“Back in September a message appeared on an online bulletin board owned by Daum, the most popular web host in a country, South Korea, with a huge internet culture. Written by someone called “Minerva,” it predicted the imminent collapse of Lehman Brothers, a now-defunct investment bank.
Wild speculation is normally disregarded, but when it proved to be right just five days later, a prophet was born. Word raced through the “netizen” community, and when Minerva went on to predict that the Korean won would fall against the dollar by around 50 won a day in the first half of the week of October 6th, his followers began to watch the currency markets in anticipation. The won did indeed fall by about that much over the next three days.
Minerva became an internet phenomenon, with 40m-odd hits to date. Web-users combed through previous posts, looking for prognostications, and clues about his identity.”
Yesterday, a story appeared that Minerva was arrested. Now why do you think they would go and do a thing like that? [Directly relevant link about the political power of diviners in feudal Japan]
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One Comment
It wouldn’t scare people if it wasn’t a little too real. One reason pseudoskeptic allergic reactions are hard to take personally — it’s like getting pissed at a broken vending machine. You’ll never be able to reason with it, and if you keep pushing it, bad things can happen.