Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Great Egress

Let's go to the circus, and see The Great Egress. The signs indicate something stunning, and the arrows point the way. The crowd follows, whispering rumors about the fascinating secrets of the Egress. They go through the doors, and end up outside. There they see a sign with the definition of egress: "1) The action or right of going or coming out. 2) a place or means of going out." And now everybody has to pay 25 cents to get back in.

There is no proof that P.T. Barnum ever said "there's a sucker born every minute," but he did say "every crowd has a silver lining." The man would still profit brilliantly today...

Just tell people you have a shocking video of a living, breathing space alien, and watch the bloggers and mainstream media swarm to you. Better yet, claim you are a former CIA analyst with a scandalous video featuring a politician or his wife (as I laughed about earlier this week), and watch your web traffic skyrocket.

The profit is more than monetary if one has a political agenda. Because the rumors, embellishments, and lies grow as we head down the dark corridor towards the egress. The damage is done long before we reach the door.

The world has fallen for many hoaxes both political and scientific. A hoax usually sounds like it has some kind of credibility by association, has some technical sounding language, and often enough, the artifact or video never even surfaces.

As we head out the exit this time, the sign will say "Oh, grow up!"

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