Can You Spot a Liar? Enlightening article about con artists...

[Guilded Lilly]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/can-you-spot-a-liar/423588/

Enlightening article by Olga Khazan from Jan. 2016
Highlighting an interview with the author of “The Confidence Game”, Maria Konnikova.

It’s the cretin in the White House to the core.
In particular, her explanation of the “dark triad”...

(Snipped excerpt):

“Konnikova: The dark triad is three things, obviously, including psychopathy, the inability to feel emotion in the way that normal people do. It’s kind of a lack of empathy. Your brain is actually different, you process emotional stimuli differently. To you, they don’t mean that much. It’s very difficult for a non-psychopath to understand, but basically everything that would really make you emotionally engaged would leave you cold as a psychopath, so that’s one part of it.

The second part is narcissism, this overblown ego where you not only think you’re just the best thing that’s ever happened to anyone, but you also think you deserve a lot. You deserve basically everyone to bow down to you. And you have it coming to you, all these good things. So if you notice a lot of the con artists in the book, they want shortcuts, they don’t want to work hard for their rewards, because they think they deserve them. They are people who steal credentials because they don’t feel like getting a Ph.D. But they think they’re smarter than the people with Ph.D.s.

Finally, it's Machiavellianism, or the ability to manipulate people into doing what you want. Kind of like Machiavelli’s Ideal Prince, you have your own ends and you use whatever means you want to get there. And you’re very good at tricking those people and getting them to do what you want.“

More of the interview at link.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. another snippet

Early in the interview:

Khazan: Yeah, how can we even be sure what con artists’ life stories are?

Konnikova: The thing is, we actually can’t. I stopped talking to the con artists I was writing about, about halfway through the research process, because I realized that the same thing was happening to me. When I actually spoke with them and met them, I was no longer objective because they’re so good, so charismatic—you really start identifying with them and thinking, “Oh, they’re really not so bad.” You start making all sorts of excuses and it’s really not a good thing, so I stopped talking to them. I realized I needed to talk to the victims.

No doubt some within TrumPutin's circle have been taken in this way. Kompromat would keep them from exiting.