But that's not all. In her 2016 book, The Confidence Game , Maria Konnikova puts forth the idea that scammers often thrive in times of transition, or unrest — and Lundquist says that theory most certainly rings true to him. It's certainly hard to argue that the U.S. and the world at large isn't in a time of unease as temperatures around the globe heat up and we seem to be more politically polarized than ever. As Konnikova wrote in her book, scammers work best in times of societal transition because people more likely to believe them when it seems like all bets are off. And that's at least a small part of why we're so baffled by the bullshit, even when we're not the ones getting scammed: When it seems like the system we're in doesn't work anymore, there's some excitement in trying (and even failing) to cheat that system.