Post-jail, Brian Dunning still hasn't changed a bit

Brian Dunning, kind of a
Huck(ster)berry Finn

Dunning, one of the favorites of the Skeptics™ crowd, was convicted of federal felony wire fraud, then sentenced to 14 months in the stir. (Unfortunately, he didn't get the 27 months prosecutors sought.)

He's now out, and Dunning, one of the leading pseudoskeptic libertarians in the crowd, is already showing he's not learned a thing.

He's already boo-hooing about how eBay was, essentially, a bigger, more powerful libertarian than him. The fact that he calls eBay's civil suit "bogus" is part of that. (I'm surprised that he didn't get his wife, mom, and mother-in-law, since they were on his payroll from his ill-gotten booty, to add their testimonials to his piece.

The boo-hooing, as in the past, seems to shade toward the lying. And, from near the start:

(The cookie stuffing) seemed like a cheesy, fly-by-night kind of thing. But my partner pressed hard, and an acquaintance kept telling me how much money he was making.

So, let's unpack all of this.

Yours for just $15, in one of many
Dunning website ripoffs

It's "cheesy," so the man known for selling cheesy crapola, as pictured at left, on his website, wouldn't be interested. Got it.

His partner Swengali-ed a skeptic. Got it.

Money is addictive, as well as being SCOTUS-approved as "speech." Got it.

THERE's some bullshit, Brian. Sell it!

Dunning goes on from there to blame middlemen, big bad eBay for aiding and abetting his cookie-stuffing, then changing the game, and more. Very much more. In a new level of both irony and hypocrisy for an alleged skeptic ...

Dunning goes on into full-blown conspiracy theorizing:

Our rep at eBay, whom I'll call "K," sometimes gave suggestions on things to try. ... But (after my arrest) things took a dark turn. ... (W)e wanted to depose K. Turns out K had disappeared with a mysterious, unknown illness. When she resurfaced six months later, eBay had transferred her overseas to their London office.

Sure, Brian, and the melting point of steel proves al Qaeda crashing airliners couldn't have caused 9/11.

He then claims other eBay reps made "provably false statements to the FBI." They'd probably sue you, if you named them, Brian. Why don't you go ahead?

Finally, Dunning claims the conviction rate for federal wire fraud is 97 percent, so he just had to cop a plea. No choice.

The true "bogus" is that he's a quasi-guru and now, after federal jail time, he's going to have struggle to try to rebuild his old financial empire.

The true "bogus" or rather "bullshit," including what at least used to be the overpriced $15 bullshit at his website, as noted at left, is a man making enough by his cookie-skimming (and Internet cookie stuffing is the second bane of the commercialized Net after banner ads) to pay his wife $10K a month (possibly to shelter money), to pay his mom and mom-in-law both $2,500 a month and more.

(But, per Brian, they were "traumatized" by the FBI. Ahh, a libertarian conservative having sympathy with the victim, but not real, poor, minority victims before that, as far as I know. That's OK; even if they were actually victimized some small bit, $10K a month buys good psychotherapy. Maybe Dunning has that for sale on his website, for all I know? Doorknob, I'm in fine snark today.

That and more about his "shells" for his nefariousness (and it ain't alleged nefariousness, Brian, you're a convicted criminal) is at my second-last blog post about him. It's long, but, if you're just seeing Dunning, and his would-be "explanation" from his freshly-scrubbed, Hucksterberry Finn face, and think his freckly-like self could never tell a lie, a half-lie, or close to it, you need to know differently.

It's important to expose the reality of his history, and not let him take control of his narrative right away like this.

That's true because he's not alone. He's a "type." He's the one person of this type who's visible within pseudoskeptical libertarianism, and true skeptics, who think beyond narrow debunking of pseudoscience of the Skeptics™ movement, will know that's part of why the actions of a likes of Dunning, whether he's as bad as Jesse Willms or not, must be pointed out.

As must his mental doubling-down on denialism.

Hence, this response to him.

The reality? Per my last post about him before his incarceration, he tried to shield his nefariousness behind seeking nonprofit status, never had an iota of repentance, and generally saw events through Dunningesque glasses that he probably sells for $399 on his website.

"Welcome back," Brian. I'll take pleasure in punching you in the intellectual "face" if you keep uttering such stupidities.

Per that photo-poster at left, Dunning's not the only "skeptic" to confuse, or else deliberately conflate, skepticism and libertarianism. Far from it.

Among "names," Penn and Teller and Michael Shermer come immediately to mind.

Dunning is useful to me, as a reminder of the fact that the Dunning-Kruger event is about overestimating one's intelligence. I remember that it has the names of a cartoonish horror monster ... and Freddy Kruger!

Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week.

And, Brian, it will give me pleasure to continue to slap you down.

Add in that you, as on your website in general, make your webpages so your text can't be copied and pasted, guaranteed to increase my piss-off factor, and I'll slap you down.

And, slap down supporters of you, including among the Skeptics™ crowd, libertarian quasi-skeptics and libertarian pseudoskeptics. You know who you are, the D.J. Grothes, Shane Bradys and others of that world, besides more prominent names already mentioned.

In case I didn't mention you, or didn't know to mention you, please let me know

==

Update, Dec. 27, in reference to comments below, but not just to the particular person who's making them, in part extrapolating from my replies.

1. I've heard again and again from the commenter, and it may be believed by others, that "Dunning wasn't guilty."
1A. If you're a lawyer and a personal friend, why didn't you defend him yourself?
1B. If you're not, whether you want to admit it or not, I am point-blank telling you that Dunning had the money for a criminal defense better than 99 percent of Americans. He may not be 0.1 percenter, but he was a 1 percenter. Period and end of story. Therefore, if his lawyer worked out a plea deal for him, it was almost certainly because Dunning was guilty and this was the best plea bargain available. And, if that's not good enough, given the cult-like nature of Dunning's followers, why didn't one of you start a Kickstarter for his legal defense fund.

2. Because of that, I am not accepting further comments that don't argue new ground. That's not only about this post, but any about Brian Dunning.

3. To the best of my awareness, and certainly on this post, I have called bullshit on ideas and actions first, individuals second (if at all, besides Dunning himself). I have called a bunch of people "pseudoskeptics." And? Deal with it.

Why smart people — and movement skeptics — do dumb things; irrational, anti-rational, non-rational

Over at Insight, Skeptic's new blogging spot, Barbara Drescher has a nice piece on the "smart people do dumb things," reminiscing on joining Mensa, with the lead-in of a fairly well-known story of a college prof falling victim to the fake Russian lover scheme. That said, such issues, or related ones, aren't confined to Mensa.

Let's see if motivated reasoning gets tackled over there. One can be so smart and so skeptical to be sure that secondhand smoke isn't carcinogenic and that global warming isn't real. Or, one can be so smart and so skeptical to be sure that "little tweaks" to websites aren't criminally fraudulent. Or one can be sure that such smart people in positions of skeptical authority are right when they are being sure. If you're active in "movement skepticism," I don't think I need to name names.

Beyond that, the forums at the James Randi Educational Foundation website have had people start threads defending irrational ideas. (I guess that, and the effort involved in moderating them, is why Randi is dumping off the forums.)

More seriously, this is the tip of an iceberg. There's differences, I would say, between non-rational, irrational and antirational actions.

And, I'm going to address a bit more how I see those three as separate from each other.

Non-rational actions are of a few different types.

One is, per Daniel Kahneman, where "fast," reflexive thinking is expected. To riff on our ancestry, if you're on a safari vacation, and the grass rustles, you jump just as much as an australopithecine 2 million years ago, since that rustling grass could signify a lion.

Somewhat similar are non-reflexive, but still emotional decisions. You don't analyze why you like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla or strawberry, you just eat.

Third are leaps of faith and similar actions that are forced decisions. (Not all leaps of faith are forced decisions, of course.) Let's say you have a job offer and have 24 hours to decide whether to take it or not. Interviews have been entirely by phone or email; you've never met the bosses and principals at the other end; you've never seen the work site; you've never met your would-be coworkers. At the same time, you're actively looking to get out of your current employment situation. You may, after you leap, find more information that, had you known it earlier, would have led to a decision not to leap. (The issue of emotional dissonance, an emotional parallel to cognitive dissonance, might come into play on some of these issues.)

Then, there's irrational decisions, like the college professor chasing the fake lover. If we would just stop a minute and do our "slow" thinking, we'd escape many of them. They need no more explanation.

Then, there's anti-rational decisions. A good example is Richard Nixon late in his second term, in foreign policy decisions he made after Watergate started catching up to him. He figured if he acted nuts enough vis-a-vis the Russians, they'd think he actually was nuts. Of course, that could be considered rational, as well as anti-rational.

The whole edifice of North Korea's leadership and its action in foreign affairs might be a more reasonable idea of anti-rational action.

Arguably, the Mutual Assured Destruction stance on nuclear staredowns between the US and the USSR in the 1950s is another.

Interesting, that the first three examples I recognized of deliberately anti-rational action are all international affairs, isn't it? Interesting, and scary.

Update, Sept. 26: Drescher needs to pen an addendum about her own boss.

I can see why Gnu Atheists don't like movement skeptics, too

(NOTE: The header to this post should by no means be taken as an assumption that I've moderated much of my general assessment of Gnu Atheists.)

Fortunately, I don't consider myself to be an officially follower of either group.

That said, what started this?

A social media discussion. The person who started it indicated that it was essentially verboten to critique either Brian Dunning or James Randi.

Well, I did, and added Michael Shermer and Penn and Teller in the mix, too. (All links go to blog tags.)

I noted that all of them but Randi tended to fuse libertarianism with skepticism. I also mentioned that I thought Randi knew a lot about his lover, "Carlos," and his true identity, and his identity theft, before it became public knowledge, and said that he had oversold some of his early skeptical claims.

Then, on a social media forum, I got deluged with a demand for evidence. I posted a link to my blog and told all the "movement skeptics" they could look for what I had written about the individually named persons, and evidence for that, by name, right here.

As for relevance?

Dunning's Internet fraud undermines a level of trust, among other things. So, it's of relevance. I've also pointed out the number of overpriced tchotchkes on his website and stated my opinion that only people who had uncritical acceptance of him would think they're not overpriced.

In short, how do you know he's not ripping YOU off with those prices? For that matter, per his criminal conviction, how do you know he didn't rip YOU off on eBay?

(Note: Dunning's sentencing hearing has been delayed until early January. Trust me, I'll post details when I hear about them.)

Finally, I also agree with the Atheism Plus subset of Gnu Atheists that Dunning has had some clearly sexist posts on his website before.

Randi? Assuming he oversold some of his claims as to how much he had deceived Australian skeptics years ago, that speaks to issues of showmanship, which magicians certainly are. That's you, too, Penn and Teller.

Speaking of, in the past, Randi like them has been a climate change denier, just like them.

Penn and Teller also, though eventually pulling back, claimed that secondhand smoke wasn't carcinogenic to any serious degree. So, skeptics can criticize pseudomedicine, then turn around and offer their own pseudoscience?

Shermer? My issues with him start with him having known racialists Vince Sarich and Frank Miele on the masthead of Skeptic magazine for years.

I then mentioned that someeone I did look up to, if you will, was Massimo Pigliucci. At which point, more than one person wondered what philosophy has to do with skepticism.

If you are seriously asking the question, that explains part of the problem with "movement skepticism," and why I'm not a follower, right there.

Afer that, I mentoined that I had been barred from commenting, or banned, from Skepticblog for my degree of pointing out Dunning and Shermer's libertarianism.

I also, to show how I am an independent thinker, mentioned I had been banned from Daily Kos for being too liberal and too Green.

At that point, a couple of commenters treated me like I had surely deserved all of this, on the bans and blocks.

Wow.

And stuff like this why I also invented the blog tag of pseudoskepticism.

And, I haven't even mentioned Center for Inquiry, back in its pre-Gnu Atheist days, and its problems with Al Seckel.

Folks, once you put movement skepticism leaders on a platform and declare them immune, in some way, to some degree, from properly critiquing criticism, you've just forfeited your own skeptical high ground. It's not restricted to these particular skeptical leaders of today, it's the general idea.

That relates to the social media thread in question and me being asked who was a leading idea generator, or whatever. I mentioned Massimo Pigliucci, but don't put him on a pedestal, either.

Instead, the question, and its tone, seemed to imply that skepticism was something to be learned almost by rote, almost by semi-blindly following a school of skepticism, or whatever.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Like Nietzsche, I have no need for idols, either secular or sacred. And, yes, I do take a hammer to others' at times.

Second, I've long said that today's "movement skeptics" should study Skepticism the philosophy (there's that word!) and also look at applying skepticism beyond apparent pseudoscience issues. Modern movement, or scientific, skepticism, actually operates in a shallow pond relative to all the broader issues of critical thinking. (That said, I am not taking the Gnu Atheist side on the idea that skepticism implies atheism.)

I mean, the idea that I would first name a professional philosopher to "turn to," on skepticism? Why was that so incredible? For a non-living one, I'd name Hume.

Thrid, yes, one could consider my comments on the social media thread, like the ones on Skepticblog and Kos that got me banned, as a form of trolling. But, that's defining that word quite broadly and quite vaguely. If your idea of trolling is nothing more than contrary, even contrarian, comments, which nonetheless do not engage in personal attacks, or in vulgarity or profanity, than your definition of trolling is in line with your putting people (or yourself) on a pedestal.

No thanks. I'm not playing that game, or playing along.

(And, I'll admit to being willfully contrarian in some of my comments on blog sites. But, really, that's still not trolling. My objections are always still legitimate, and still on issues of some substance.)

That said, calling me a "hater" for making observations about skeptics, the above-named ones, that I am far from alone in making is ridiculous. So, too, is assuming that, just because I didn't post 50 blog post links, or other URLs, that I don't have evidence behind my claims.

And, now unfriending me?

Ahh, now we've descended into treating me like a child.

I mean, to bluntly say, Brian Dunning is not a criminal, when he's pleaded guilty to a federal fraud charge? OK, whatever floats your boat. Just don't pretend to be a critical thinker around me.

Vis-a-vis Gnu Atheists, I've said more than once that atheism is no guarantor of either moral or intellectual superiority. Well, in the modern "movement skepticism," I'm starting to think the same applies. And, both appear to have their leaders, who often draw blind or semi-blind followers.

Ultimately, it's called "tribalism." That's why I find Groucho Marx's dictum about not wanting to belong to any club that wanted him as a member to be so appealing.