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The routines in that case are designed to be entertaining, they don't give away secrets that aren't theirs to begin with, and there's often a double bluff where

The routines in that case are designed to be entertaining, they don't give away secrets that aren't theirs to begin with, and there's often a double bluff where they purport to give away secrets, but there's still an element they don't disclose, or the supposed secret is just misdirection (e.g. the phone inside fish trick) A lot of P&T tricks are boring once the secret is revealed. They don't reveal those tricks.

tshaddox 4y ago
> A lot of P&T tricks are boring once the secret is revealed. This is the mindset I don't understand. Unless the secret is something the spectator might reasonably consider "cheating" (like, if it turns out that a video production that's ostensibly of a live performance actually used post-production visual effects), I don't see in what sense knowing the secret ruins the trick. Perhaps for some people it might, but as long as the "secret revelation" content is separate from the "trick performance" content, I trust people to identify for themselves which content they want to watch.
- zbuf 4y ago
  All magic tricks are cheating. It's just sometimes the cheat is just something you didn't think of and not a lot more. Sometimes it's a gadget or gimmick; not something that requires a lot of practice. Of course there's amazing sleight of hand -- you are correct. But a lot of magic is creativity & performance, not necessarily skill. The lines are blurred and that's the fun.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    > All magic tricks are cheating. It's just sometimes the cheat is just something you didn't think of and not a lot more. I think we're using different terminology here. I think there's a pretty big distinction between, for instance, the widely known variants of the sawing a woman in half trick where there are two people in the two halves of the box, and watching a video broadcast of a magic show where it turns out they just used visual effects to accomplish the effect. Perhaps the lines are blurry and different spectators might disagree in some cases, but I think there's a set of explanations that would be considered "cheating" in the negative sense.
    - vanviegen 4y ago
      Exactly. When the audience needs to observe the trick by proxy, because it's not practical to have everybody touching the object, standing on stage, or being in the TV studio, that proxy must be honest. If I can't trust that to be the case, I'd only be interested in a trick if I can be the one on stage touching the object. No more global audience for you, cheating magician.
      - hgsgm 4y ago
        This is why Fool Us is what it is. P&T put magicians on TV but they put themselves in the audience so the TV audience trusts that it isn't just video editing like so many TV magic shows. But Fool Us does edit out "tells" that you could see by freeze-framing the recording but wouldn't notice in real life.
      - tshaddox 4y ago
        Right. It's the same with audience plants, unless there's also something specifically interesting about the way the audience plant operated. If the magician just picks a stooge from the audience, says "the number you're thinking of is 17," and the stooge says "wow, how did you read my mind?" that is not a remotely legitimate magic trick in my view. Likewise, if you're watching a guerrilla magic television special (e.g. David Blaine: Street Magic) and it turns out it's just a completely staged, fictional production using post-production visual effects, paid actors, etc., then in my view that's not remotely legitimate.
    - zbuf 4y ago
      I'm not sure we are really disagreeing. Being receptive of magic is to enjoy the idea of being "cheated" on, so I'd agree that it's not necessarily rational to feel cheated in the way you were cheated. Whatever the end justifies the means, and so on. But I think the role of good magic is somewhat to test the boundaries of negative cheating in almost anyone. For example, you've made it fairly clear you'd think of any visual effects to be negative cheating. But what if I actually do use visual effects, but successfully double down and convince you that it _isn't_, even though you'd normally be technically aware to spot such a thing. Would you enjoy being misdirected like that? We're far from the original point, but what I think I'm saying is there's a selection/survivorship bias here; a smaller number of great tricks with fascinating explanations and, often, decoy explanations. And the rest is just cheating ;-)
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  I find the secrets more interesting than the tricks in most instances. I see it as a form of social hacking.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > I find the secrets more interesting than the tricks in most instances. I see it as a form of social hacking. It depends. I've seen more than one person learning the French Drop fool their own eyes despite performing the trick themselves, feeling the object in their hand, and knowing exactly how it works. Our brains are interesting, and the degree of surprise we can get from cognitive dissonance or mismatched perceptions is hilarious. IMO, most of the secrets are boring. But the overall performance that makes it work is fun.

tshaddox 4y ago

> A lot of P&T tricks are boring once the secret is revealed. This is the mindset I don't understand. Unless the secret is something the spectator might reasonably consider "cheating" (like, if it turns out that a video production that's ostensibly of a live performance actually used post-production visual effects), I don't see in what sense knowing the secret ruins the trick. Perhaps for some people it might, but as long as the "secret revelation" content is separate from the "trick performance" content, I trust people to identify for themselves which content they want to watch.

zbuf 4y ago
All magic tricks are cheating. It's just sometimes the cheat is just something you didn't think of and not a lot more. Sometimes it's a gadget or gimmick; not something that requires a lot of practice. Of course there's amazing sleight of hand -- you are correct. But a lot of magic is creativity & performance, not necessarily skill. The lines are blurred and that's the fun.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  > All magic tricks are cheating. It's just sometimes the cheat is just something you didn't think of and not a lot more. I think we're using different terminology here. I think there's a pretty big distinction between, for instance, the widely known variants of the sawing a woman in half trick where there are two people in the two halves of the box, and watching a video broadcast of a magic show where it turns out they just used visual effects to accomplish the effect. Perhaps the lines are blurry and different spectators might disagree in some cases, but I think there's a set of explanations that would be considered "cheating" in the negative sense.
  - vanviegen 4y ago
    Exactly. When the audience needs to observe the trick by proxy, because it's not practical to have everybody touching the object, standing on stage, or being in the TV studio, that proxy must be honest. If I can't trust that to be the case, I'd only be interested in a trick if I can be the one on stage touching the object. No more global audience for you, cheating magician.
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      This is why Fool Us is what it is. P&T put magicians on TV but they put themselves in the audience so the TV audience trusts that it isn't just video editing like so many TV magic shows. But Fool Us does edit out "tells" that you could see by freeze-framing the recording but wouldn't notice in real life.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      Right. It's the same with audience plants, unless there's also something specifically interesting about the way the audience plant operated. If the magician just picks a stooge from the audience, says "the number you're thinking of is 17," and the stooge says "wow, how did you read my mind?" that is not a remotely legitimate magic trick in my view. Likewise, if you're watching a guerrilla magic television special (e.g. David Blaine: Street Magic) and it turns out it's just a completely staged, fictional production using post-production visual effects, paid actors, etc., then in my view that's not remotely legitimate.
  - zbuf 4y ago
    I'm not sure we are really disagreeing. Being receptive of magic is to enjoy the idea of being "cheated" on, so I'd agree that it's not necessarily rational to feel cheated in the way you were cheated. Whatever the end justifies the means, and so on. But I think the role of good magic is somewhat to test the boundaries of negative cheating in almost anyone. For example, you've made it fairly clear you'd think of any visual effects to be negative cheating. But what if I actually do use visual effects, but successfully double down and convince you that it _isn't_, even though you'd normally be technically aware to spot such a thing. Would you enjoy being misdirected like that? We're far from the original point, but what I think I'm saying is there's a selection/survivorship bias here; a smaller number of great tricks with fascinating explanations and, often, decoy explanations. And the rest is just cheating ;-)
hnlmorg 4y ago
I find the secrets more interesting than the tricks in most instances. I see it as a form of social hacking.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > I find the secrets more interesting than the tricks in most instances. I see it as a form of social hacking. It depends. I've seen more than one person learning the French Drop fool their own eyes despite performing the trick themselves, feeling the object in their hand, and knowing exactly how it works. Our brains are interesting, and the degree of surprise we can get from cognitive dissonance or mismatched perceptions is hilarious. IMO, most of the secrets are boring. But the overall performance that makes it work is fun.