Does anyone know what happens to the people when they get old, so they become gullible? Is there some physiological mechanism, or is it just that older people are less sophisticated about those issues?
I'm sure there will be new things that I will be susceptible to in a few decades.
Also, people tend to abandon the old and vulnerable. It's just what happens. They're left alone. If the only voices they hear are the guy on the phone and their internal monologue, with no 'sensible' moderating force, and a potentially unlimited amount of time, it can be very easy for things to get skewed.
What I did find however, is a paper that claims older adults are not more likely to be defrauded than the rest of the population. I'm somewhat skeptical of the claim, but it should be evaluated: http://pps.sagepub.com/content/9/4/427.short
He didn't get scammed over the phone but he probably had his driveway re-sealed 4-5 times a year. We would chase them away but they knew they could get him when there was nobody else around. Sickening people who do this.
It seemed possible that he knew his driveway didn't need sealed, but he would sit outside and chat with them for the 3-4 hours it took to do the job.
http://www.dementiaguide.com/symptomlibrary/thinkingjudgemen...
Dementia can grow slowly over time and can impact your judgement. And said person can be highly functional at the time, so the relatives don't know until something goes wrong.
This particular scam is targeted at old people, but plenty of very lucrative scams target working age adults.
Richard and Kahlan frowned even more. "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool. "Because of Wizards First Rule, the old wizards created Confessors, and Seekers, as a means of helping find the truth, when the truth is important enough. Darken Rahl knows the Wizard's Rules. He is using the first one. People need an enemy to feel a sense of purpose. It's easy to lead people when they have a sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is more important by far than the truth. In fact, truth has no bearing in this. Darken Rahl is providing them with an enemy, other than himself, a sense of purpose. People are stupid; they want to believe, so they do."
— Chapter 36, p.560, U.S. paperback edition of Terry Goodkind's awesome book with the same title.
That means they are both more sophisticated and physiologically more mentally healthy. It's hard to separate the two.
Does that only work on Alzheimer's disease, and not dementia in general?
The part I was mostly querying was about money being protective. It probably isn't. rich people probably get dementia at the same rate as poor people.
https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/preventing-al...
> Unlike age and genetics, certain health and lifestyle factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk may be controlled. Scientists are exploring prevention strategies to determine whether or not things like exercise, diet, and “brain games” can help delay or prevent Alzheimer’s disease and age-related cognitive decline. They are also investigating how certain medical conditions, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes, influence risk for cognitive impairment.
> So far, studies have not demonstrated that, over the long term, health or lifestyle factors can prevent or slow Alzheimer’s disease or age-related cognitive decline. Similarly, clinical trial results do not support the use of any particular medication or dietary supplement to prevent these conditions.
This is marketing at work. There's been a huge PR campaign over the past ~10 years to convince people that "brain fitness" is an actual thing, including the idea that it is specifically useful for preventing dementia, but the science isn't really there.