Seeing is not believing

Basketactortale

I was thinking about charlatans and I read someone talking about an encounter with a fraudster.

In the encounter a journalist met someone who was making wild claims within their sphere. The journalist thought it sounded odd because they had not heard of this person and the events sounded unlikely but in that moment they put it down to ignorance. The journalist doubted themselves and reasoned that there must have been something that they did not know about the thing they had written and studied extensively.

Much later it turned out that the stories were complete fabrications and the guy was publicly exposed as a fraud.

I can think of a few occasions when I have seen things that "felt wrong". For example I recently saw something that looked quite attractive to a person like me with time on my hands. Investigating further it turned out to be something run by a cultish organisation.

I am curious to hear stories about where you have been in these sorts of situations and were or were not taken in.

Gramps49

Some time ago, we had put it out that we were open to hosting an international student for a year. We had done this for the previous three years. We had someone respond. It sounded legit. He said he would send a check to cover the whole year, but he also would include money which he wanted to be sent to a PO Box elsewhere through a money order. I think you know where this is going. We got the check. It appeared to be drawn from a well known company. Mrs Gramps was hesitant. She wanted to see the check clear before we sent out the money order. It did not clear. We called the police and the post office inspectors office to report the scam. Never heard anything back. Also called the company listed on the check. The woman from the company said they had been receiving several reports that someone was sending out unauthorized checks in their name, but it was like whacking a mole.

Another scam that has been going around. You receive a text from your "pastor" saying he would like to give $50 gift cards to staff members, but he does not have the time to get the cards. He wonders if you can get them. All you have to do is send the numbers on the cards back to him. He will reimburse you later. We have had several people report seeing this scam. It comes through about once a year.

Barnabas62

Not exactly something I’ve been involved in but some things I have seen recently in TV series. Firstly in “Silent Witness” and secondly in “ The Capture”. In both cases the inference is that image manipulation (AI) can be used to frame the innocent for other purposes.

The inference is that seeing may not be believing. Of course the series are fiction but both suggest that visual evidence may be fabricated, and plausibly so.

I do believe this is now possible but I do not know enough of the technology to know whether such fabrication can be detected. At any rate, it suggests that honest use of video evidence may need some process of independent verification.

I appreciate this may not be the purpose of the OP but it strikes me as an intriguing offshoot.

KarlLB

Barnabas62 wrote: »

Not exactly something I’ve been involved in but some things I have seen recently in TV series. Firstly in “Silent Witness” and secondly in “ The Capture”. In both cases the inference is that image manipulation (AI) can be used to frame the innocent for other purposes.

The inference is that seeing may not be believing. Of course the series are fiction but both suggest that visual evidence may be fabricated, and plausibly so.

I do believe this is now possible but I do not know enough of the technology to know whether such fabrication can be detected. At any rate, it suggests that honest use of video evidence may need some process of independent verification.

I appreciate this may not be the purpose of the OP but it strikes me as an intriguing offshoot.

It's already happening on social media. Generally fairly badly and obviously but it's advancing terrifyingly quickly. I'm rather worried about it.

Basketactortale

Thanks for these comments, some things I had not considered.

I think the thing that particularly interests me is when a fraudster is able to persuade someone with actual expertise in something to doubt themselves.

But there is also another whole layer of complexity when the senses themselves are so easily fooled.

Do you think believers are more or less susceptible to fraud in your experience?

Putting my cards on the table, I think my main bedrock assumption is that a lot of believers are being exploited by fraudsters.

Basketactortale

For example it feels like a lot that is happening in American politics at the moment is essentially a con couched in religious language. Similarly Hindu nationalism in India and the various types of Islamism.

Some of it looks so ridiculous that it seems obvious that it is a con, but maybe there is something about being a believer that makes these things more attractive.

Unbelievers are obviously not immune to fraudsters, but maybe it is something about the language of religion that makes that kind of con attractive to believers?

Gwai

I would say that people who deeply want to believe a thing are vulnerable to a con about it. So this can apply to believers, but works well in other arenas too. For instance, an intelligent person I know, and relevantly an atheist, shared a political story that was witty and appealing on facebook. I wanted to believe it because it supports my political beliefs, but I was not so sure. When I mentioned it to my spouse, he said he suspected that was fake. It was indeed fake. I was close to being taken in even though I am usually pretty savvy, because it fit my beliefs about politics and told me things I wanted to hear.