The Next Big Idea Daily How to Spot a Swindler
Dec 12, 2025
Quico Toro, a veteran journalist and coauthor of 'Charlatans', teams up with Daniel Simons, a psychology professor and coauthor of 'Nobody's Fool', to unpack the art of deception. They discuss how charlatans manipulate deeply held beliefs and leverage social media to expand their reach. Toro highlights the difference between charlatans and typical fraudsters, while Simons explains cognitive biases that make individuals easy targets. The duo offers practical strategies to identify scams, urging listeners to maintain skepticism and cross-check their commitments.
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Charlatans Build Lasting Emotional Hold
- A charlatan builds lasting relationships by weaponizing followers' preexisting beliefs and dreams.
- They exploit trust to create defenders who often defend the very person who exploited them.
Belief Makes You An Easy Mark
- Charlatans are hard to spot when they speak to beliefs you already hold because confirmation bias makes you accept confirming evidence automatically.
- They exploit fast, automatic 'system one' thinking to gain trust before you reflect.
Scale Makes Charlatanry Worse
- Social media multiplies opportunities for people with dark-triad traits to find and exploit matching belief communities.
- With billions online, charlatanism will grow as supply meets susceptible audiences.
