Espionage Aficionados discussion

I don't often mention hoaxes in these discussions, but in a way they are a form of deception.

The story of Clifford Irving caught my eye this week. Surprised I had not heard of it before.

Talk about chutzpah.

I'm referring to the infamy in how he tried to scam Howard Hughes Industries. Can you imagine the nerve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffor...

Thanks for recalling Clifford Irving. A supreme hustler. A rogue.

I worked at Time Inc. (at FORTUNE, not LIFE the publication that was scammed) but I still have vivid memories of the time.
My wife and I also had the opportunity to see and hear Nina van Pallandt who was romantically linked to Clifford Irving.[5][6] (Wikipedia) and helped federal investigators prove that Irving had not secretly met Howard Hughes in South America.
A very different era.
This probably never could have gotten as far in a world of social media.

Lying has definitely changed. Sometimes you wouldn't think so, based on books like this:
The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and Their Hapless Victims

It's childish. Elementary school fibbing. This was a big selling book too. It doesn't even scratch the surface of what goes on today.

Nowadays, if you wanna cover up something which you don't want anyone to know about, you have a real battle on your hands. Even if your life depended on it, you probably couldn't cover it up. Meanwhile, if you wanna lie and scam, you have a myriad of tools at your disposal ...well, "maybe". What one man devises, another man can unravel.

The whole dynamic is reversed. It used to be tough for cops to defeat clever crooks. Now it's tough for an innocent citizen just to prove that we aren't crooks. The surveillance state assumes that we are, and has evidence ready.

I know dudes who take privacy much more seriously than even I do. At some point one must pause and reflect how much time is wasted fighting this dragon. Like, why train in martial arts all your life unless you work as a bounty hunter? Is that peace of mind really worth it?

Same thing with bodybuilding. What is the net benefit of spending all that time in a stinking sweaty gym, wasn't there anything else you might've wanted to do with all those hours?

Oh well. As far as crime is concerned (that 'left hand of human enterprise') it's still as Emerson famously said,

"Commit any crime, and the world is made of glass."

Still true, and with a vengeance, today!

Michael and Feliks, thanks for the interesting comments. . . . I was just reading that Q-Anon started on a pig farm in the Philippines. It seems to be quite an effective hoax--with longevity, whereas Irving was a one-click pony.

H'mmm. A guy like Irving was capable of devising anything given the circumstance. Today's wingnuts strike me as one-hand-clapping; their obsessions are mono-mania. Internet hoaxes are cheap hoaxes. Irving and his pal the Rembrandt forger, created a hoax in the real world --much harder to do, I feel.

Got the link for that pig farm story?

Yes, the Internet seems like a perfect petri-dish for hoaxes. Here is one link (but if you search for "QAnon" "pig farm" and "Watkins," many will come up): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/men-q...

I looked into that very thing yesterday evenin'. What it reinforces to me is that the internet itself is hugely preposterous. A "giant bullshit machine," as once said Harlan Ellison.

I don't avidly follow news headlines the way many of my fellow Americans seem to. I'd go so far as to say that I trust nothing I read on a screen. Newspapers are never trustworthy; they are always rife with errors and mistakes; always have been. There's no fact-checking or peer review worth a dang in the media. When I was in school I would never cite a newspaper as a source for anything.

Anyway if --as this latest brouhaha seems to suggest --the whole thing was a hoax anyway, concocted entirely by classic internet troll-monger, then I've benefited by not following this story over the past decade.

Just look at how none of these news outlets themselves, can even figure out what's going on. Folderol.

I gather Trump is doubling down on his support for Q-Anon, meaning he wants \needs their support. I have no sense of how many followers the "movement" has. Folerol indeed.

What a revolting joke

The Atlantic has a new article on Trump and Q Anon.

I can't fathom why anyone ever thought the claims of "sex rings" was valid; but what is even more mind-boggling is that 8 million internet dopes sincerely followed the hoaxster year after year. The whole thing was an obvious prank. Can 8 million people really be that fooled? In this day and age, I suppose so.

I suppose so. I guess it fills a void in them. Strange and dangerous times.

the power of the internet

Fun history

Look up the zany story of Leo Taxil

Feliks wrote: "Fun history

Look up the zany story of Leo Taxil"

And a very long name as well.
Felix, "zany" is the perfect word to describe Taxil's personal history.

The guy sure had a sense of humor.

But what unmitigated chutzpah! He starts off exposing the Vatican; because he grew up with a suspicion of organized religion. Makes up all sorts of preposterous, bawdy lies. Like one of today's pranksters.

But he spoofs the Cardinals so well that they call him on the carpet. Trapped, caught red-handed, he cries crocodile tears. He fakes contrition. He goes so far with this hand-wringing and breast-beating, that he actually converts to Catholicism.

Then, once the Church accepts him as one of the faithful, he writes a new set of exposes' about their deadly enemies, the Freemasons. Why? What for? Just for the fun of watching the Christians he hates, swallow down another outright hoax.

He fooled them once, and then he fooled them for a second time. A blow upon a bruise!

What a rhinoceros.