I think I pretty much summed where my personal line is, at least when it comes to the "ethics" of "exposure." I'm not going to expose something that isn't mine to expose.

Less in terms of ethics, every magician gets asked "how did you do that?" And every magician learns at a very early stage that if you answer it, the reaction is almost never interest and joy, it is disappointment.

That's because methods are boring and often simple. And when people find out how something is done that truly amazed them, learning the method will just take that amazement and joy away from them. In the worst case they feel stupid for being fooled by it. And that's the exact opposite of what I want. I want people to enjoy a theatrical moment of astonishment. I don't want them to think that I'm trying to make a fool of them. Nor should they feel that way, since magic uses applied psychology that works on every single person ... including magicians before they understood what was happening.

And it's a hard lesson for magician to learn because we were the people that HAD to know. We love methods. We're obsessed with them. Which is why I think that so many magicians get stupid about "exposure." Because they fall into that common psychological fallacy of assuming that other people think as they do. That if given the chance everyone is going to rush to find out how a trick is done. Whereas most people just don't care that much.

So for me, the only ethics of it is respecting the IP rights of my peers. The rest is theatre. When it comes to widely available knowledge the only reason I have to withhold information is for the above artistic reasons. If someone who wants to get into magic and learn a few tricks to show their friends asks me to share some stuff with them I'm an open book as long as I'm not sharing something that isn't mine to share.

> Which is why I think that so many magicians get stupid about "exposure." Because they fall into that common psychological fallacy of assuming that other people think as they do. That if given the chance everyone is going to rush to find out how a trick is done. Whereas most people just don't care that much.

(I' a very amateur magician)

That's absolutely the right take IMO. It's amazing to me that people will try to convince me for ten minutes to tell them how something is done. When I mention that they can probably find out in about 2 minutes of searching online, they're often surprised and say they'll do it. Afaik, not once has anyone ever actually gone and looked.

People forget about magic two minutes after it's done. Except for our special subset of people that just have to know :)