Targeting People Who Suck At Data Analysis

As somebody who has spent the last few decades urging people to do better data analysis, I despair each time I see people fall for appalling misinformation.

For example, those “one weird trick” ads? They’re basically designed on the same principles as the Nigerian scam emails: they’re deliberately bad.

The idea is that if you’re a normal, skeptical human being, they don’t want anything to do with you. They only want the suckers that continue despite the stupid claims, the spelling mistakes, and the ugly graphics. If you sit through all that, you’re clearly ripe for plucking.

Can’t somebody invent a service to help these people? Maybe we could do some ads: