I just finished reading the book "The Confidence Game", and the stories of Delvey or Holmes would fit right into that book. It's easy to look from the outside

I just finished reading the book "The Confidence Game", and the stories of Delvey or Holmes would fit right into that book. It's easy to look from the outside in and question how these people could fall for these types of frauds, but I think most people are more susceptible to them than they realize. Really, what cons are about is selling people a version of the future that they want. With Delvey, her associates were probably motivated to believe her because she spent money freely, and she seemed to belong to a "higher" social order. What Holmes was selling wasn't blood testing kits, she was selling the idea that healthcare could be "disrupted" and progress the same way that software could. I'm not exactly sure who Tom Draper is or what he said, but for wealthy older people, who may have significant financial stakes in Theranos, you can see why this would be an attractive reality. In contrast, the alternate reality -- that you got suckered in by a fraudster and the progression of healthcare will be as slow and bureaucratic as ever (which means the quality of your life over the next 30 years will slowly, then quickly, decline probably past the point where you will logically want to live anymore)-- seems far less appealing. It reminds me of someone who I worked with who was a Libertarian. He used to go around trying to "convert" people, and the only things he would ask was "Wouldn't you like to pay less money in taxes? If you didn't have to pay taxes what would you buy? Can you imagine how much money you would make if you didn't have to pay taxes?". He managed to convince like 90% of people that way.