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Statistically, there are far more earnest people who are hard on their luck than there are people who are pathological grifters.

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There are lots of other reasons to not give someone money besides them being a grifter. There’s not feeding their addiction, not enabling them to continue postponing taking action that will improve themselves or their situation beyond the short term. People can be simultaneously earnest and delusional or fearful.

How would that even be statistically quantified?

I took “statistically” to be just a figure of speech to bolster what was simply their view of the world.

However, you probably could interview a few hundred people a label some “earnest,” others “grifters,” and find there are many more of the former.

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