According to the 20/80 rule, 20% of people possessing 80% of the money in the world. However, through the famous book about Rothschild family “The Money Master,” it gained the public’s attention that the rule does not apply for them because they seemed to control 80% money in the world for 200 years. Their $500 trillion assets helped them to influence the financial markets and governments in many nations.

The family starts from Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his five sons. Mayer earned and accumulated his earliest asset quickly during the Napoleonic Wars. He gained the 3 million British pounds from the British government and sent his five sons to five countries in Europe to start their bank business. Gradually, they became the top influencer in Europe because they buy and sell nation debts during and after the war. Indeed, they have enough money to impact the war by sponsoring money to the armies and nations. More importantly, they made most of their money by doing war-business.

Since the family was keeping a low profile after the book debunking the family history came out, lots of legends of the Rothschild family were broadcasted and correlates with the conspiracies after. In America, it was saying that: “Morgan family has the Democratic Party, the Rockefeller family has the Republican Party, and the Rothschild family holds both of them.” The family became more and more mystery and it caused the imagination that Rothschild is always behind of kinds of conspiracies.

It also brings professionals doubts on the amount of asset under this family’s account. Although the family is very discrete about their wealth and operation to the public, the $500 trillion is never easy to hide from the world. In addition, if they had $500 trillion in 200 years, based on the 6% inflation rate, it would be a huge number now. Also, the world’s total wealth was estimated at only $250 trillion four years ago.

Fortunately, more people nowadays regard the book as a novel because of the bizarre stories and exaggerated numbers. There are many settings in the book about Rothschild family that do not make any sense when we have basic knowledge about the economy, it is easy to spot what is truth and what is a fabrication. What was involved in this conspiracy about Rothschild is augment from ignorance. Rothschild family’s myth of wealth is something cannot be proved, so people who make up the conspiracy would insist their point until the family shows the public their bank deposit.

References:

Evon, Dan. “Rothschild Family Wealth,” 30 Oct 2016. Available online: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rothschild-family-wealth/ [Accessed in 2019]

Philpot, Robert. “The Rothschilds, the banks and antisemitism – the truth and the myths,” 11 Dec 2017. Available online: https://www.thejc.com/news/news-features/the-rothschilds-the-banks-and-antisemitism-the-truth-and-the-myths-1.450112 [Accessed in 2019].

When talking about extraordinary beliefs, it is difficult to combine it with science. However, Feng Shui is the most popular topic that people had a hard time drawing the line between an extraordinary belief and science. Fengshui was created based on the principles of Taoism at least 3000 years ago in China. It is believed to be a complicated system of theories that proved by a large amount of observation and practice. In some books, it was studied due to a mysterious phenomenon that many people born in Hongcun ancient village of China finally became the general or emperor. Scholars who study the location of that village made the hypothesis that the mountain and river are highly correlated with this phenomenon. Later on, many scientific fields like astrology, geography, and chemistry were heavily studied and incorporated into this complicated theory.

While there are more elements of science, people are more likely to convince this theory (belief). For example, the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth) in this theory was the most fundamental in the world, and they create or eliminate each other. In the past time, people who are thirsty at night put a sword in the top of the bowl, and there will have some water in the morning. They firmly believe metal would create water. However, people today know that it is just because water vapor concentrates in the metal especially at cold night. In this case, Feng Shui is nothing but a pseudoscience or superstition, and it was defined as so today.

In fact, the observation of a great amount of Chinese geography helped later scholars to build Feng Shui, and it allowed them to make many hypotheses and pick the evidence from the observation to support their idea. In the field of Feng Shui, there are lots of Feng Shui schools which conflict with each other, and in today’s world people could claim them as “master” in a school people never know and making money for their service that could change people’s destiny. This trade makes many masters make millions by just giving advice for in-room designing.

People who study and practices the Feng Shui never think it is superstition. Instead, it is more of a theory of symbol. All the theories were based on《I Ching》, and in the book, everything was created by Yin and Yang, and it generates four orientations such as East and West; then these orientations creates eight Gua. Every Gua represents a natural phenomenon such as Wind or Water, and two Gua together are used in the methods of divination, which is forecasting future. Sometimes it was hard to believe this prediction, but they actually did well in most cases. They also do not think Feng Shui is a science, but a simple interaction between human and the environment, and the final goal is to achieve harmony. It has its own language of defining elements and its status in its world, so we cannot use scientific words to judge or measure its logistics.

In sum, Feng Shui is definitely not a science but a form of art in eastern culture. If people measure and test its falsifiability by using the science definition today, it is surely a pseudoscience and superstition. People who study it was a form of traditional art that has been appreciated and passed thousands of years. The creation borrowed many theories in a different kind of area that makes it mysterious and fascinating.

Works Cited:

http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/play/unearthing-shanghais-nine-dragon-pillar-509418/

https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-feng-shui-1275060

Is Feng Shui a Science?