Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags; The Guardian, July 23, 2023

Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian; Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags

"f you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system,” the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, recently told the Northwestern University Class of 2023. Pritzker, a billionaire and self-described “cheugy dad”, clearly knows a thing or two about successful commencement speeches: his talk has gone viral.While the 20-minute speech, which was organized around quotes from characters in The Office series, wasn’t entirely about idiot-spotting, that section of it seemed to resonate the most.

You can see why. We live in a golden age of grifters, bullshitters and scammers. We live in an age where some of the world’s most powerful people threw millions of dollars at Elizabeth Holmes, without doing proper due diligence, because she came from the right background and sounded like she knew what she was talking about. A fantasist like George Santosmanaged to successfully fib his way into government. And Marjorie Taylor Greene has a seat in US Congress despite routinely going on unhinged rants about, inter alia, the “gazpacho police”. Clearly not enough people have functioning idiot detection systems.

So how do you spot an idiot? Well, says Pritzker, it’s not always easy. “I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots, but counterintuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work,” Pritzker said. “They can even get elected president.”

That said, there are some major signs to watch out for. [Bolds added] The best way to spot an idiot is to “look for the person who is cruel”, Pritzker says. “When someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct … Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true – the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”"

Robocalling soars despite 'Do Not Call' registry, as scammers 'couldn't care less' about bothering consumers; CNBC, June 25, 2017

Jennifer Schlesinger, CNBC; Robocalling soars despite 'Do Not Call' registry, as scammers 'couldn't care less' about bothering consumers

[Kip Currier: Posting this in response to a timely question from an attendee at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh's "Conversations That Count" "Privacy in a Digital Age" program, for which I was a co-panelist last night.]

""The 'Do Not Call' registry actually works for legitimate businesses," said Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail. "The problem is all the people who don't respect it, who are the scammers who [couldn't] care less."

The calls are often coming from overseas, where scammers try to stay out of the reach of regulatory authorities, according to the FTC...

• Register your number on the Do Not Call List, donotcall.gov. "After that if you get a call that is trying to sell you a good or service, you have a pretty good idea that that call is illegal and the person behind that call is a law violator, and so you have a good sense of knowing that that's a call that you don't want to engage in," Kopec said.
• Report illegal robo-sales calls to the FTC at complaints.donotcall.gov. The government passed on these numbers to services that block calls."