You Dunning Goof’d

And they totally backtraced you. Now you gonna jail.

Poor Brian Dunning.

I barely knew you… really hadn’t heard of you, until you became the internet posterboy of bad-skepticism. I can hear the fanboys and girls wailing. No, not our Brian.

For those not following the drama, Brian Dunning is a podcaster, fighting the good fight for skepticism against the charlatans of woo.

But dear friends, Brian also had a dark secret, a double life hidden from the world… ok enough with the drama…

Dunning made a shit ton of money by gaming the system with Ebay.

Ebay says: oops we took money we shouldn’t have and split it with nefarious people. So sorry. But… we always cooperate when the FBI comes calling.

Essentially, Dunning, one of the said nefarious people, created a program that made advertisers think he was advertising for them, and this ended with him getting paid a cut of the advertising revenue that Ebay gets and shares with it’s ‘affiliates’. The people who help whore ads to the rest of us.

Very clever, and very illegal. It’s called fraud…. well unless you work for a bank, Wall Street, a big corporation, or otherwise have a politician in your pocket, then it’s just good business. It’s also called white collar crime and you do not get to pass go.

Sorry, (Pepsi) I can’t take this too seriously. (Coke) He committed a crime and should do his time, (Boobjob) but I can’t squeeze out a crocodile tear for advertisers(Miracle Diet) who have poisoned every click I make with product advertisements for shit I don’t want or need. (Viagra)

I also use adblock and delete my cookies regularly. Advertising is at best a necessary evil that keeps the stuff I like coming down the tubes.

But I game the system too, I avoid that shit as much as I can, while still getting the stuff the ads pay for. That is not fraud… it won’t make me millions like Dunning, but when the system is corrupt and someone makes the big boys look stupid, it does bring a smile to my face, not a tear to my eye.

And if Dunning had given his ill gotten gains to charity or something, he probably would have been lionized for sticking it to the man… but he’s no hero, just a scammer working for personal gain.

On a side note, the drama machine in SJ-land is in full swing… People seem to be mad that skeptics(like me, I guess) aren’t mad *enough* at Dunning, while others are mad that people are mad at them for being mad at people for not being mad enough… at Dunning.

Thankfully, I’m a postmodernist, otherwise keeping track of that kind of narrative might require serious medication.

Somewhat ironically, I checked out some of the more complainy blogs, only to see… you guessed it…. lots of ads for shit I don’t need.

Keep your head up Brian, I hoped you learned a lesson… and you know…. don’t drop the soap.