May

14

The Chair has emphasized the value of studying and understanding deception endlessly, I believe.

Now, if I wish to focus and devote my energies to be thoroughly studious about it, I urge my requests below are not misunderstood as a lazy desire, but an earnest and keen wish to be methodical about it.

What would the Spec-list citizens recommend as the ideal list of :
a) Movies to watch,
b) Books to read.

One thing that hit me suddenly some weeks ago is that nature devised deception as a tool to economize the struggle for propagation of this world and its entities into the future. Without deception a Tiger would run endlessly, perhaps consuming more calories in capturing its prey, than it would get in eating the prey, as one example.

What are the other utilities the matured, experienced minds on this competent list and other curious minds as me feel that deception provides?

Another layer of study that makes me curious is, when our own mind as defined by Edward De Bono, as a self organizing pattern seeking system is the personal deception machinery that takes us into deviant behaviour from data, stats on the table and rigorous study then how does the autonomous deception inflicted by our mind engage with the deceptions inflicted upon this world by the high and mighty? Are the mighty studying how the hoi pollois is living in self deceiving modes and then playing it?

What more rigorous questions will the list members be happy to throw at someone who is now hungry to study deception, in depth? Please provide your questions too for me to compile into a list of questions to ponder over, gather information and insights on.

William Huggins writes:

it would seem the heart of the matter is one's ability to "hack" the target's heuristics. concealment/distraction plays an important role in this. the obvious benefit of deception being a misallocation (from the allocator's pov) of energy that can be exploited by the deceptive.

Nils Poertner comments:

What traders do in their free time and are already good at is of interest to me. (eg. someone reading crime novels, can find patterns here, another one practises Judo, finds patterns of deception there, and then you can go from there. Work with what you have already)

Big Al offers:

An interesting story with possibly multiple levels of deception:

Rosenhan Experiment

The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was a disputed study regarding the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. For the experiment, participants submitted themselves for evaluation at various psychiatric institutions and feigned hallucinations in order to be accepted, but acted normally from then onward. Each was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and given antipsychotic medication. The study was arranged by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 with the title On Being Sane In Insane Places.

Asindu Drileba adds:

When it comes to movies, my favorite movie to do with deception is The Conversation (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola. As for books, on my "yet to read" list I have The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova. You see, "conman" comes from the phrase "confidence man".

I have studied several scammers like SBF, Madoff, Enron executives. What I have noticed is that deception never looks like "deception" it often looks like opportunity. The "confidence man" entrapped their victims by having "good visuals", dressing well & moving amongst those in high circles.

SBF was branded as a type of prodigy, Madoff was the chairman of Nasdaq, Enron guys where The Smartest Guys In The Room (you should watch this one, just for the fantastic music playlist), Jeffrey Epstein displayed the all patterns. Take away? Beware of bombastic talk, especially one that boosts your confidence in an investment.

Rich Bubb writes:

Not exactly a movie-to-watch, a former co-worker recommended I watch "Lie To Me" series. I'd be interested to see if anyone has trained and AI system to visually detect micro-expressions. The thought is that if somebody/-ies is the 'prey', maybe AI could detect deceptive interactions better than me. I have tried to teach myself to recognize micro-expressions. It's nice to know when I'm being lied to.

Oliver Joseph writes:

I'm a big fan of Joe Navarro's work. "What Every Body is Saying" is classic. There is a certain amount of gamesmanship in deception and its detection which he elegantly describes. Of course there are certain "strong signs" like pupil dilation that are impossible for normal human beings to conceal. Sussing out the meaning and separating the signal from the noise is part of the game, a problem everyone on the spec list is used to dealing with I'm sure. I myself as a former car dealer am quite unfamiliar with deception and its detection and so eagerly await further recommendations.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search