A Little Skepticism is a Good Thing

I've been thinking this afternoon about the photo posted today that turned out to be a hoax, and in particular about my own readiness to believe that the photo was real and depicted what the caption describes. When I first saw the photo and read the caption, I swallowed the hook like a hungry fish going after a plastic worm. Berrydoo gets credit for at least being skeptical enough to preface his post with "I'm not sure if this is legitimate, but...".

So I've been thinking about how I was so easily conned. (Not that I'm suggesting that the person who made this photo had anything more in mind than a good joke.) One thing that I've learned about confidence games is that it's much harder to con a stupid person than it is to con a smart person.

A professional con man will always look for a mark who fancies himself to be pretty smart. The con man depends on the mark's deductive and inductive abilities so that the mark will respond to the con man's inputs in predictable ways. The con man also depends on the mark's ignorance of certain matters, and most especially on the mark's desires, prejudices, greed, etc.

So it occurs to me that my own ignorance of computing history made me a ready mark for this hoax. In addition, to be frank, I think this episode reveals what must be a prejudice on my part. Setting aside the ignorance that prevented me from recognizing that this hardware could not possibly be conceived as a "home computer", why was I so ready to believe that the people who invented the original computers--the progeny of which make it possible for me to type this and put it on the internet for the world to read--would be so stupid as too think that this contraption could be used in anyone's home?

Clearly, they were not stupid at all. In 1954 the term "computer programmer" had not even been invented, yet I'm sure the people who were programming computers at that time could put me to shame in the smarts department. But I was so ready to consider that stodgy old guy in the photo to be a buffoon, or at best amusingly quaint.

It is all too human to assume that people from previous generations must not have been nearly as smart as more recent generations--so I'm not beating myself up or anything. It's just a silly internet hoax after all. And had I slowed down and scrutinized the photo with a critical eye, I'm sure I would have become increasingly skeptical. Looking at the photo closely now, it's so obviously a fake. I find it interesting, and a little disconcerting, that I was so easily taken in. As has been mentioned in other comments, much credit must be given to the person or persons who created this photo. The attention to detail is beautiful. My hats off to you for a prank well executed.

Dan