I have never been conned by a con artist and I am pretty sure I never will. And I am sure that is true for most people here, just because a con artist says it is easy to con people doesn't make it true, you believing him here is just another of his tricks, don't fall for it. The people who are hard to con are just the kind of people who will refuse to engage with him in the first place.
Edit: I assume all the downvoters have plenty of stories of when they got conned and lost a lot of money, since it is so easy to do and nobody is safe, so lets hear it!
Maybe you did that, I made an account to participate in a discussion forum. Until I submit an application to ycombinator or back one of their startups or apply to one of their startups I don't see how I have fallen for their marketing. Similarly, just because I sometimes get emails from people calling themselves Nigerian princes doesn't mean that I fell for Nigerian prince scams.
I don't get your point, falling for marketing implies that I would be better off doing something else. What should I do instead of posting here that would be better for me? The only bad thing that could happen is that I fall for HN ads and applies to join them in some manner (if you view that as bad), until that happens I haven't fallen for anything.
Instead I evaluated the product that is HN as a forum, saw it delivered the features and discussions I wanted and decided to post here. It isn't more complicated than that. Can you give an example of a person joining a forum that you wouldn't say is marketing? Because it seems like you just did the "everything is marketing!" argument here.
Forums are great marketing! Sure there are random individuals who run discussion forums for fun. But when a company or organization hosts a discussion forum, it is 100% a form of marketing that they can benefit from.
HN is a forum and it is also a marketing tool. This isn't debatable. It's also not a bad thing.
You can enjoy the features and discussions here but you're also contributing to YC's marketing efforts. Whether you "fall for" the ads and apply to join YC or whatever is somewhat irrelevant. You (and everyone else here) being active and engaged participants is essential to the success of any discussion forum.
This! 100% this! We're all actively participating in Y Combinator's marketing right now, as we argue about whether marketing has any effect on we, the superior nerds. The irony is thick.
I made an account so that I could destabilize the memecomplex which powers this place, replacing opinions and slogans with facts and logic. Eventually, it is my hope that one morning, the rest of y'all will wake up and have a thought like, "Maybe I shouldn't be exploited by Silicon Valley," and then we can turn off HN forever.
Con artists these days tend to prey on unsavvy and vulnerable people. A big portion of this group is the elderly. You may be very savvy today but you never know if someday you’ll get Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia that will leave you highly vulnerable to con artists. Unless you have savvy family members to look after you, that is.
Cons take many forms, and a conman doesn't have to be a single dude.
IMO, Google cons people daily, delivering one thing, after promising another. EG, we don't track, then being caught tracking.
But larger cons happen all the time.
For example, some kickstarters. Vapourware. And, even getting a tech person to pass on links about what if vapourware.
A con is not always about money from your pocket. Look at ponzi schemes. The original investors do very well, but are scammed into endless free advertising, which enables the end-con.
There are small cons, and big cons too. I suspect that the non-conned have been conned many times, they just don't get how.
Motte and bailey here, the argument was con artist. The parent poster argued that con artists easily con anyone, and the people who are the most sure they can't be conned are the easiest to con. I'd argue that is 100% false, and you retreating to the motte here only serves as evidence that I am right, cons are easy to spot for most people and they don't fall for it.
The post in question used a video from a typical street con-man to argue his point. I argued against that, street con-men don't do very well even if the guy in the video tries to argue otherwise, so it isn't very good evidence that everyone are easily tricked.
You can try to argue that a group gets tricked in other ways, but that is a different argument, I just punctured the street con-man part of the evidence. You could even argue that the street con-man is good evidence that people actually aren't equally good at spotting cons, since some falls for it even though most don't. And since the effect is so dramatic for street con-men maybe the effect is similarly dramatic for marketing? Who knows, anyway it isn't good evidence in his favour at least.
Edit: I assume all the downvoters have plenty of stories of when they got conned and lost a lot of money, since it is so easy to do and nobody is safe, so lets hear it!