I think a missing piece of this analysis for the present is the way that hyper-skepticism can come back around and make you just a different type of mark. Sovereign citizens, for example.
Probably a lot? I've moved around a bunch over the past 20 years, so have had several landlords. I think all of them for the past decade have required proof of insurance when signing the lease. I don't think anyone I rented from required it before 2018ish
Sovereign citizenry is such a strange thing to me. It’s all the parts of a conspiracy theory with none of the interesting things like aliens or lizard people. No those are replaced with strange interpretations of laws and ordinances.
To this model I would add the transaction costs for vetting a transaction, the cost of identifying and engaging transaction partners, and the relative sensitivity to a negative outcome (the stake as a percentage of total stake).
I believe that would enable you to identify more or less corrupt industries.
Unfortunately, both stakes and information costs make governance prone to abuse. To see why it’s not nearly as corrupt as one might expect from this model, you’d need reputation cost and benefit, where trusted governments and leaders attract higher functioning citizens and industries.
Maybe, but… the cycle can be very long. Everyone in Russia is a skeptic or a grifter, and it’s been that way for decades with no sign of grift being on its way out.
The vast majority have justified skepticism from long history of abuse. But very few people are grifters, because that would require an expensive roof. missing from my transactional analysis is a general goodwill, the likelihood that someone would help if it didn’t cost much. In Russia, the skepticism is so high that one only helps one’s close friends.
I am going to steal this code and run a different analysis. The author mentions that skeptics avoid grifters without punishing them. I am curious how things play out in the Seven Samurai model, where instead of marks you have peasants and instead of grifters you have bandits. What happens if you have samurai not skeptics? Who both take rice from the peasants and protect them from greater exploitation by bandits.
This would be a simple governance model, and you could predict something like “revolution” when the cost of samurai exceeds their benefit.
This is a great post. It's even got useful ternary diagrams, and it gives an explanation of why the NFT grift disappeared. Too bad cryptocurrency in general is only mentioned in the context of rug pulls. This theory must not extend as far as whatever powers crypto.
Don't believe the latest fashion on social media, including the latest thing it's fashionable to be sceptical about. That rule of thumb performed well the last 10 years.
> Don't believe the latest fashion on social media, including the latest thing it's fashionable to be sceptical about.
I don't think choosing to believe in something just because other people are piling on being skeptical of it is a viable strategy. If you hear a lot of people pointing out "X is a scam" you shouldn't refuse to believe them on principle.
The dilemma for me is that aspects of social media (namely information sharing and learning) are incredibly useful, while others (contrarian argumentation, propaganda, attention black holes) are very harmful.
I go through cycles of abstaining from online interaction because I’ve sunk into the dark side too much but then return with a stronger intention in order to feed my hobbies and mind. I’ve found that it’s not so simple to just “not believe” what you see and read as being constantly bombarded with political messaging necessarily pushes you to one side or the other unconsciously.
So yeah, for me the best way is to cut that feed off entirely, instead of pretending I have any kind of effective fire wall against its deeper mental effects.
If you're a Mark (=trusting person) I don't think you can just decide to become a Skeptic.
I admit I skimmed the article and even if I would read more closely I don't think I would understand it better.
I'll use my intuition for how individuals transition between the roles.
Mark -> Skeptic: requires to be have been grifted and possibly having the grift explained by a Skeptic. Or possibly having someone close to you get grifted.
Mark -> Grifter: I'm not sure it's possible, but maybe the corruption pdf posted[0] is a clue.
Skeptic -> Grifter: desillusion about the point of not grifting since everyone else is doing it too. So maybe late stage corruption[0] or just nihilism based on seeing grifts succeed so much.
Skeptic -> Mark: honestly... Shrooms maybe? Or finding and being chosen into a trusting community.
Grifter -> Skeptic: I think realising that you've hurt someone in an unexpectedly harsh way could help this transition. Otherwise I don't really know besides being short of Marks.
this "The start of a slide into a new post-truth dark age?"
Not sure we'll evolutionarily get out of the loop this time.
From 2016 to 2026. That is 10 years for Republicans to realize they are being grifted, scammed, etc... Not sure they will ever be realizing it. Will take another generation. Which I guess is the point, another generation of evolution cycles might break the loop.
In a company you will want to cultivate this, since interactions within the company are far more frequent than with the outside world.
I believe that would enable you to identify more or less corrupt industries.
Unfortunately, both stakes and information costs make governance prone to abuse. To see why it’s not nearly as corrupt as one might expect from this model, you’d need reputation cost and benefit, where trusted governments and leaders attract higher functioning citizens and industries.
This would be a simple governance model, and you could predict something like “revolution” when the cost of samurai exceeds their benefit.
Or, I suppose, go on thinking this time is different.
I don't think choosing to believe in something just because other people are piling on being skeptical of it is a viable strategy. If you hear a lot of people pointing out "X is a scam" you shouldn't refuse to believe them on principle.
The dilemma for me is that aspects of social media (namely information sharing and learning) are incredibly useful, while others (contrarian argumentation, propaganda, attention black holes) are very harmful.
I go through cycles of abstaining from online interaction because I’ve sunk into the dark side too much but then return with a stronger intention in order to feed my hobbies and mind. I’ve found that it’s not so simple to just “not believe” what you see and read as being constantly bombarded with political messaging necessarily pushes you to one side or the other unconsciously.
So yeah, for me the best way is to cut that feed off entirely, instead of pretending I have any kind of effective fire wall against its deeper mental effects.
If you're a Mark (=trusting person) I don't think you can just decide to become a Skeptic.
I admit I skimmed the article and even if I would read more closely I don't think I would understand it better.
I'll use my intuition for how individuals transition between the roles.
Mark -> Skeptic: requires to be have been grifted and possibly having the grift explained by a Skeptic. Or possibly having someone close to you get grifted.
Mark -> Grifter: I'm not sure it's possible, but maybe the corruption pdf posted[0] is a clue.
Skeptic -> Grifter: desillusion about the point of not grifting since everyone else is doing it too. So maybe late stage corruption[0] or just nihilism based on seeing grifts succeed so much.
Skeptic -> Mark: honestly... Shrooms maybe? Or finding and being chosen into a trusting community.
Grifter -> Skeptic: I think realising that you've hurt someone in an unexpectedly harsh way could help this transition. Otherwise I don't really know besides being short of Marks.
---
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47177186
Not sure we'll evolutionarily get out of the loop this time.
From 2016 to 2026. That is 10 years for Republicans to realize they are being grifted, scammed, etc... Not sure they will ever be realizing it. Will take another generation. Which I guess is the point, another generation of evolution cycles might break the loop.