Hoax? or Natural Condition of the Brain?

There's a story with a dateline of Nov 12 in the New York Times about
these guys that hoaxed the modern media world with a story about
someone not knowing Africa was a continent. The "lesson" given in the
article is that sources must be carefully checked. That's not it
though--that is missing the whole wonderful point.

The story to be gotten from this story is about the human intellect.
The intellect is not "gullible", the nature of human cerebralness is a
group event. Jan Cox talked much about any person being one of 6
million nodes in one mind. There is no true or false here, there is
socialability--a cozy handshake passed around and around. The content
is irrelevant. So that some pranksters pulled one off is not
surprising. The surprising thing is that is does not happen more, and
more flagrantly. Or perhaps it does and we are just not aware.
Really the latter. Because ultimately

All thoughts are alike in the dark.
They are all imaginary, (Excepting of course those thoughts focussed
on rearranging the external world, and illustrating the mind as a tool
maker.)
In a certain front lobe the lights are always off.
This is never even noticed, and when someone talks about finding the
light switch, they always assume they can TALK the switch into the on
position.

So it stays dark. And only a few ever wonder why it is always dark in
this front lobe, this living room of the brain. They wonder if there
is illumination other than that from the t.v. And most, never even
notice the dark.

And that is as it should be.