See my earlier reply to mikeash: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4162587 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4162587 In short, enough people respond to a N

See my earlier reply to mikeash: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4162587 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4162587 In short, enough people respond to a Nigerian scam to make it one of the country's biggest industries. And that requires constant, active participation in the face of a blatant scam that gets less plausible at every step. Passively allowing your perception to be shaped by how an idea is presented is many orders of magnitude easier.