首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
On a Los Angeles street corner in 2000, I was the "inside man" in a classic con game called the pigeon drop. A magician named Da
On a Los Angeles street corner in 2000, I was the "inside man" in a classic con game called the pigeon drop. A magician named Da
admin
2015-01-09
91
问题
On a Los Angeles street corner in 2000, I was the "inside man" in a classic con game called the pigeon drop. A magician named Dan Harlan orchestrated it for a television series I cohosted called Exploring the Unknown(type "Shermer, con games" into Google). Our pigeon was a man from whom I asked directions to the local hospital while Dan(the "outside man")moved in and appeared to find a wallet full of cash on the ground. After it was established that the wallet belonged to neither of us and appeared to have about $ 3,000 in it, Dan announced that we should split the money three ways.
I objected on moral grounds, insisting that we ask around first, which Dan agreed to do only after I put the cash in an envelope and secretly switched it for an envelope with magazine pages stuffed in it. Before he left on his moral crusade, however, Dan insisted that we each give him some collateral("How do I know you two won’t just take off with the money while I’m gone?"). I enthusiastically offered $ 50 and suggested that the pigeon do the same. He hesitated, so I handed him the sealed envelope full of what he believed was the cash(but was actually magazine pages), which he then tucked safely into his pocket as he willingly handed over to Dan his entire wallet, credit cards and ID. A few minutes after Dan left, I acted agitated and took off in search of him, leaving the pigeon standing on the street corner with a phony envelope and no wallet!
After admitting my anxiety about performing the con(I didn’t believe I could pull it off)and confessing a little thrill at having scored the goods, I asked Dan to explain why such scams work. "We are that way as the human animal," he reflected. "We have a conscience, but we also want to go for the kill." Indeed, even after we told our pigeon that he had been set up, he still believed he had the three grand in his pocket!
Greed and the belief that the payoff is real also led high-rolling investors to fuel Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff’s record-breaking $ 50-billion Ponzi scheme in which he kept the money and paid an 8 to 14 percent annual annuity with cash from new investors. As long as more money comes in than goes out, such scams can continue, which this one did until the 2008 market meltdown, when more investors wanted out than wanted in. But there were other factors at work as well, as explained by the University of Colorado at Boulder psychiatry professor Stephen Greenspan in his new book The Annals of Gullibility(Praeger, 2008), which, with supreme irony, he wrote before he lost more than half his retirement investments in Madoff’s company! "The basic mechanism explaining the success of Ponzi schemes is the tendency of humans to model their actions, especially when dealing with matters they don’t fully understand, on the behavior of other humans," Greenspan notes.
The effect is particularly powerful within an ethnic or religious community, as in 1920, when the eponymous Charles Ponzi promised a 40 percent return on his fellow immigrant Italian investors’ money through the buying and selling of postal reply coupons(the profit was supposedly in the exchange rate differences between countries). Similarly, Madoff targeted fellow wealthy Jewish investors and philanthropists, and that insider’s trust was reinforced by the reliable payout of moderate dividends(so as not to attract attention)to his selective client list, to the point that Greenspan said he would have felt foolish had he not grabbed the investment opportunity.
The evolutionary arms race between deception and deception detection has left us with a legacy of looking for signals to trust or distrust others. The system works reasonably well in simple social situations with many opportunities for interaction, such as those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. But in the modern world of distance, anonymity and especially complicated investment tools(such as hedge funds)that not one in a thousand really understands, detecting deceptive signals is no easy feat. So as Dan reminded me, " If it sounds too good to be true, it is. "
The game is to illustrate
选项
A、a way of scamming.
B、evil side of human nature.
C、how economic scams work.
D、inter-personal mistrust.
答案
C
解析
推断题。本文前三段都是在叙述“the pigeon drop”这个游戏是怎样进行的,因此对这个游戏的评论和总结应该出现在第四段,该段第一句就提到“Greed and the belief that the payoff…”,由此可知作者是以小窥大,从一个两人制造的小骗局的简单道理来说明大环境下的经济骗局,因此[C]正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/FMdO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
AskanAmericanschoolchildwhatheorsheislearninginschoolthesedaysandyoumightevengetareply,providedyouaskit
BetweentheeighthandeleventhcenturiesA.D.,theByzantineEmpirestagedanalmostunparalleledeconomicandculturalrevival
FiveMainLiteraryMovementsinAmericanHistoryI.Transcendentalism—bornin【B1】______:thenortheasternpartoftheUS【B1】_
Ifwewanttoavoidthedisasterscenario,peopleindevelopedcountrieswillhavetotakeaglobalperspectiveandacceptrespo
Becausehumananatomydoesnotchange(exceptoverlongperiodsoftime),knowledgeacquiredacenturyagowasstillaccurateto
AdvertisingI.Thedefinitionofadvertising—【B1】______butencouragingpresentationofgoodsandservices【B1】______II.Theim
AllofthefollowingareborrowingsinEnglishEXCEPT______.
IwasinnorthernKenya,whichissufferingthroughtheworstdroughttohittheHornofAfricain60years.Thetollofdepri
PositiveforYouthaimstoplaceteenagersandyoungpeopleatitsheart.Thereistheaccurateexpectationteenagersthemselves
Itwasnotsolongagothatparentsdroveateenagertocampus,saidatearfulgoodbyeandreturnedbackhometo【M1】______wait
随机试题
梅奥认为,在技术指向型社会进展中,管理者的一个错误在于,他们认为工业问题的答案在于
简述技术贸易管制的主要类型。
取全口义齿印模时,制作个别托盘的目的主要是
A.使卵泡开始发育B.促黄体形成C.促进阴毛和腋毛的生长D.使阴道上皮细胞增生角化E.使阴道上皮细胞脱落加快孕激素的作用
设某种理想气体的麦克斯韦分子速率分布函数为f(v),则速率在v1~v2区间内分子的平均速率表达式为()。
甚高频全向信标(VOR)所提供的方位以()为基准。
在NEC合同中,工程师代表的是( )的利益。
申请暂缓执行行政拘留时,可以提出担保人或者交纳保证金。担保人应当具备的条件包括()。
(2016年单选3)下列关于法律作用的表述,正确的是()。
甲是某医院的医生,乙是医院的病人。甲为乙作了手术治疗疾病,术后乙恢复不佳,并发多种疾病,后抢救无效死亡。乙的家属认为是因为甲的手术失败才导致了乙的死亡,于是到医院大吵大闹,并且不准甲离开医院长达48小时。乙的家属的行为()
最新回复
(
0
)