{"id":619,"date":"2018-02-04T22:25:44","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T22:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/?p=619"},"modified":"2018-03-19T18:27:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T18:27:37","slug":"the-art-of-the-bullshit-deal-or-the-con-remind-you-of-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2018\/02\/04\/the-art-of-the-bullshit-deal-or-the-con-remind-you-of-anyone\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the Bullshit Deal, or the Con (remind you of anyone?)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Joseph characterized Stefan Molyneux as being either a pathological bullshitter or a classical (conscious) con man. This made me think about the nature of a con man and how he achieves his goal, which is to get something from you fraudulently &#8212; like money. And he does this by persuading you to trust him, or, in other words, having confidence in him. I found the Wikipedia entry <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Confidence_trick\">&#8220;confidence trick&#8221;<\/a> very helpful, particularly the bibliography.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking about this reminded me of the movie <em>The Sting<\/em>. Here is the trailer.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LN2hBOIXhBs\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It also reminds me of the 1955 song by The Platters, &#8220;The Great Pretender.&#8221;<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FyM8NVl4yBY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, thinking of frauds also reminded me of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Economic_bubble\">Economic Bubbles<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ponzi_scheme\">Ponzi Schemes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a cartoon about John Law and the Mississippi Bubble.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/diEVmQZ1QfM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here is another cartoon about the South Sea Bubble. You can read about both these bubbles, and about other delusions, in Charles Mackay, <em>Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions<\/em>, 1841.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k1kndKWJKB8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As to Ponzi schemes, here is a Wikipedia entry: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ponzi_scheme\">Ponzi scheme<\/a><br \/>\nAnd here is a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Ponzi_schemes\">List of Ponzi schemes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The largest Ponzi scheme was that of Bernard Madoff, he ripped off 65 billion dollars. Here is a trailer of a movie about him: &#8220;The Wizard of Lies.&#8221;<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7JcZ8QFn6U0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Jan Lewan, a Polish polka band leader, pulled off a Ponzi scheme, as portrayed in the film: &#8220;The Polka King.&#8221; <iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Pahf3vBvn3c\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Joseph characterized Stefan Molyneux as being either a pathological bullshitter or a classical (conscious) con man. This made me think about the nature of a con man and how he achieves his goal, which is to get something from you fraudulently &#8212; like money. And he does this by persuading you to trust him, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2018\/02\/04\/the-art-of-the-bullshit-deal-or-the-con-remind-you-of-anyone\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Art of the Bullshit Deal, or the Con (remind you of anyone?)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-bullshit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}