A couple days ago, PZ posted a video comprising two short clips: one of a self-described "chi master" appearing to take down a stream of students without even touching them, the next of the same guy going up against a mixed martial arts fighter and losing badly.
I must dispute one point of PZ's description. He describes the actions of the martial arts students as "pratfalls," but they hardly come off as clowns, not in the literal sense anyway. Insofar as I can determine anyone's mental state from just over a half-minute of video, the students appear to be true believers whose belief has destroyed their ability to do a basic task. It's almost like the stories you hear about aboriginal tribesmen who curl up and die because they believe they've been cursed. The human capacity for self-deception continues to fascinate me.
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