# Lost 2.13: "The Long Con" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 8, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537 "2006-02-08T14:34:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/241 "2006-02-15T19:48:57Z")
> [@Trion](#): > > Seeing the _what_? That’s a reference to the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, which is a highly recommended read. It’s a pants-wettingly funny surrealist/psychedelic set of novels, and I think the writers _are_ sort of spiritually linked. (Wilson payed homage to O’Brian’s _The Third Policeman_ in his _Historical Illuminatus_ trilogy, and the _Lost_ writers [pointed us there, too](http://www.blather.net/zeitgeist/archives/2005/09/lost_and_the_th.html). The presence of [a certain number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_23_enigma) in Hurley’s numbers is also an attention-getter for _Illuminatus!_ fans.) Anyway, in _Illuminatus!_ “Fnord” is a nonsense word that we’re condition by a sinister conspiracy to respond to with fear and anxiety. It’s inserted into newspaper and television news stories that “they” don’t want us to linger over very long.fnordOrdinarily invisible, sometimes the conditioning is broken and the mechanism of control becomes apparent. [Here’s a relevant passage](http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~boogles/Illuminati/fnord.text) from the trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Trion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/242 "2006-02-15T19:58:43Z")
Actually, **Larry** , I meant that joke to convey that I wasn’t seeing what **Merijeek** wrote, not that I didn’t understand the reference. Obviously that was some bad joking on my part. Dammit. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/243 "2006-02-15T20:02:09Z")
Doh! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/244 "2006-02-15T23:34:02Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > The presence of [a certain number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_23_enigma) in Hurley’s numbers is also an attention-getter for _Illuminatus!_ fans.) From the Wikipedia entry on 23: > [@Wikipedia](#): > > The link to disasters also corresponds with hexagram 23 of the “I Ching”, P’o, translated as “Splitting Apart.” The hexagram pictures a time in which inferior people surreptitiously overthrow the superior. Isn’t this what happened last ep? I guess Sawyer 23’ed Jack and Locke. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/245 "2006-02-16T14:38:03Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Doh! :smack: No need to be too hard on yourself. There was at least one reader, me, that had absolutely no idea what fnord meant. For what it’s worth, I thought **Trion’s** post was a serious question too, because that’s what I was thinking. Only now with deeper understanding can I see his subtle and clever inside joke. Your post explaining fnord was valuable to me. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/246 "2006-02-16T15:35:39Z")
> [@Algernon](#): > > No need to be too hard on yourself. There was at least one reader, me, that had absolutely no idea what fnord meant. For what it’s worth, I thought **Trion’s** post was a serious question too, because that’s what I was thinking. Only now with deeper understanding can I see his subtle and clever inside joke. > > Your post explaining fnord was valuable to me. Thanks. Also consider it a plug for the books. If you’re into something…mind-bending. You don’t need to be on heavy drugs when you read it - because I’m pretty sure Shea and Wilson did plenty enough for all of us. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537/247 "2006-02-17T03:00:16Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > The problem with that is, there IS a smoke monster that projects the memories of living people…and blows up trees and pulls people down holes in the ground. > How does that fit into the Skinner box? > Tell you what…it might BE a Skinner box…but that doesn’t mean HUMANS are the ones doing the experimenting. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > And the shark had a Dharma logo on it. There’s a lot more going on here than a psychological experiment. The shark could totally be part of a psychological experiment; it’s a good way to keep people from ruining the experiment by escaping via water. It could be said that the smoke monster serves the same purpose (like Rover in “The Prisoner”), but we don’t know how it works or why. That one’s harder to fit in with the whole psychological experiment theory, but it doesn’t completely blow it out of the water. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-2-13-the-long-con/343537.md?page=12)