If it's a low resistance path to ground, it'll get very very toasty! If it's a lousy ground though, then it won't...but it also won't consume any power, so it's not an effective way of scrubbing off electricity.

A good ground (low resistance) is found in your household wiring (the ground and/or the neutral). Of you short to that...well...you can guess what will happen! (Let's hope you have proper circuit breakers.)