In recent years, I’ve noticed more and more of sites like medical adoptions.com or the now defunct coincidencedesign.com. They are in essence the intellectual heirs of Swift’s A Modest Proposal and many of them are just as impressive. They employ the same tactics and produce the same results. Some people see right through the hoaxes immediately, but many are outraged and quite credulous. In the end, the fact that people are willing to believe, even momentarily, that the proposal in question is being seriously put forward, is an excellent commentary on humanity’s opinion of itself. In Swift’s case, he was … Continue reading The Art of the Hoax