Why Even Smart People Can Fall for Con Artists

Who's bamboozled? My name is Mr. Beat, and I'm a sucker. But at least I'm trying not to be a sucker anymore. What about you? Are you a sucker? Well, you probably are, too. No offense. You see, the vast majority of us tend to believe what we WANT to believe. We want to feel good. We don't want to get our feelings hurt. If what I just told you makes you feel good, why the heck do you believe me? I could be lying to you, but what if what I just told you makes you feel bad? Look, facts don't care about your feelings. So anyway, what the heck was I communicating to you about? We believe what we WANT to believe. And there are people out there who are pretty gosh darn good at getting us to believe stuff. In fact, I argue that great communicators are usually the most powerful people in the world. I'm trying to take over the world myself, but my communication skills suck. See, my timing is off. Now, this may be oversimplistic, but I believe there are three types of great communicators out there. 1. Great communicators who communicate in order to help ALL of us. Thank Martin Luther King Jr. or Susan B. Anthony. 2. Great communicators who communicate in order to help SOME of us. Thank, well, basically every brutal dictator of the last 150 years. But this third category doesn't get enough attention. 3. Great communicators who communicate in order to help themselves, and therefore not most of us. And in that third category, there is...the con artist. A con artist is a person who tricks you into buying something, but doesn't actually give you what they sold you. A con artist scams you. Scams are also called confidence games, or confidence tricks. A confidence trick is when a con artist earns a victim's trust in order to rob them, usually to steal their money, and so the CON in con artist is short for confident. Even though con artists have been around probably since the earliest human beings were around, the modern phrase is likely traced back to a dude named William Thompson. Back in the 1840s, Thompson would trick rich people into giving him their valuables. He'd legit be all dressed up and go up to some rich guy pretending like he knew him. After talking to the rich guy for a while, Thompson would gain the rich guy's trust, and then, for example, he would ask the rich guy if he was confident enough to let Thompson borrow his very valuable watch. After the rich guy gave Thompson the watch, he would abruptly leave with it. Don't. After a reporter for the New York Herald named James Houston found out about Thompson, he called him a quote confidence man, as he had appealed to the victim's confidence. After that, the name con man stuck. But women can be cons, too. But anyway, this video is about why we all fall for con artists. But you may be thinking, oh no, not me. I don't fall for con artists. Well, I've got bad news for you, Parker. We all fall for con artists. Every single last one of us. Even you. Yes, even your mother. So why am I making this video? Particularly, why am I making this video right now? Because, in my opinion, we are living in a golden age for con artists. The internet, specifically social media algorithms and artificial intelligence, has made it easier to scam people today than ever before. It's gotten so bad that some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world are nothing more than con artists. They've even worked their way into governments. I came up with five main reasons why we all fall for con artists. I really did, ok? Don't be sussing out now, punk. Have you ever finished a meal and then suddenly felt off? Well this video is sponsored in part by LabCorp On Demand. And guess what? LabCorp On Demand makes it easy to order health tests your doctor recommends without leaving your home. 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It's a QR code, too. The QR code will take you there as well. I don't think I've met you before. Thanks to LabCorp On Demand for sponsoring this video. Here are the five biggest reasons why we fall for con artists. 1. We are struggling Well, most of us are. Most of us suffer from scarcity. We don't have enough time nor money. We aren't happy with our relationships. Too many of us are lonely. We are all walking around with existential dread. No purpose. Existing is hard, man. And so, when someone appears out of nowhere saying they have all the answers and they know how to make us happy, we are often vulnerable enough to believe them. And the con artist first preys on vulnerable people. People in despair and struggling. Again, and I sound like a broken record here, but we believe what we want to believe. And... 2. We are biased to assume that others are telling the truth Yes, even strangers. Psychologists even have a name for this. It's called the truth bias. Humans want to believe others, even if all the evidence shows that we shouldn't believe them. Now, you might be thinking, isn't that not good? Nah, it's generally a good thing to trust others by default. This truth bias allows society to run smoothly and helps us get along with each other. Imagine if we didn't have a truth bias. We'd spend way too much time verifying information provided by others. It'd be difficult to make new friends. There would probably be a lot more wars. Still, though, that also just means the truth bias gives con artists an automatic advantage. They can lie, and a person just assumes they are telling the truth. Because they almost always assume a person is telling the truth. 3. We are emotional We...we just... We make most decisions based on emotion, not based on any sort of rational thinking. Our emotions rule over us. Our emotions control our life. And if facts get in the way of our emotions, emotions almost always win. Especially if those facts threaten our values, beliefs, or identity. If you want to get somebody's attention and if you want to keep their attention, what do you do? You tap into their emotions. I'm sorry to get so emotional here, but you see what I mean? Why do you think we use emojis so much? I mean, emo became an entire identity, per Crying Out Loud. Psychologists argue that us being emotional creatures is actually a good thing. If not for us being emotional, we'd overanalyze dangerous situations in which we needed to react immediately. Our emotions help us connect with each other. They motivate us to do pretty much anything. Our emotions help us survive and thrive. Unfortunately for us, con artists exploit our emotional triggers to manipulate us. They're good at getting us excited. They make us scared or give us hope. 4. We are ignorant Yeah, no offense, but all of us are idiots. I might be the biggest idiot of all. But seriously, because we're all just trying to survive, it's difficult for us to keep up with the various ways con artists scam us. We don't have time to research every scam. We don't have time to research every person trying to sell us something. If they come at us with what looks like credentials, we kind of feel pressured to assume those credentials are legit. Ok, but really, here's the biggest reason by far. 5. Con artists are just really good at tricking us The first person the con artist has to trick is himself. Contrary to popular belief, con artists often do believe their own bullcrap. After all, selling a scam is much easier if you believe in what it promises yourself. After that, the con artist has to learn how to communicate effectively so that first, people will pay attention to them, and second, people will trust them. And so, a skilled con artist has to be charismatic. They're Rizzlers. They got all that Riz? I'm so sorry about that. I'll stop doing that. Keep in mind that charisma has many different flavors, which explains why most con artists have a limit to the amount of followers they can trick. At a certain point, charisma only gets a con artist so far, and if you don't deliver any tangible benefits, the normies will lose interest. But for the people who have already fallen in love with the con artist, tangible benefits don't really even matter that much. Being a part of the community is more important. And yes, some of you have probably already been thinking about this right now, but con artists often lead cults. A con artist's main fuel is confidence. A con artist rarely apologizes. They seemingly perform magic, or something that feels like magic. They bring back childhood wonder. They make people feel like they woke up from a long, bad dream. They provide genuine hope. A con artist often gives actual advice and actual help. A skilled con artist knows how to find customers, who again, are really just victims. The skilled con artist sees who those in power don't see. They take advantage of the fact that many people ARE unseen, or at least FEEL unseen. You think I don't know how it is? Risking your life for minimum wage? Never enough for those pretty dresses or that fancy summer camp all her friends went to? Then some rich a**hole takes not only your wife, but your own little girl. Have you seen her? Can't say that I have, lol, but I know people. They earn your trust by telling you what you want to hear. And a skilled con artist truly listens to the customers. They make the customer feel loved and appreciated, so much that the customer will begin competing for the con artist's love in return. Again, a lot of overlap with cults. In fact, some of those customers eventually become soldiers. A skilled con artist sows doubt on long-established narratives to make their followers feel more special. A skilled con artist can gaslight you, meaning they can trick you so well that they convince you that they did the thing they originally promised to do but never actually did. Now, as skilled as con artists are, they still have plenty of weaknesses. Con artists often have narcissistic personality disorder. They demand loyalty. They show little humility. If they do show humility, it's strategic. Con artists control their own history. They don't like journalists or historians digging around their past. If journalists or historians DO scrutinize their past, eventually the con artist will absolutely lose credibility. A con artist can only thrive with co-conspirators. Rarely do they pull it off on their own, and almost inevitably these co-conspirators will turn on each other at some point down the line. Fortunately, con artists often get arrested for fraud. They're no strangers to breaking the law. After all, why should they care about breaking the law? The law doesn't matter to them. In the end, the con artist wants your money, and they want as much of it as possible, and nothing else. Sooner or later, though, people run out of money to give them. That said, con artists may never lose power if their promises can only be fulfilled in the afterlife. Oh crap. I just realized this video might end up becoming an instructional video for those wanting to BECOME con artists. Dang it. Ok, so this might accidentally be an instructional video for some 15-year-old wanting to be a con artist one day, but I promise you this video is not meant for them. It's meant for the suckers. The good people. In conclusion, the con artist promises a fake future, a future they can't deliver on, and more importantly, won't likely be held accountable for delivering on. Another oversimplification here, but there are generally two types of people in the world. People who like to help others, and people who only like to help themselves. And if there's just one thing you get out of this video, I hope it's this. Con artists only want to help themselves. They are a threat to humanity itself. If they are not stopped, they will destroy us all. Again, I think we are living in a golden age for con artists right now. Con artists are everywhere. Unfortunately, there are not enough charismatic people out there warning about the dangers of con artists. After all, there are far bigger incentives for charismatic people to just become con artists themselves. In fact, there might even be a mid-roll ad on this very video that Google plays that is featuring a con artist right now. You might be seeing a video suggested to you featuring a con artist right now. That's the irony of all this. There's a really good chance that you currently trust at least one con artist. It's never been more important to teach our kids and our parents why we fall for con artists. And there's the list there to memorize, to study up. There'll be a quiz over it later, so you better look those over closely. But what do you think? Do you disagree with me when I say that we're living in a golden age for con artists? I sure hope you disagree with me. If you do disagree with me, please let me know in those comments. I'm curious to know your reasons. And you know what? Thank you for staying curious yourself. Alright, I don't know where I am right now. I don't know how I end up out here in these random fields.