
A Pickpocket's Tale - danso
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/07/130107fa_fact_green?currentPage=all&src=longreads
======
theory11
Apollo is a friend of mine - and he's without a doubt one of the most
talented, intelligent performers working today. He has a frighteningly sharp
understanding of misdirection, and how to control where you are looking and
when.

While a magician of sorts, Apollo's talent is unique from magic in that the
secret is just as entertaining as the effect. Our company
[<http://theory11.com>] is a collective of artists in the magic industry, but
Apollo's expertise extends much further, to applications in law enforcement
and military intelligence.

Apollo practices not only pickpocketing, but also putpocketing, where he
plants an object on the spectator (in their pocket, etc). Their reaction, upon
reaching into their pocket to discover a random, rubber shrimp, is pretty
funny.

Interesting to note is that when Apollo is doing a stage performance, the
audience often KNOWS he is a pickpocket. The participant on stage KNOWS he is
going to try to steal something. But the more they consciously try to prevent
it, the easier he can divert their attention right where he wants.

Most impressive about Apollo isn't what he does, though - it's how he does it,
and how deep his understanding is of why it works. If you're interested in
that sort of thing, definitely check out the book Sleights of Mind (featuring
Apollo's insight on the neuroscience of magic) and the television special
Brain Games, with Apollo and David Copperfield. Both are fascinating.

\- jonathan bayme

~~~
edanm
Fun to see theory11 on Hacker News. Great company, I'm a fan.

I wonder how many HN users are magicians. I've always felt a strong connection
between hacking and magic - both involve trying to "hack" a problem in a way
that ordinary minds will never think of.

In fact, I credit magic with teaching me the roots of skepticism and
rationality - once you know how to explain seemingly unexplainable things, you
realize that things that you _can't_ explain mean a lack of knowledge on your
part, not a lack of explanation on the universe's part. And when you have
smart people around you arguing that it simply _can't_ be done, when you know
the secret, you realize even smart people get fooled into thinking that what
they can't explain must be supernaturaly.

~~~
hexagonc
Magic tricks _are_ hacking! You are hacking someone's mind, particularly their
assumptions and attention. The exploits to human psychology and attention are
just as sure as the exploits to crack or unlock a smartphone and many other
software exploits. The difference is that software can be patched but the
evolved behaviors that are the root of the exploits used by magicians are very
hard to "patch". For example, if I say the word "ball", if you have understood
this word then you have no choice but to have a certain mental state that is
predictable to a magician. You do not have conscious access to the low level
machinery for understanding speech and if there is some magic trick involving,
say, implanting an idea in your mind using words, then you often CAN NOT avoid
being fooled. Moreover, a good magician will prevent you from stopping to
think about what he is doing by merely _talking_ and distracting/leading your
attention to the next ruse he wishes to perpetrate. Unless you know the tricks
or have exceptional mental control, e.g., from years of meditation practice,
you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed and check-mated by a good magician.

What's amazing about magic tricks is how strong the effects can be. For some
tricks, if you didn't know that it was a trick, there is simply no other
explanation than that it is magic. A good magician doing closeup magic can
follow your gaze and know what you're looking at in order to adjust his
strategy in real time. The evidence that might clue you in to the trick is
fleeting and if you miss it, due to distraction and showmanship, then the
magician has caught you and has succeeded in pickpocketing you, making you
think an object has disappeared or that he has read your mind.

EDIT: And your point about magic and skepticism is particularly apt. A lot of
supernatural belief is based on unexplained things in people's everyday life.
These are kind of like "natural" magic tricks. People might encounter
unexplained events in their everyday life and jump to the conclusion that it
is supernatural because they don't know where to look to find the natural
causes. And if the natural antecedents are forgotten or fade away then all
that is left is unexplained event that seems supernatural. For example, one
time I was sitting at my desk and I noticed that a Styrofoam cup on an
adjacent desk just started moving. It was as if the Invisible Man decided to
slide the cup about 5 inches. If I didn't investigate what was going on then I
would have no choice but to conclude that it was magic because there was no
visible natural cause to it. As I tentatively approached the cup, I realized
that the desk it was sitting on was at a slight incline. Moreover, there was a
small puddle of water on the desk from the air-conditioner above it that had
been leaking. The puddle of water had slowly, due to gravity, seeped beneath
the cup and eventually the cup overcame friction to slide down the thin slick
film.

Now, if I had not checked for physical causes immediately, then the water may
have dried up and the true cause for the seemingly supernatural event would
have been lost to time. Magic helps skepticism because it makes you cognizant
of the fact that things can appear to be supernatural if you are not ready at
all times to check for natural explanations.

------
GuiA
Thanks, great article! Pickpockets fascinate me.

A recent hobby of mine has been to steal people's straws in drinks at parties
(a way to practice without being arrested when you fail :-) )- it's a
fascinating thing to do: you have to observe how people behave, how they react
when you talk to them, when you point at something with one finger, etc. I
recommend trying it.

~~~
rdtsc
Have you considered that quite a few notice what you did but just don't want
to confront you, rather put you in "that weirdo" category and make a mental
note not to associate with you anymore.

I would certainly not follow you, point a finger and yell "you stole my straw,
give it back" but I would certainly think you are strange and just steer away
from you in the future.

~~~
ramblerman
Have you considered that you might be the strange one? You see somebody do
something "weird", immediately categorize them, cut communication, and move
on... That's a pretty small and boring world to live in.

If I saw OP do his thing, I'd laugh and say "give me my straw back you
weirdo", he'd explain and that would be that.

~~~
devcpp
We all do that unconsciously. If you're like most people, you aren't strange.

~~~
Dylan16807
You're going to parties with too many people if you're marking people as do-
not-communicate at a second's notice. It's not like you're in public with
hundreds around.

------
gnosis
There are some nice Apollo Robbins videos floating around on youtube. Like
this one: [1]

Also well worth watching is the work of Bob Arno.[2][3]

[1] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pIU1uZlH-o>

[2] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_BpNAeeX0>

[3] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hboPd9GzJxg>

~~~
mutagen
The first link is great, with a few rewinds you can see most of his
misdirection and trickery even though it slips by the first few times (at
least for me, in my post celebratory state of mind).

------
kjackson2012
Fascinating article!

The one thing I've learned about pickpockets is not to let people get so close
to you so that you are confused by all the "noisy" touches. That's how
pickpockets work, either by getting large groups of kids to surround you and
they start putting their hands in all your pockets (like what almost happened
to me in Rome), or in crowded places like subways or tourist areas (like the
Eiffel Tower). I've conditioned myself to put all my things in my front
pockets, like my wallet, keys, etc, and whenever anyone gets close, my
instinct is to put my hands on my pockets.

~~~
rdtsc
> I've conditioned myself to put all my things in my front pockets,

My friend got his wallet stolen from his front pocket on his shirt. The pocket
was buttoned down and he was also wearing a winter jacket on top of it as
well.

It happened in a crowded city bus. That is really just a goldmine for
pickpockets. Well usually. It hasn't worked out for that particular group
really as we managed to catch one of them (crowded city bus only stops at
certain stops and because it is crowded it is a little hard to run). We
brought him to a police station, where the cops promptly escorted him to a
room and proceeded to torture him. I can still hear his disturbing and
desperate cries. It felt like we won at the time but in looking back, I feel
sorry for the kid.

~~~
wging
In which country did this happen?

~~~
rdtsc
Eastern Europe, I'll leave it at that.

~~~
StavrosK
Why? Are you afraid of causing a PR nightmare for the country's tourism
office? :-P

------
hawkharris
This interesting story reminds me of an anecdote from boarding school. As I
was preparing to leave a lecture hall one day, a classmate asked me if I
enjoyed reading. I was a little confused by his question because I'd never
seen or met the guy before. Then, with a smile, he systematically removed all
my papers and textbooks from his bag. To be fair, I might've been complacent
as a teenager and therefore an easy target, but it was still an impressive
trick. I can understand why many of the folks in this article think
pickpocketing can be an exhilarating artform.

------
Eliezer
Once again illustrating that if you practice _anything whatsoever_ for long
enough you will acquire eerie-seeming superpowers.

~~~
rcgs
Like vim?

------
munin
the article shares a title with a pretty good book about crime and punishment
in late 19th century new york. I recommend reading it, it's a pretty good
example of how some things have not changed in the last 100 years
(<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393329895/>)

------
dbbolton
There's a show on NATGEO called "Brain Games"[1] which featured Robbins on an
episode. Normally I don't watch anything on the so-called "educational"
channels because they're rarely that and often just thinly-veiled reality
shows. However, I actually really enjoyed this show. It made me realize how
unaware and easily manipulated we are, even when we know we're being tested or
tricked.

1 - <http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/brain-games/>

------
lostlogin
I have noticed that the people who tell me they have been pick pocketed are
generally the people I would target if I was pickpocketing. Old wealthy
couples who don't speak the local language and have lots of expensive stuff
with them, young people with flash cameras and computers hung over a shoulder
(not across chest or around neck). Combined with a generally touristy attitude
(noisy, visiting tourist sights, obvious cameras, maps, backpacks). We also
noticed in Italy, France, Chile and Peru (have been other places, but didn't
encounter pickpocketing) that the majority of those targeted were US American.
This was out of proportion to their numbers. We kind of exploited this and
stayed near loud groups of obviously wealthy Americans so that we would be
less likely to have issues, and found a few others doing the same (Australian
and New Zealand travelers both times, antipodeans seem to think a similar
way).

------
mmahemoff
I've been reading this book about the neuroscience of magic -
<http://www.sleightsofmind.com/>. The authors worked with magicians like
Teller to understand the neuroscience behind their tricks.

~~~
jufo
The authors also worked with Robbins - there are two paragraphs about this
towards the end of the article.

I enjoyed reading Sleights of Mind, but never got round to watching the videos
on their site, <http://www.sleightsofmind.com/media/>

I'll do that today. Happy New Year!

------
hyperberry
Strange the article is dated January 7, 2013. Did I miss something?

~~~
jaggederest
They're printed in advance to allow for distribution. Also, usually the date
is 'the week of'.

~~~
cynwoody
But "distribution" has already happened. In milliseconds.

~~~
fusiongyro
Yes, but explaining to you that periodicals that have been in print for 88
years have a certain way of working, that people like getting copies in the
mail, and that people expect consistency between the printed copy and the
electronic copy will probably exceed your ten millisecond attention span, so
it probably isn't worth it for me to bother.

------
awayand
a whole article on one page to scroll down instead of clicking next next next
next next next next? WOW

------
ieze
Charly Borra (26s)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=a-d09ViPuJg#t=120s)

------
martinced
Bruce Schneier in 2011 about pickpocketting becoming less and less a problem
in the U.S.: (one the guy in TFA is mentioned in Schneier's entry too)

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/03/pickpockets_ar...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/03/pickpockets_are.html)

An interesting comment explain that pickpockets typically do not have their
certification to hold weapons and prefer not to: when they get caught or
pointed at (which happens all the time), they don't want to police to find out
they have a gun. I take it it makes sense: they are there for pickpocketting,
like rats. Not to enter in duels with men with balls big enough to actually
pull out a gun (not that I think it's a good or bad thing, it's just a fact
that there are places where people do carry guns).

Long story short: pickpockets are more likely to steal in places where they're
less likely to get shot or beaten should they get caught in the act.

~~~
lsc
>Long story short: pickpockets are more likely to steal in places where
they're less likely to get shot or beaten should they get caught in the act.

If you really think it's guns, you could look by state; I mean, here in
California, you get in pretty deep shit for shooting someone unless there is a
very clear and immediate threat. Most places it's pretty important that you
keep your gun completely concealed. You'd probably get in trouble for simply
drawing your gun after you noticed you'd been pickpocketed. But in Texas? the
definition of threat is, well, a whole lot broader.

But I doubt that's it. The way pick-pocketing works, from what I understand,
the victim would pretty much have to shoot you in the back in a public place,
and that's going to be trouble pretty much everywhere. And hell, even so, I'd
rather run away from an untrained civilian with a gun than from an American
cop; especially if the cop was going to put me in jail for any period of time
if I was caught.

I'd argue that it probably has more to do with the socioeconomic situation.
Europeans have racism codified into laws in ways that only the most fringe
right-wing Americans would suggest. Many countries in Europe (I'm looking at
you, France.) don't have 'by right of the soil' citizenship; to become French,
you pretty much have to have French ancestry. (I mean, just like America,
there are processes whereby lucky or well-off people can gain citizenship...
but here in America? if you were born here, you are American. that's not true
in France, or in much of Europe.)

It could also be enforcement, as Schneier suggested.

