you disagree with him, why not just engage in the conversation rather than throwing a cheap shot.

An interesting term.

I wish Josh Riel were here.

Lane99--
I didn't lash out. I can't disagree with him... he disagrees with himself. Which one of his sides should I take? I would engage in a conversation if he wasn't already engaged in his own with himself. I think it would be rude of me to interrupt both of him. I just wanted to thank him for making me laugh, that's all!

Just so we can stay on topic:
I say purposeful exposure is wrong. I'd be happy to help stop it in any way I can, but I won't be drunk when I do... you see, I'm a recovering alcoholic who allowed my binge drinking habits to get so out of control that I did something horrible which scared me. I am paying for my mistakes, and I am setting things right, and I am do so publicly. All I ever set out to do intentionally was kill myself with massive amounts of poison. I never meant to harm anyone, but I did... and so I am standing up to take responsibility. To state that I am immoral while I am constantly using every bit of my strength of resolve and willpower to keep sober and deal with the mess I have created, seems a bit mean-spirited. Then, to draw even a loose connection to the willful acts of an exposer, seems simplistic. But to defend someone who has no respect for what our art holds sacred, is wrong. It has nothing to do with law or morality. Every magician is being intentionally disrespected by this individual. How does that make you feel?
--Dan Harlan

Dan the Man:

1. You're one of my favorite magicians. And when I'm in the mood to make someone's day, experience has proven that my favorite out of your many delightful rubberband effects will often do the "trick". So I'm very happy to be able to have the chance to thank you now in virtual person. TY!

2. Didn't read all of Howard's posts. Just glanced through them until I felt I grasped his core point. Which I took to be ""exposure" is not immoral". Which I agree with.

3. I hadn't seen he had explicitly mentioned you. In reading it now, I can see how those comments might seem somewhat mean-spirited. I'm not sure if they were meant that way, though.

4. Although I'm uncomfortable with the actual examples used to illustate his point. I agree with the essence of it. In general, I don't believe there is anything wrong (ethically or morally) with someone posting "how-to" videos on YouTube. And I don't believe there is any convincing argument to be made that this is something which is uniformly and universally "bad".

5. To some extent my opinion on this matter is guided by the absolute lack of perspective and Taliban-like certitude that too many of those who disagree with it demonstrate. You have people all over this place- without conveying any apparent irony or sense that they appreciate how grotesquely disproportinate is the analogy- comparing kids who post a 21 Card Trick tutorial on YouTube to serial killers and perpetrators of genocide.

This, in and of itself, is a clue to me of wrongheaded thinking. Generally I find there to be an inverse relationship between fanaticism and righteousness.

6. I'm sorry I disagree with you on something you feel is sacred. If I didn't ultimately think the conventional wisdom about exposure is in many ways counter-productive, I wouldn't kept my thoughts to myself.

From The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --

The term “morality” can be used either:

1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
a. some other group, such as a religion, or
b. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

In the case of exposure of magical methods, it seems to me that the discussion of whether or not this is moral or immoral is based upon definition 1.a .

In other words, the question of moral or immoral behavior with regard to exposure is decided by examining a 'code of conduct put forward by a society or some other group.'

I would guess that the vast majority of Magicians and Mentalists think that secret methods should not be publicly exposed to those outside of the Magical "fraternity". If this is true, then those who go against this code of conduct and publicly expose magical methods would be, in the eyes of the "group", behaving immorally.

I look at the issue in a couple of ways -- In a society of any sort (magic being a microcosm of a greater society), what benefits the group as a whole, usually benefits most individuals in the long run. What hurts the individual might eventually hurt the entire group in the long run. It's a social contract.

If I steal from my neighbor, taking his money, he suffers. If he has a family, they suffer. If he doesn't have money to buy goods, those selling the goods suffer,and so on, a chain reaction.

If Magician "A" creates an effect that he publishes or sells within the fraternity, what he's selling (apart from some bits and pieces of equipment) is a secret. The SECRET is the commondity.

If magician "B" decides to expose "A"'s secret publicly, then "B" has stolen from "A", even though he paid for the effect for his own use. He's stolen because now anyone who might have purchased the secret from the originator can now have the goods without paying for them.

This takes money from the originator's pocket. It may mean that B's action results in taking food off of the originator's table, it may mean that he can't pay his mortgage, pay for his family's health insurance, etc., etc. This creates the same sort of domino effect that I mentioned earlier. The harm caused to one person can affect the entire group down the road. It may cause the originator to decide not to share his ideas by selling them to other magicians. Everyone loses in the long term, even if some gain, dishonestly, in the short term.

I suspect that the "group" would find this immoral.

The group is also harmed by the fact that the exposed secrets value is diminished in a number of ways. It is diminished monetarily for the originator, as we have seen.

Its value is diminished for those who bought it, thinking they were acquiring something exclusive to those in the fraternity who were willing to pay the price for it. Those people who bought and practiced the effect now have the value of their performances undermined, since something that is readily available to many is not as valuable as something special or exclusive to a few.

The value of the secret as a method to deceive is diminished. While it's true that thoughtful and experienced professionals can always work around exposures, the vast majority of those in magic or mentalism are not experienced. What do we say to those who are trying to mystify and entertain with limited experience, and a limited budget, who bought this effect only to have its secret broadcast on the internet? Oh, well? Too bad for you, but it doesn't affect me?

- entity

So....I'm a hypocrite exactly where?



So...I'm disagreeing with myself exactly where?

Posted: Apr 21, 2008 9:44pm
I think that I may have found where Dan Harlan feels that I made a hypocritical statement. At first I said that I don't believe that I can tell others that what they are doing is morally right of wrong and then I proceed to say that "what HE did was immoral". Let me clarify. What I meant to say and should have stated more clearly, is that, according to MY personal value system, what HE did was immoral. I do have the right to argue against competing moral outlooks including the predominately objectionivist outlook on this forum. Sorry for not being more clear even though I did say several times, "I believe" and "To me"

............................................................................................................oh, sorry. That was me waiting for Bill Palmer to chime in and completely destroy my arguments. Now, If you'll excuuse me, I have to send Andrew Wimhurst a pm asking him what the word, "duplicitous" means.

When you call my actions immoral in one post, then say there are plenty of rules which make things wrong, but not immoral in another post... then say, plenty of people make stupid mistakes, but don't stop when someone tells them it's wrong... then say, the dealers continue selling products by lying... then say, nothing can be done about exposure so we just have to live with it... blah, blah, blah... I'm getting tired just trying to figure out exactly how big your gray area is. Morality and ethics are a socially agreed upon set of rules. Someone behaves immorally when they intentionally operate outside of those rules, and continue to do so with malice aforethought (that means they know they are doing wrong). It is also immoral if one unintentionally harms another and does not attempt to put things right. As I mentioned, I've only ever set out to harm myself, but now I must demonstrate my character by accepting responsibility for my actions. I am not rationalizing what I've done, nor am I blaming anyone else. Even though I was out of my mind, I am taking responsibility for being out of my mind. Tomorrow morning, I will go to court to face a judge who will decide how I will pay for the actions I cannot remember. I'm not going to try to deny my actions, or blame anyone else. Although their actions are nowhere near as serious, are the exposers aware that they are doing something wrong?
--Dan Harlan

I don't see where any of this is hypocritical. When taken within their original context, each statement is correct and a reflection of my outlook.

1. According to my moral outlook, what you did was immoral and according to that same outlook, what the exposers are doing is not. I don't see where this is either hypocritical or confusing.

2. It is possible to make clear to someone that one feels his actions to be morally wrong within the value system of the person in whose point of view the action is wrong without directly telling the person that the action must also be morally wrong in the value system of the person committing the action. Which is what I tried to do.

3.The dealer issue has to do with the fact that others on this forum regularly condemn as immoral re-selling, exposing, etc,. These same people then allow for blatant lying in their trick descriptions. The point I'm making here is that since these people believe, as you obviously do, that moral absolutes exist, they cannot call exposure immoral and then allow for the lies. But, many of them do.


4. As I said, I don't agree with exposure but I'm not the one calling it immoral since I don't believe it is. I have nothing against those who want to fight it and consider immoral, I never said that I did. I just think that their time would be better served working on perfecting their tricks or routines and not worrying about exposure. I don't see any contradiction in any of the points tha you made.


Morality and ethics are definitely not an "agreed upon set of rules" which is obvious by this very argument that we are having right now. If they were, in fact, agreed upon, there would be difference of opinion and no different moral outlooks. Subjectivism, objectivism, etc. You are thinking of laws, not morals. As I said, there is a huge difference between the two.

You said earlier that I called you "an immoral person" People cannot be, in and of themselves, immoral...they can only commit immoral acts. And anyway, I never said that you were an immoral person, I said that you committed an act that, in my value system, is immoral.

I also never said anything about your character. The fact that someone does something immoral once and awhile does not necessarily mean that he has a poor character.

Are the exposers aware that they are doing something wrong? Maybe they don't feel that they are doing anything wrong. Once again, I have to say that I may not agree with exposing tricks on the web but, again, in my value system, it is not immoral. I don't like stepping in dog crap that someone was too lazy to pick up either (which is against the law where I live) but I can't say that the person who didn't clean up after his dog acted immorally. He did not...according to my value system.

Good luck, Dan Harlan. You're a mensch. I think you know you're not alone and that there's a whole lot of people rooting for you.

Here's hoping this little bump in the road will be in your rear view mirror in no time.

The way I understand it, as defined in my previous post here, an individual can't really judge another person's morality or immorality by measuring their actions solely again your own value system. If dealing solely with your own value system, the only person that you are able to judge with regard to morality (or lack thereof) is yourself.

- entity

Howard--
We differ in this respect: I believe morality, ethics, law, and respect require an understanding of intent. You have stated examples where the intent to do wrong was very clear, yet you claim no moral objection. I find such a stance impossible to take seriously. And so, we cannot agree. I'm thoroughly uninterested in philosophical debates that involve dog poop and spitting, so I'm done.

In other news, I went to court this morning. Well, the process continues... but there's good news. My lawyer is asking for Treatment in lieu of conviction and both the judge and prosecutor are cooperative. The judge says "No record? Go ahead." The prosecutor, however, is "considering" it, since the current charges don't allow for it. So, first he has to get the charges lowered (by whatever magical legal process), then he can agree to Treatment. BTW, I was able to see the results of my blood test from the emergency room. Not surprisingly, I was admitted with a blood alcohol level consistent with "confusion and amnesia for the event." Way beyond loss of motor function. In fact, I was pretty darn close the "stupor, coma" level. Anyway, they've set another date for a pre-trial conference in about a month where everything MAY be resolved.
--Dan Harlan

Keep up the good fight, Dan. Day by day.

We all do stupid things in our lives, but only stupid people fail to learn from their mistakes.

- entity

Actually, it's already been debated for centuries by people much more intelligent than the two of us. Do your research. Anyway, this thread started out as a thread concerning exposure and I got it pretty well side-tracked. I will, however, debate the issue on any Philosophy related forum if you can suggest one.

Ta Ta

H.

"I find such a stance impossible to take seriously. And so, we cannot agree. I'm thoroughly uninterested in philosophical debates that involve dog poop and spitting, so I'm done." DAN HARLAN


We fear what we don't understand. I've reduced my outlook to the basest examples and that's the best I can do.

Ciao