I'm playing with that approach. Some people respond to "this is laughable" and some need a gentler touch. The issue is spotting who is who. Imagine being a mathmatician seeing half a dozen posts a day declaring 2+2=5. That frustration sticks an extra weight on the scale when picking a path no matter how hard I try to balance it. I am human after all.

I also find that curious fence sitters are more responsive to the "what a scam joke" approach while believers fall back to declaring an unknowable superstition. If I know only one group actually changes who should I talk to? In most cases curious fence sitters are third parties and not the OP, this was an unusual one. So basically I'm responding to you technically but I'm really writing to other people.

I'll answer your question even though you skipped over mine. I'm prone to superstition myself no matter how hard I try to get it out of my thinking. Placebos do work but not as well as real things that have methods of action. So on balance we get more effect by redirecting our energy away from placebos and towards things with a method of action. Some will only pick the placebo given limited resources, those people experience a net harm by showing them the placebo option.