"The true con artist doesn’t force us to do anything. He makes us complicit in our own undoing." — Maria Konnikova,
Previously, I said The Confidence Game is a book that I highlighted in the past that I have been reading to gain a better understanding of human psychology, focusing on why people do what they do.
Here is the link to the previous article I wrote about the book:
Book Review - The Confidence Game
This time around, I will be talking about another interesting quote I came across from her book:
The true con artist doesn’t force us to do anything. He makes us complicit in our own undoing.
Maria Konnikova, the author of the book, drives her reader into understanding that a true con artist or a person is not all about carrying out the con with immense force, violence, or even coercion. It is about making you a part of it unknowingly. It is kind of like being a part of it without even knowing what you have gotten yourself into. They stay close to you, appreciate your presence, while spotting your insecurities and weaknesses, to know how to best proceed.
The entire book, which makes it interesting for me, is the stories that she shares about past cons, investment schemes, and email scams. What strikes the chord is not the con itself, but it is all but how the con artist makes use of human emotion to skim off their plan. Sometimes this human emotion could be gained through the connections gained through the arms of networking.
A good example of such a con can be seen from the Theranos story. For those of you who do not know about this story. It is about a female inventor and the founder of the startup Theranos. Her name is Elizabeth Holmes, and her startup Theranos was worth $8 billion. But here is the problem: her invention was not doing what it said it did. A blood testing device that was not actually testing the blood.
She fell for the sunk cost effect, where she was too in deep so she could not turn back. When she knew the device was not working, she still went on to raise funds from venture capitalists up to 700 million dollars and even more when the device was not working. Putting up cover-ups for the media and investors as if everything is fine and working. Slowly, things began to fall apart, things were not adding up, and suspicion began to loom up and down.
You can check out HBO's documentary on the entire story titled The Inventor.
The quote from the author appears to focus on the victim at first glance. But that is not the case. The author uses the quote to discuss how the con works, which is based on the victim receiving something they want or lack. It is more like being promised good returns on a sharp investment. They tell you what you want to hear. Now, be careful when they say too many sweet things that are too good to be true.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. The Confidence Game is interesting to read because of the psychological background of the author. She makes it interesting, like exploring the mind of somebody like Patrick James from The Mentalist. The book is certain of one thing: telling some uncomfortable truths.
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Thanks For Reading!