After George Santos's House expulsion--and in the midst of my binge-reading and listening on other charlatans--we must not grow numb to our role in detecting, and calling out, scammers of all stripes.
The scammers are so expert now that even pros like Matt can be scammed, and he does't even know it. It comes down to what the Godfather of Lies (Goebels) said decades ago ... and I paraphrase: say something loud enough and often enough and falsehoods take on the aura of truth.
Lies and box office success? The martial arts version would be Frank Dux. The exact same playbook.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Ann. I wouldn't believe anything he says about his own background,but found his anti-scam tips to be helpful. Baby/bathwater equation.
This deserves more than the quick read over I gave it, and study by subject-area experts, not me, but my first thought is that it belongs on your "best of" "Inside Edge Substack" page.
About Whatboutisms. My general thought is that we should absolutely never forgive our own sins because others are guilty of the same, or of things that are more or less the same. However, I don't appreciate being called out on my sins, or at least having my mistakes characterized as sins. If I feel the person leveling the accusation is guilty of hypocrisy, I am not above offering a Whataboutism.
I do find a mustering of a Whatboutism when discussing the flaws of other people or institutions among uninterested observers to be weak and aggravating, for the most part. When one's interlocutor does that, the conversation generally doesn't go anywhere. It just trails off, and nothing is solved. Maybe the reason is there are an endless supply of possible Whataboutisms? I suppose it can be a good exercise, though, to think about whether things really are or are not equivalent. And note that the term Whataboutism suggests a question of equivalency, not an assertion of equivalency.
Great thoughts, David; a key component is whether someone operates in good faith---am I/is someone genuinely being honest about a given topic? That's an additional, humongous can of worms.
“There are innumerable unknown con artists lurking about”… true, but the saddest/scariest thing is that there is one very well-known con artist lurking about as the hands-down GOP favorite for 2024.
I'm surprised that you would trust anything Abagnale writes. https://whyy.org/segments/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth/
The scammers are so expert now that even pros like Matt can be scammed, and he does't even know it. It comes down to what the Godfather of Lies (Goebels) said decades ago ... and I paraphrase: say something loud enough and often enough and falsehoods take on the aura of truth.
Lies and box office success? The martial arts version would be Frank Dux. The exact same playbook.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Ann. I wouldn't believe anything he says about his own background,but found his anti-scam tips to be helpful. Baby/bathwater equation.
This deserves more than the quick read over I gave it, and study by subject-area experts, not me, but my first thought is that it belongs on your "best of" "Inside Edge Substack" page.
About Whatboutisms. My general thought is that we should absolutely never forgive our own sins because others are guilty of the same, or of things that are more or less the same. However, I don't appreciate being called out on my sins, or at least having my mistakes characterized as sins. If I feel the person leveling the accusation is guilty of hypocrisy, I am not above offering a Whataboutism.
I do find a mustering of a Whatboutism when discussing the flaws of other people or institutions among uninterested observers to be weak and aggravating, for the most part. When one's interlocutor does that, the conversation generally doesn't go anywhere. It just trails off, and nothing is solved. Maybe the reason is there are an endless supply of possible Whataboutisms? I suppose it can be a good exercise, though, to think about whether things really are or are not equivalent. And note that the term Whataboutism suggests a question of equivalency, not an assertion of equivalency.
Great thoughts, David; a key component is whether someone operates in good faith---am I/is someone genuinely being honest about a given topic? That's an additional, humongous can of worms.
“There are innumerable unknown con artists lurking about”… true, but the saddest/scariest thing is that there is one very well-known con artist lurking about as the hands-down GOP favorite for 2024.
"Whataboutism" is just a contemporary take on the Motte/Bailey fallacy.