How Do You Spot Fraud?

tips from Alan on Twitter

This was a great tweet that came from Alan on Twitter. I asked him for permission to post it on my Substack. He said it was OK. Here is a link to the tweet:

audio for those not using the app:

How do you spot fraud in your daily life?

You use your senses, don't you?

Something doesn't "pass the sniff test".

Something doesn't "feel right"

Someone's body language "looks shifty"

Someone doesn't "sound sincere"

Something "left a bad taste in your mouth".

So what do you do if you're a fraudster and want to bypass all that old-fashioned use of the human senses?

Well, you choose a fraud that's invisible. Intangible, inaudible. Something people can't experience with their senses. Something that relies on trust, or belief.

Something like a deadly virus, perhaps? Something we can't see but are told is killing people. Even though we don't know anyone who died personally, the nice respectable telly doctor says gazillions of people died, so it must be true.

Or climate change. Not weather change, because we can all look out of the window and see the weather and spot we are being lied to. No, climate change, which is represented by models and statistics and happens over a longer period, making it less tangible.

Or racism and the rise of the far right. We're not racist or "far right" ourselves, nor do we know anyone who is racist or "far right". And in fact, violence on television news often seems to be perpetrated by protestors from the left. But the television says that Britain is full of racists, and that the biggest threat to our security is the far right, so it must be true, right?

Or the threat from Russia*. The world outside our window looks much as it always did, but there's a bogeyman, far far away, whom we can't see, but he's a clear and present danger to our lives, here and now, in Britain, and we (well not everyone, not politicians or their families, obviously) must fight them. Russia didn't persuade you to vote for Reform, but he did persuade the other 4 million people. Russian influence is EVERYWHERE. Russia is a MENACE.

In all of these cases, we are unable to use our own senses to make a judgement about whether the story is true or not. The "threat" is always invisible, but we are assured exists, even if it's a long way away, or is a future risk but not a present danger. And we are typically told about it by people we don't know personally but who appear on television and we believe are trustworthy. There are some other common factors with all of these "deadly risks":

the existence of the risk is repeated, with monotonous regularity, on every media outlet

we are not allowed to question the extent of the risk. Critics are censored, deplatformed, have their professional reputations trashed.

no context or nuance is provided when talking about the risk to place it in perspective. How many people die on a typical day, of any cause? How many "far left" people have been imprisoned for political violence or terrorism?

the "solutions" to all of these risks involve global action, and weakening of nation states and their elected governments

and require URGENT action, by us (just like you see in spam emails). YOU need to reduce your carbon footprint TODAY! Click here! YOU need to STAY HOME and SAVE LIVES! YOU need to WEAR A MASK MADE OUT OF YOUR AUNT'S OLD CURTAINS!

the outcome of measures taken to mitigate these risks is: greater power for the existing global elite, and more control and restrictions on the freedoms of ordinary people to speak, associate and travel freely. So I put it to you that when you are told there is a deadly global threat that is invisible to you and cannot be detected by any of your senses, but requires coordinated, centralised, global action that restricts your freedom and transfers more power and control to a small elite, and you're not allowed to criticise anything that's happening, that there's a pretty good chance it's all a big fat fraud.

* Russia is the current bogeyman, but it could equally well be China, or some Islamic terror group "accidentally" created by US "intelligence".