Well, yeah, that's the simple solution to every magic show in which you aren't yourself one of the people selected for participation (which has got to be roughly 40-50% of them at least).

Just say: "Everyone is in on it." The audience, the people selected... Everyone.

Boom. Every magic act you've ever seen? Solved.

I, however, choose to work under the belief that he's not outright lying when he says he doesn't use any stooges and believe he has some other means by which to make the impossible seem possible, just like magicians have their special props and slight of hand, he has other means by which to manipulate the incredible into seeming credible.

I saw them some years ago and they stood at the exit for autographs, etc. on the way out, and I was surprised when Teller actually spoke to me.

Of course I knew he could speak, but I thought he was strict about never uttering a word in front of the general public or his audience.

I love that they called out Piff the Magic Dragon. I only know that guy from "Fool Us," but he was a real talent. I guess he's actually become something of a well-known comedy magician of sorts.

P.S. Boy, that was a big bucket!

Very cool stuff, but any magician using this stuff has wasted their money!

Q: Why do governments continue with experiments if there's not much truth to them?
A: Men who stare at goats (a few ppl fooled by ideas and passion can easily consume some government resources)
A: Magicians (show the audience one thing while you do another)
A: Bias perception (Misinterpretation of the results)
A: Progression (Legitimate achievements in technological advancements)

Either pick what makes you comfortable (mentally lazy), or utilize your critical thinking (worth breeding)

A rational mind staring into darkness will begin to see shapes and movements that aren't really there. It's due to mental cheat sheets, where the mind attempts to understand that which it doesn't by using current knowledge, assumptions, imagination and internal values/preferences/emotions (gross simplification).

An irrational mind more easily sees whatever is familiar/preferred to be seen. Those who stare long enough can become very difficult to persuade with an alternative view or bring back to a more rational position. (it's why teaching young humans 'what' to think is so much more defining than 'how' to think, re stubborn beliefs)

Yes humans are capable of some seriously great feats, but if you genuinely think that weather can be "controlled" to the extent he's referring to (while disregarding the far greater impacts that would occur globally for every smaller influence) then you're not likely to listen to reason, rather then continue to perceive that which you're predetermined to think.

Also it might help to listen to how he's making his points. It's psychological warfare, he's seeding you and getting you to defeat your own rational thought, poorly i might add, but still the attempt is there.
Why? By only making statements, your 100,000's year old critical thinking system will instinctively aim to challenge every point that isn't previously accepted (like how a cat instinctively chases a running non-threat target), so he mixes in the questions, the same questions, as repetition is the best form of learning (mind-raping)

And just to fuck with yas: if you 'knew' something crazy to be true, and as you spoke about it you could hear the crazy.. how would you convince a friend, a parent and a stranger?

That's odd. I thought a conversation through comments where my position was explained clearly, then yours was WAS a discussion....what do you call it?
I'm still waiting for that one example where the 'joke' is at no one and nothing's expense.
Explain why an object can't be the object of ridicule...or a fictional character.
You didn't read...I wrote it's at the expense of the stick, being compared to a turd, AND the reader/listener, who can't tell the difference.
What's black and white and eats like a horse IS a riddle, just a bad one. Explain how it's not if you don't think it is. If you didn't understand my explanation, that's not the same as me not offering one. Read again please.
Because you are complicit in fooling yourself does not make you less the fool. I say you ARE laughing at your own expense, at your foolishness for being misled (so easily, even intentionally by yourself).
Magic isn't shadenfreude, but laughing at the bad magician is. Clowning is ALL about shadenfreude.
Wow, you are bending over backwards there...you ARE certainly laughing at the expense of the clown...because he wants it that way. It's still laughing at his looking the fool. Because he accepts the expense (of being foolish) doesn't mean it does not exist. You're arguing ridiculous semantics and missing the point.
I have still not seen anything that doesn't meet my definition, things that make you laugh are at something's expense (even if that thing accepts the expense freely). You may not see it, but I think that's because you won't analyze it beyond the surface.
I did say essentially that, read again please.... I said "As I see it, all humor is schadenfreude (enjoyment taken from the misfortune of someone (or something) else. )" Your lack of empathy for other's points of view does not make it less so to me, and you have yet to convince me otherwise. I even gave a popular reference for that way of thinking, 'stranger in a strange land'.
When I first read the stick 'joke', I laughed at MYSELF for being duped...same with ET...I laughed at the mathematician poking himself in the asshole (in my mind) and myself for the thought. In the final analysis, the joke was on ME for most of those 'jokes'...and I'm fine with that, not offended, that was not what I said. I said the joke is at "x's" expense, sometimes that "X" is the listener. EDIT: sometimes the expense is infinitesimal and barely or not noticed.
Wow, you really don't understand humor? It was a joke, at your and my expense, about your statement "I'm so confused by your request for proof that i feel like someone's asked me "Air? What air? There's no air, i can't see any!"" That would make sense if the asker was under water, no? It was meant to show why someone might say that, and how the misunderstanding could be on either side of the 'joke'. Too 'deep'?
EDIT: And why you gotta talk crap about my face?!? I can't help how I look!
(have you somehow convinced yourself that your comments weren't snide?)

Firstly i'd like to say that it's clear to me you're not interested in discussing this, but rather somehow interested in some sort of conflict. I'm not, and i spent a good while thinking about my post before making it; your suggestion that i didn't read your post is soundly rejected. Possibly you didn't read or acknowledge the content of your own post because you have forced yourself into a position where all i have to do is show one single example of something being funny at the expense of no one or nothing to prove you wrong and now you have to be rude (the first sign you know your position is indefensible) and provide little to no justification of any of your numbered points (because you know they are weak).

I'll be honest, i'm not going to entertain suggestions that a joke can be at the expense of an inanimate object or fictional character. Between that and your distinctly shoddy arguments I think you're trolling.

A joke at the expense of a stick? At the expense of a fictional character? ET is not something or someone. It doesn't exist, it is a construct of our imagination and does not have physical form. It isn't even a "thing" (if i say that unicorns are arrogant bastards, does that make me xenophobic? They don't exist, but if ET can suffer jocular expense, unicorns can suffer expense at my comment also. I hate martians too, they're all short, ugly, grey bastards. Am i a racist now?). The zebra thing isn't actually a riddle - it pretends to be a riddle and ends up being silly; i can't understand your reasoning on this and you didn't explain it (no surprises there, your post is full of holes).

When you tell someone a joke, you are entering into a contract by which both people know that word play or trickery is going to be involved. By taking part in the joke, you are voluntarily allowing yourself to be misled so that a juxtaposition of ideas in your head makes you laugh. You aren't laughing at the expense of yourself. In the same way as reading a book or watching a film - you are not being lied to, you are not being tricked, you are a willing participant. When a magician performs a trick for you, you are suspending your disbelief and participating in a flight of fancy for entertainment purposes. Magic isn't shadenfreude either - no one suffers expense, they both enjoy and know that skilful subterfuge has taken place - though i'm sure you'll argue the contrary before you admit you've over committed to your point.

If a clown puts on an act for you and you laugh when his trousers fall down, you aren't laughing at the expense of the clown because he did it intentionally to make you laugh, he did not suffer expense. You are not laughing at the expense of yourself because you know that what he is doing is an act, you did not suffer expense (except for the ticket price, badum tish - there's another 'joke' at the expense of nothing/no one).

What you've tried to do is supply the definition of "joke" or "humour" such that the definition involves the word "trick" in a negative context and thus lead to shadenfreude. Not everyone thinks the same way as you do, which is what i tried to explain to you earlier; if you want to say "to me, everything is shadenfreude - i laugh only ever at the expense of something/someone" then i say fair enough, but that is not what you initially said.

So if/when you first heard the stick joke, you laughed AT the stick? The ET joke, you laughed AT ET? You laughed AT the mathemetician? I don't believe you, but regardless that isn't the point you made; many if not most other people are not laughing at ET or the stick, they are laughing at the juxtaposition of ideas. And therefore comedy/humour (not your very specific definition of it, which is irrelevant to our debate) is not ALWAYS at the expense of others, even if i accept that something that doesn't exist/is inanimate can suffer an emotional expense.

And finally, i don't understand the metaphorical suggestion that i shunned your need for air, when actually i spent a good 20 minutes providing you with air only to have you turn round and say "that's not air, it's nitrogen and oxygen with trace amounts of other gases!" and pull a trollface before passing out. Don't worry though, i'll drag you back to shore and make sure you're ok (this post).

I'll explain who's expense they each are at....
1. the stick's expense edit: and the reader's
2. ET's expense edit: and the reader's
3. mathematician's expense
4.your and/or the DR's expense
5.zebra's expense (edit: but riddles aren't really jokes, even though you may find humor in the consternation of others due to your trickery)
6. penguin's expense

I never said they were all offensive, horrible, or nasty, only that there is always a target for/of the joke/misunderstanding.
I suppose puns may be an exception, if you call that a joke, but they are still at the listener's expense to a degree (as they are intentionally misled and made to look the fool).
7. at Bob's(and the reader's) expense
8. fish's expense
9. bad magic trick at the magician's expense
10. bad piano at the player's expense
11. fictional character's expense
12. Lebowski's expense
13. fish's expense
14. your expense
15. doug's expense
16. listener's expense
17. skeleton's expense
No one said they would be offensive, only at someone's or something's expense. Play's on words hardly count as "jokes" but they are still at something's expense, even if it's only the listener who was tricked by the teller.
I could go on and on, but I'm not being paid for this either. I hope I opened your eyes to the idea that all humor IS at someone/thing's expense.
Now dread away. I'm not embarrassed that you didn't read my post/comment closely.

EDIT: ...and when I was begging for air, I was under water...and you just laughed and said "I see air".

Part of a series of therapy exercises for magicians suffering from depression as the result of chronic audience indifference to sleight-of-hand.
*quality

There used to be a magician at Knott's Berry Farm that demonstrated this trick pretty close to the audience and then explained that he had trained for years to create the pathway through his body for the sword to pass through.

The arm is particularly easy because of how the muscles are arranged around the bone. It passes right below the biceps. Not much going on in this particular, dare I say "easy" to pull off location of bloodless stabbiness.
I don't know if the Knott's magician is still there or not, but it was a "magic" show that explained the science behind older, more simplistic tricks like this.

Also included were lots of different types of electricity stunts (static electricity, powering light bulbs through people, etc.), which have fallen to the wayside with magicians because most people nowadays understand electricity and it's not as gut wrenching as this scar tissue build up dealio.

I upvoted for Ricky's reactions and David'd ridiculous goading, but the trick itself is le sigh.

The magician at Knott's had a fairly visible scar on both sides of his arm, as he likely performed the trick A LOT. Serious needle mark action. lol. Blaine probably rarely performs this trick and perhaps used other material, like make up, latex or some such material, glue, creams, etc.

My little brother is a magic consultant for TV shows. He's a behind the scenes magician who designs tricks for performers and helps them with the performance aspects.

I don't ask him how stuff is done as it rather spoils things and there's no point. What he has told be though is that most people would be absolutely amazed at the lengths a magician will go to to get a trick to work. Also the simpler a trick is the more likely it is to work.

So, there's probably very little in the way of trick here.

You see that guy walk away at 2:08 and back again about 3:27. I'd guess he is there to help assist the magician fold and unfold his legs into his white suit so that his legs become his chest while he pushes his butt back into that triangle behind him. The girls of course distract you from that guy and the magician's odd squirming... Still, live for the first time it is probably a neat trick.

There is a guy walking up behind the act and getting to the box.
Most are too busy looking at the smoking girls to notice.
When the girl walks behind with the unicycle she goes around back and comes around empty handed and during that time you can see " other" feet walking behind the box

The other "feet" show up again after the magician gets back together and the door closed to put himself back together

Honestly, who gives a fuck. If it weren't for Teller he would be juggling on a street corner. He's barely a magician, let alone the go-to guy for the voice of political reason. Go catch a bullet in the teeth.

You might as well ask "How can something interact with something that is digital without being itself digital?" A failure of imagination does not discount the possibility of existence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

That said, I'm not putting any money on "an invisible magician did it" when I ask how something came about.