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"It is exciting to read about a fraud — from a distance. It is not so funny to live through one." This is a great summary. My estranged father is a profession

"It is exciting to read about a fraud — from a distance. It is not so funny to live through one." This is a great summary. My estranged father is a professional con artist: He has multiple lies on his social media about his alleged wealth and committed credit card fraud while I was in high school resulting in my parents' formally declaring bankruptcy. I have found it very difficult in life to convey in words what being exposed up close and personal to con men is really like, because normal people lack imagination to put themselves in the mind of someone who doesn't care at all about humanity. Author Chuck Klosterman has a chapter about con artists in his book "I Wear the Black Hat" which covers similar ground as Harford: people enjoy these stories and con men because of a mix of admiration (life is easier in some ways if you literally biologically can't care about anything except base biological needs of sex, power, and consumption) and curiosity for the different. Having known multiple con men in my life, including family, I can definitely claim it's less entertaining in person than in media. The other book I recommend on this topic is Dr. Kent Kiehl's "The Psychopath Whisperer" for its mix of neuroscience and personal stories. "I Wear the Black Hat - Grappling with Villains Real and Imagined": https://www.amazon.com/Wear-Black-Hat-Grappling-Villains/dp/143918450X https://www.amazon.com/Wear-Black-Hat-Grappling-Villains/dp/... "The Psychopath Whisperer": https://www.amazon.com/Psychopath-Whisperer-Science-Without-Conscience/dp/0770435866 https://www.amazon.com/Psychopath-Whisperer-Science-Without-...

arkitaip 7y ago
Sounds terrible what you've experienced with your family members. Do you trust your father in any capacity at all?
- loganfrederick 7y ago
  Not at all, haven’t seen him in about two years (by his choosing) and mom just divorced him a year ago. Mostly I’m worried he’ll end up conning more money out of others now that he’s unconstrained by family. I’ve seen people are generally too trusting because: 1) good people don’t think about lying in the same way/frequency as con men, 2) as another commenter noted, the cost for due diligence is too high, 3) there is a fine line between “con” and “fake it till you make it” or “a good salesperson” and people will give benefit of the doubt that someone is the latter two.
  - arkitaip 7y ago
    Thank you for the reply.
  - rhizome 7y ago
    I've come up with something that I keep in mind both for cons and politics: "there's no defense against someone lying to you about something you don't know." This isn't to stop people from listening to others, but to limit one's personal (emotional and/or intellectual and/or financial) investment in what someone, often a stranger, says. You don't have to decide whether you believe what someone is saying on the spot, but someone with ulterior motives will try to convince you to do so. This is how I think of hustles: trying to get someone to do something before they'd normally be ready to, to commit to meaning in some way, but quickly. The literal sense of "hustle" is always in operation here. And I'm sure I've been conned in ways I don't even realize and never will, but I've also known when I've been conned, but the above are my survival techniques I've deduced as a result.
  - milesvp 7y ago
    > fake it til you make it I had a conversation with a friend recently about a mutual acquaintance. She surprised me by calling him a con man. In all the years I knew this man, I’d never thought of him as a con man, but the title could fit based on the people who he’d ultimately screwed over. I pushed back with my friend’s characterization slightly because con man seemed a bit more malicious than what I percieved as his intent. Mostly I wasn’t sure if he’d crossed a similar line as ‘fake it til you make it’ in that in business, you often have to convince enough people that something will happen otherwise it won’t and at some point you may he overcommitted and have no choice but to embellish the truth and hope that some major piece doesn’t pull out and ruin the entire chain of dependencies. A prime example is missing payrole. It is basically death for a company, but saying you might miss payroll could guarantee you’ll miss payroll... so lie and hope for the best... Maybe not a great example, and he might be a conman for similar types of lies told to vendors. I do think it’s interesting that much of business relies on convincing people you can do what you say though...
    - loganfrederick 7y ago
buckminster 7y ago
You may well know this but John le Carre's father was a big time con man. The somewhat autobiographical novel "A Perfect Spy" goes into his experiences and is an excellent read.
- loganfrederick 7y ago
  I did not and will pick it up, thank you for the recommendation!
deleted 7y ago
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arkitaip 7y ago

Sounds terrible what you've experienced with your family members. Do you trust your father in any capacity at all?

loganfrederick 7y ago
Not at all, haven’t seen him in about two years (by his choosing) and mom just divorced him a year ago. Mostly I’m worried he’ll end up conning more money out of others now that he’s unconstrained by family. I’ve seen people are generally too trusting because: 1) good people don’t think about lying in the same way/frequency as con men, 2) as another commenter noted, the cost for due diligence is too high, 3) there is a fine line between “con” and “fake it till you make it” or “a good salesperson” and people will give benefit of the doubt that someone is the latter two.
- arkitaip 7y ago
  Thank you for the reply.
- rhizome 7y ago
  I've come up with something that I keep in mind both for cons and politics: "there's no defense against someone lying to you about something you don't know." This isn't to stop people from listening to others, but to limit one's personal (emotional and/or intellectual and/or financial) investment in what someone, often a stranger, says. You don't have to decide whether you believe what someone is saying on the spot, but someone with ulterior motives will try to convince you to do so. This is how I think of hustles: trying to get someone to do something before they'd normally be ready to, to commit to meaning in some way, but quickly. The literal sense of "hustle" is always in operation here. And I'm sure I've been conned in ways I don't even realize and never will, but I've also known when I've been conned, but the above are my survival techniques I've deduced as a result.
- milesvp 7y ago
  > fake it til you make it I had a conversation with a friend recently about a mutual acquaintance. She surprised me by calling him a con man. In all the years I knew this man, I’d never thought of him as a con man, but the title could fit based on the people who he’d ultimately screwed over. I pushed back with my friend’s characterization slightly because con man seemed a bit more malicious than what I percieved as his intent. Mostly I wasn’t sure if he’d crossed a similar line as ‘fake it til you make it’ in that in business, you often have to convince enough people that something will happen otherwise it won’t and at some point you may he overcommitted and have no choice but to embellish the truth and hope that some major piece doesn’t pull out and ruin the entire chain of dependencies. A prime example is missing payrole. It is basically death for a company, but saying you might miss payroll could guarantee you’ll miss payroll... so lie and hope for the best... Maybe not a great example, and he might be a conman for similar types of lies told to vendors. I do think it’s interesting that much of business relies on convincing people you can do what you say though...
  - loganfrederick 7y ago

buckminster 7y ago

You may well know this but John le Carre's father was a big time con man. The somewhat autobiographical novel "A Perfect Spy" goes into his experiences and is an excellent read.

loganfrederick 7y ago
I did not and will pick it up, thank you for the recommendation!

deleted 7y ago

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