<story><title>The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html?hp</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kbenson</author><text>&amp;#62; you can&apos;t con an honest man.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it&apos;s not true.  There are a number of cons that apply towards people wanting to do the right thing (and usually mixing a bit of greed in as well), to make the pull twice as hard to resist.&lt;p&gt;Check out the Glim-dropper scam[1].  I&apos;ve heard it described in multiple variations (diamond ring at a gas station, wallet on the street, etc).  Importantly, the mark is both making money, and &lt;i&gt;providing help to someone who needs it&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>api</author><text>This is the origin of &quot;you can&apos;t con an honest man.&quot; I was a victim of a very weird kind of con once, and I&apos;m not ashamed to admit that my ego played a huge role in getting me to fall for it. Con men play to the mark&apos;s ego because because it &lt;i&gt;works&lt;/i&gt;!&lt;p&gt;(Luckily in my case I escaped with little loss, and didn&apos;t end up in an Argentine jail.)</text></item><item><author>IvyMike</author><text>Having read the whole story, I can&apos;t help but think that he knew he was transporting drugs, but was duped into thinking he was doing it for the real Milani.  Like all the best movie cons, you make the mark believe they&apos;re on the inside, but they&apos;re really not.&lt;p&gt;Getting back to the egotism: This is speculation, but I think his thought process on the drug smuggling probably went like this: &quot;I&apos;m so much smarter than everyone else I&apos;ve ever met, of COURSE I will get away with it, especially with my airtight excuse if I am caught.&quot;  This kind of reminds me of Hans Reiser, whose egotism and belief in his own superiority was also his downfall.</text></item><item><author>seiji</author><text>This paragraph sounds like classic Wolfram/Kurzweil egotism: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html?hp#p%5BAFtAia%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Personality is a vector.  Just because you are really high up on technical smarts means nothing in regard to the rest of you.  We could simplify it down to a minimal [technical-smarts world] vector where at an extreme end you could have [100 0] being &quot;brilliant, but forgot to wear pants to work today&quot; to [0 100] being &quot;the friendliest, most amazing person you&apos;ll ever meet, but they can&apos;t work a toaster.&quot;  Few people are a Feynman.  Most of us manage to be midline boring enough we wouldn&apos;t make interesting NYT articles.&lt;p&gt;But, more interestingly, never underestimate the ability of a smart person to seem dumber than they are for their own benefit.  We honestly can&apos;t tell if he&apos;s a rube, a conman, or a mark.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smsm42</author><text>In the Glim scam, the target wants to get money he doesn&apos;t earn (neither by honest work nor by actually finding the supposed lost item) and profit by concealing information that is not supposed to be concealed (i.e. the contact info of the supposed one-eyed man). If he acted honestly, he&apos;d say &quot;oh, lucky you, you&apos;re getting a grand, here&apos;s the phone number!&quot; and his loss would be $0.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html?hp</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kbenson</author><text>&amp;#62; you can&apos;t con an honest man.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it&apos;s not true.  There are a number of cons that apply towards people wanting to do the right thing (and usually mixing a bit of greed in as well), to make the pull twice as hard to resist.&lt;p&gt;Check out the Glim-dropper scam[1].  I&apos;ve heard it described in multiple variations (diamond ring at a gas station, wallet on the street, etc).  Importantly, the mark is both making money, and &lt;i&gt;providing help to someone who needs it&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>api</author><text>This is the origin of &quot;you can&apos;t con an honest man.&quot; I was a victim of a very weird kind of con once, and I&apos;m not ashamed to admit that my ego played a huge role in getting me to fall for it. Con men play to the mark&apos;s ego because because it &lt;i&gt;works&lt;/i&gt;!&lt;p&gt;(Luckily in my case I escaped with little loss, and didn&apos;t end up in an Argentine jail.)</text></item><item><author>IvyMike</author><text>Having read the whole story, I can&apos;t help but think that he knew he was transporting drugs, but was duped into thinking he was doing it for the real Milani.  Like all the best movie cons, you make the mark believe they&apos;re on the inside, but they&apos;re really not.&lt;p&gt;Getting back to the egotism: This is speculation, but I think his thought process on the drug smuggling probably went like this: &quot;I&apos;m so much smarter than everyone else I&apos;ve ever met, of COURSE I will get away with it, especially with my airtight excuse if I am caught.&quot;  This kind of reminds me of Hans Reiser, whose egotism and belief in his own superiority was also his downfall.</text></item><item><author>seiji</author><text>This paragraph sounds like classic Wolfram/Kurzweil egotism: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html?hp#p%5BAFtAia%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Personality is a vector.  Just because you are really high up on technical smarts means nothing in regard to the rest of you.  We could simplify it down to a minimal [technical-smarts world] vector where at an extreme end you could have [100 0] being &quot;brilliant, but forgot to wear pants to work today&quot; to [0 100] being &quot;the friendliest, most amazing person you&apos;ll ever meet, but they can&apos;t work a toaster.&quot;  Few people are a Feynman.  Most of us manage to be midline boring enough we wouldn&apos;t make interesting NYT articles.&lt;p&gt;But, more interestingly, never underestimate the ability of a smart person to seem dumber than they are for their own benefit.  We honestly can&apos;t tell if he&apos;s a rube, a conman, or a mark.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gimeq</author><text>The Glim-dropper scam involves the mark trying make money by inserting oneself as an intermediary who provides no benefit, concealing his true intentions. Outside of HN, that is considered dishonesty.</text></comment>