> For example, on the "got talent" shows it goes like this: young man was living out of a dumpster, gets asked to try out for the show, doesn't look like much, then opens his mouth to sing and has the most beautiful singing voice ever heard. People swoon and claps their hands over their mouths. Everyone pretends they are witnessing a miracle. A miracle that happens reliably over and over again.

Wait a second. Assume someone made a completely legitimate "got talent" show. Wouldn't the outcome be the same?

Those "got talent" shows usually involve multiple rounds of auditions, starting with open auditions held in many locations where each act only gets something like 90 seconds. The big name judges you see on TV are not involved in the earliest rounds.

By the time acts are actually in front of the big name TV judges, the herd has been heavily culled.