Why Americans Get Conned Again and Again | Hacker News Reader

Why Americans Get Conned Again and Again

theatlantic.com

15 pointspanarky16 comments

This is kind of a boring ad for a book. The book itself may actually be an interesting history of fraud in America but, eh. There isn't really as much insight here as you may expect from the title.

I'd like to know if there's a correlation between the percentage of devout religious people and the incidence of fraud.

When people are raised to believe fantastical things without evidence, they're probably less able to reason from first principles about offers that are too good to be true.

You could also frame this as greed causes people to get conned and religious folks are raised to shun greed more than the general population.

The "greedy victim" is the typical explanation for fraud, and the article touches on this:

  He makes mercifully short mention of the usual explanation—
  “greed” on the part of ordinary people trying to get “above their
  station”—which has been trotted out after every financial fraud
  for the past 300 years.

The article makes the point that Americans get ripped off disproportionately, that there's something about American culture that either encourages or doesn't punish flimflam, Ponzi and confidence games.

Is it the ethic of rugged self-reliance? Or the idolization of entrepreneurs and the ultra-rich?

I bring up religion because America is much more religious than other Western countries, and it seems like people who believe without evidence might be more susceptible to confidence games.

They make the claim that Americans get ripped off more than other countries, but I didn't see any evidence suggesting it.

It's their legal system, with all the caveat emptor of Roman law and none of the bona fides. It's a toxic combination. An American will cheat you like you never thought it possible, and when you complain they will admit they are crooks and say "I am a crook, it's your fault that you didn't do diligence on me."

"Greedy victim" is a common trope but it's not actually that common of a fraud. Fraudsters will use any hook they have available to scam people. The other common ones are love (e.g. That poor woman you have been writing to in Russia needs $500 for a plane ticket) and the desire to help people (e.g. If you donate $1000, we could re open our church in Africa and give food out to the poor again).

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason that Americans get swindled more often (not that this is ever actually proven) is simply because they have more money and are significantly more likely to donate it to charity than most other parts of the world.

>Or the idolization of entrepreneurs and the ultra-rich?

As a non American I've noticed something similar at least in US media there tends to be a lot of respect given to people who are wealthy or in positions of power you see it a lot in movies and television Generals, senators, congressman etc are almost universally depicted as praiseworthy figures.

When I was a kid in all of the American music videos the performers tended to drape themselves in gold jewelry, drink champagne, ride around in luxury cars etc. Sometimes it seemed over the top to the point of parody but at some level I think it reflects an aspiration towards wealth.

Here in Australia there is much more of a tendency to mock and ridicule the wealthy and powerful. There is even a word for it "Tall Poppy Syndrome" i.e. The flower that grows to be the tallest gets cut down the soonest. I think part of it is cultural the whole ANZAC myth thing - people tend to be distrustful of anyone in a position of power here politicians, bosses, bankers, lawyers etc.

I think a lack of skepticism/cynicism would be the main cause, which is probably correlated with religion but can certainly be lacking in non-religious people too.

A common phrase around our non-religious household was "why do you have to be so cynical all the time?". This cynicism has protected me from such rubbish as homeopathy, natropathy, magnetic bracelets and other things those family members have wasted time and money on over the years.

Cynicism is an underrated and much maligned virtue IMOP.

I don't think people believing fantastical notions without evidence is purely constrained to the religious. There are plenty of pseudo-religious belief systems within atheist thought circles - mostly consisting of political and philosophical conceptions (as well as the ever-pervasive scientism). And after all, isn't that what a religion is anyway? Most religious people I've met don't believe the bible in a completely literal sense.

Studies have shown that regardless of whether or not people start as religious or not, they hold irrational beliefs at same rate as other people with their level of education.

The real interesting thing is that the irrational things that non-religious people believe in tend to satisfy the same psychological needs as religious beliefs. The Illuminati secretly ruling the world provides the comfort to people with an external locus of control that someone is in charge and they have a plan, just like God (or the Devil or whoever). The fact that most people are sheep who can't see the Illuminati's schemes but a few special people can reinforces the idea that some of us are special people, just like how the Israelites were chosen. Etc.

yep, we may live in an age and a culture where religion is rejected as irrational but our brain circuitry for faith and existentialism is still there. We all have deities whether they are conventional (God, Allah, etc), political (the invisible hand of the free market, social progress, individualism), spiritual (new-age-ism, karma, universal consciousness) or pseudo-scientific (utopianism, scientism, singularitarianism). We all feel a need to believe in something higher than ourselves and if it isn't an archetypal expression of our cultural values and lessons (i.e. a religion) then it'll be some other way to answer the hard questions of life like what is good, what matters, what should I aim for and so on.

Your narrow minded bias about what you think of 'devout religious people' has absolutely nothing to do with this article???

"When people are raised to believe fantastical things without evidence" -- WTF dude. Do you literally just make up stuff and pretend it relates to an article you read?

Name one reference to religion in this article?It looks like you're the one who believes things without evidence????

The article answered it's own rhetorical question....Why?

“openness to innovation has always meant openness to creative deception.” That makes sense. When as a culture you embrace change, sometimes things go wrong.

I kind of guessed when I clicked it would be about Trump. Fuck off.

That's the thing; it isn’t really about Trump. Trump is just mentioned gratuitously by the reviewer in order to make a history book "seem current."

It's pretty sleazy.

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