I don't know to what extent we can hack our own perceptions of scarcity by intentionally directing our thoughts, but it seems like it's something worth trying to do:

"Scientific information is widely available. As a result, people will pay less attention to it than they would if it was hidden. As a result, it's better hidden than if it were kept partially secret. This means that scientific information is very scarce, and almost nobody knows that it is scarce."

Is there a way to phrase the above statement so that it carries the same psychological weight as, "Only a few people realize this now, but there's about to be a beef shortage"?

Edit: (... and is that the whole point of this post along with the story after it?)