More people need to be skeptical. I mean intelligent skeptical, not flat-out denying stuff they don’t want to believe.
It’s not something any of us are taught at the elementary or secondary levels here in America, unfortunately. In college, depending on what you study, you’ll likely acquire a healthy dose of it, but it’ll also likely only be applied within a box, meaning just within the field you’re studying. And that’s if you go to college. There are plenty of people with in-the-box skepticism and fancy degrees who still believe the dumbest things imaginable. Case in point: people who buy into propaganda, or people who believe strangers—in person or on television or their computer—whose only interest is to sell them something they don’t want or need. They come from all walks of life, and education is definitely not a qualifier.
Taking the first steps to acquiring a healthy, intelligent skepticism in life starts with the ability to formally identify those whose mission it is to destroy your ability to think critically and independently. A corollary, then, to the whole “More people need to be skeptical smart” hereby shall be: Learn how to spot a grifter.
Because they are almost literally everywhere.
So, welcome to Grifter Spotting 101. Here are the rules. (Be sure to write this down. There’ll be a test on it Friday. Involving and administered by someone who may or may not be trying to grift you.)
Rule #1: Anyone Who Tries to Sell You Something Is a Grifter
Understand this, and you understand almost the entirety of the money-transferring world. Politics, consumerism, business-to-business relations—everyone has money they need to spend, every company has something they want to sell, and the more money a company is worth, the more money they need for their survival. That’s basic economics.
A healthy balance between skepticism and openness needs to be struck on the part of the consumer, however. Nobody likes a churlish, soulless asshole. You may never get grifted that way, but you’ll also be a churlish, soulless asshole. That nobody likes. (Talking to you, churlish, soulless asshole.) Skepticism is only valuable if used intelligently.
I could list all the search-engine-optimized, superfluous steps you’d need to take to develop into a healthy, intelligent skeptic the shortest amount of time imaginable, and bundle it up here nice and pretty in my very own proprietary step-by-step analysis package and offer it to you for a one time low-low price, but that would most certainly make me…what? Anyone?
A grifter. That’s right.
Rule #2: The Best Grifters Will Likely Convince You It Was Your Idea to Pay Them in the First Place
If you can’t force someone to give you their money or time or anything you value through violence or extortion, how do you get it? By convincing them that it was their idea to give it to you in the first place.
And how do you do that? By either appealing to one’s emotions, or convincing someone that they’re best interests are being put first in the transaction. This could also be known as reverse grifting, but the result is the same (mainly because it’s perpetrated by a grifter).
Say you’re a large-scale grifter—a grifting business, say. And all of a sudden your employees, through various legal means, realize they’re being grifted, too. They get a bunch of others in the same boat together and form a little group to pressure you to stop internally grifting them so much. So what do you do? You use all the money you’ve made (mostly from grifting) and get all your friends together (business advocacy groups, employees you pay to be professional grifters [see Rule #3], lawyers, etc.) and reverse grift them into thinking you’re actually on their side, and that the few troublemakers who started this whole thing are actually the real grifters!
It’ll totally work, by the way. At least you’ll get a majority on your side, and the majority always rules. You learn that in Rube Spotting 221. But that’s a different course.
Grifters also love to greatly humanize themselves, in the grift. All sorts of techniques are involved to make you think the grift is mutually beneficial.
“Hey, man, can I get some money for a bus ticket? I’m just trying to get back home to see my grandmother. She’s in the hospital.”
“We are god fearing couple.we are just looking for a nice person to take care of our home while we are away for one year as missionaries in Nigeria.”
“We adopted sustainability practices such as zero routine flaring decades before they became industry standards. As a result, a recent study of over 100 oil fields in 20 countries showed that our crude oil has the lowest carbon intensity among large producers proving our commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and powering a more sustainable future.”
“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics. And I think it should be very easily handled by…National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Be thee warned, fair rube.
Rule #3: Not All Grifters Are Bad. Sometimes It’s Just Their Job
Maybe they’re a salesperson, maybe they work in marketing, maybe they’re looking for funds for a startup that will somehow bring a huge benefit to humanity (maybe). (Unlikely.) Regardless, they may be in the process of being grifted by someone else—i.e., their employer—so try and sniff out the source before you slap a label on someone. Skepticism helps with that.
Rule #4: Don’t Confuse Someone Who’s Actually Trying to Help You with a Grifter
This refers back to the whole ‘Don’t be a churlish asshole’ point. Because first, just because you don’t want to be helped or don’t actually see someone holding help in their hand, doesn’t mean you actually won’t be helped by their transaction in the long run. And second, sometimes when other people are helped, you actually benefit, without actually seeing someone holding the benefit. It depends on how big the picture is. To avoid being a rube, you need to think big. We teach that in Rube Empowerment 334. Different course, though.
Grifter spotting is a lifelong process, and it takes time to develop the skillset, like post-civilized humbugging. (Which is what? Anyone? A form of grifting, that’s right.) Stick with it, and learn to spot where the benefit lies. Is it with you, people just like you—and therefore pretty much you—or are you and everyone like you being grifted by larger-scale grifters?
Remember: it’s okay to be grifted in the beginning. Everyone gets kicked in the head by a horse, or however that goes. The trick is to get back up and be able to stand without having to go to a hospital, where you might get…anyone? Grifted all over again, correct.
Rule #5: Grifters Are Almost Literally Everywhere
Your president, lower-chamber federal lawmakers, city councilmembers, TV and internet commercials, favorite influencers—if they take a strong interest in you and don’t actually use your name when they speak to you, the grift is on. Aside from those, there are also the less noticeable: parents, teachers, spouses, boy/girlfriends, non-binary partners, bosses: if they want something from you and it isn’t in your best interests to give it to them in the short or long term, they’re trying to grift you. The bullshit about someone’s “needs” aside—if they demand and you don’t actually benefit: grift.
It’s important to clarify, though, that any relationship requires all parties to give at least a little. You can’t be a purely selfish dick and think the relationship will function. Are you being paid to work, but are refusing to do any? Is your partner your trophy, chef, stand-in or sex toy? Do you hate your parents because they aren’t “cool” enough? Do you want to watch the world burn and see everyone suffer? Unless you’re the highest-echelon of grifters—a dictator, say, who has the defense of an entire nation’s military, parliament and law enforcement behind him/her—if someone needs something from you and it’s for the greater good, and this is made patently evident by whatever means, then give. Because being in the relationship benefits you, right? Otherwise, you’re probably the grifter there. And you’re the whole reason everyone’s sitting in this classroom with those glaringly pissed-off looks on their faces, learning how to not be grifted again.
Bottom line: Grifters do not have your best interests in mind. They exist only to take your money.
This cannot be emphasized enough. So, I’ll repeat it.
GRIFTERS EXIST TO TAKE YOUR VALUABLES.
See what I did there? That’s something a grifter would totally do. Just making sure you’re still with me here.
But that’s pretty much the lesson. You like money, don’t you? Want to hold onto your valuables? Everyone does. You work hard for things, don’t you? Well, not everyone does, because: grifters. But, still—most people do. And, to be fair, grifting is pretty hard work sometimes. It can take months to build up the trust needed to scam someone out of their life savings. Mostly, though, it isn’t; it involves the exact same basic process of walking into a grocery store, buying something online or casting a vote: you offer up something objectively valuable to someone you don’t know in exchange for a tangible/intangible good or documentable/assumed service you’ve been promised/convinced will benefit you in the short or long term, that the seller claims they’re going to provide immediately or in the short or long term. And only the grifter gains. Or the difference between your gains and theirs is so astronomically large as to be virtually nil.
And, somehow, in the long run, many other people end up losing many of their own valuables in the process.
Because that’s basic economics, too. But that’s a completely different course, as well.
