What's up with this so called "taboo" anyway?

[Melchior]

The recent xkcd comic prompted me in wondering about this less than mainstream property about psychic phenomena. My question is this, really: How effective and/or robust would you propose that these less than fully understood areas of phenomenology (perhaps?) are and what reasons are these not or can not be capitalized on more than what the current state of things are? Perhaps also use this space to discuss what may be done to move the study of psychic phenomena more into the mainstream if in fact it is as effective and robust as it would like to be. Or perhaps discuss the impracticality of using these psychic phenomena on the scale of everyday interactions. Btw, if the answer to the former is money, then I wonder if it would be a matter of the utility at a practical level costing more than it's worth.

Also enjoy the comic.

xkcd: The Economic Argument