If someone is proven to have acted dishonestly in one matter, it can be almost safe to assume that they have acted dishonestly in many other matters not yet known. If they haven’t yet, there are high chances that they soon will.
Dishonesty hardly ever occurs in isolation. It converges across several fault lines. A married person who is unfaithful would most likely not uphold a business agreement. A traitor would most likely not be trustworthy, no matter how “justified” their reasons for treachery.
Everything in life is built on standards. And the thing about standards is they’re like house foundations when the building is complete: hidden and buried underground, but important to the fidelity of the building.
If a part of the building is discovered to have a faulty foundation, you can safely bet that the entire foundation is compromised with few exceptions. Hence the axiom: how you do anything is how you do everything.
People do not rise to their aspirations, they fall to their standards (My spin on James Clear’s systems vs. goals). A liar who has enjoyed the benefits of lying in order to get something, will employ lying in almost every other thing they want to get. Especially true of people who use dishonesty to even the disparity between their demonstrable capabilities and their actual resumé.
People do not rise to their aspirations, they fall to their standards
Negative traits are addictive. Especially if they offer benefits. Hence, a person who once got ahead by misrepresenting themselves will most likely attempt to do so as many times as possible.
Being authentic requires a lot of work. It requires being yourself, which is a hard thing in itself, because it requires a certain level of self-awareness that’s simply not available on everyone’s shelf.
The easy antidote? Dishonest miming. Embellishments. Posturing. Lying. Mimicking results they lack the process or skill to account for.
Consequently, with someone who has been dishonest with something important, you can safely assume they have been dishonest with many other things. Follow the trail carefully.
If a politician was dishonest with their academic credentials, you can bet the trail goes farther than that. Run a trace all the way back and you’d uncover more things that they’re actively misrepresenting, or have misrepresented for a benefit in the past.
If you fact-check a person’s claims and it turns out made up or fraudulent, there are high chances that every other claim could have been substantially embellished or entirely made up.
People are notoriously lazy and will not bother to investigate most things. Especially things that fly under their radar. Everyone has a radar of implicit biases that make up shortcuts for easier decisions. Sometimes it’s credentialism or qualification bias, or religious bias, racial bias etc.
We have a mental map that tracks the statistics of past experiences (personal or borrowed) to different outcomes. And we develop a heuristic based on this map. Consequently, we’re able to make faster decisions.
A careful bad actor can curate an image of themselves such that it checks the safe boxes of their target victims; thereby, allowing them to fly undetected.
Humans are not keen to alter their patterns and investigate everything. So they set up safety alarms composed of earlier described heuristics. If a bad actor positions properly, they can complete their mission without triggering alarms, at least until it’s too late.
How to spot “actors”?
Look out for people who are heavy on selling narratives themselves. Especially narratives of noble and lofty ideals. Everybody is a salesperson; which is perfectly acceptable, by the way.
The question however is: what are you selling? Yourself, as is? Or an exaggerated version? This is where the problem lies. Bad actors know how powerful optics are. They shape perceptions. And what better way to control optics than by borrowing the endorsement of powerful, trusted entities like media companies. Sometimes it is by associating with a powerful figure for recognition by proxy. Or, borrowing a reputation by associating with high status institutions like Ivy League schools or governments to enjoy the endowment of credibility by association.
How often do you look at an MIT graduate and call bullshit? Because they have the “endorsement” of a powerful, reputable institution famed for picking the best of the best industry leaders.
I do not entirely think taking advantage of people’s biases for personal benefits is unethical, as I further discussed here.
Beware the man who goes out of their way to flatter themselves through proxy authorities. Look out for “try hards”. In other words, people who are overly obsessed with curating and controlling the narratives about themselves without actual ground work. People who hustle for a lot of press coverage. Because one of the fastest shortcuts to crafting a credible identity is the media. All it costs is money, not actual work and time.
Humans tend to have a bias for the authority of success. Believing that a person who is demonstrably successful has earned the right to be correct about a lot of things.
The media further reinforces this by beaming the spotlight on winners and portraying them as perfect. Hence, bad actors are able to portray a successful-than-is-true image of themselves using the media and legitimate authorities in return for even more credibility.
Another example: there are people who believe a person who throws a lot of big words must be smart. A bad actor who knows this, simply has to only figure out how to throw big words around them, and he wins their respect.
Another example: who believes that an educated person with a prestigious degree and a successful business, is likely to be a fraud? Especially if there are media pieces touting them as the next iteration of human genius.
If your bias heuristics involve trusting the endorsements of powerful markers like credentials, wealth, race, status, color, media coverage etc. You’d be much more prone to falling for frauds that should have been obvious in hindsight.
Mass media can be a tool of compensation and manipulation. People use media to prove something. Sometimes, that something that isn’t true. Because if it was true, they wouldn’t badly need the media’s endorsement.
It is also useful to remember that everyone is a salesperson: you’re either selling your reality, your potentials, or an outright illusion. The latter is the path to trouble.
