Generalizations, truth, and rationality

This article describes an experiment where people gave a silly "placebo" reason that enabled them to butt in line at the Xerox machine ("because I need to make copies" ... duh) that often works for minor request of a few pages, but often fails for larger request of many pages.

HN readers might like to contrast this article with a recent blog posting by Scott Adams (of Dilber fame) who claims that giving such "ridiculous reasons" that works so well for justifying why your friends should allow you to pick up the cheque at dinner, ... should be generalized to persuade people oppressed in occupied countries should accept their terrible fate when given a "ridiculous reason", such as, "well, you know, it's been 50 years, so you should give up. We won."