I like this expansion of the word. It is, as Falcone says, funny.
Watch his videos on YouTube here.
Example:
ADDED: Once you start using the word "scam" this way, you quickly progress and will, I predict, get to "life itself" in less than 15 minutes. It's more light-hearted than calling everything "bullshit." It's reminiscent of Holden Caulfield calling everything "phony."
AND: There are quite a few things I've blogged about over the years that reflect an opinion that I could express with this broad use of the word scam — journalism, tourist travel, flying on a plane, manned space travel, the 2 major parties, calls for civility....
Posts
61 comments:
Monty Python: "Scam, scam, scam,scam..."
“Scam” is arguably appropriate anytime someone uses lies to influence your behavior.
CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world.
Omaha Public Power District has a Net Zero policy. I appear at the OPPD Board meetings monthly and tell them it is a scam. The liberal directors visibly ignore me. They won’t look at me. Last night was different. I told them to pay attention. I then informed them that a federal judge upheld the constitutionality of the county’s ban on industrial wind. Other NE counties are following.
The looks on their faces were priceless.
I’m dismantling the CAGW scam in Nebraska. And the word is getting out nationally.
BTW, I should have said, “OPPD, I will not be ignored” but they would have taken it the wrong way.
I watched, and he seems like a person that tells you not to fall for that scam, because he wants you to fall for his scam.
…me and my classmates we all had to take those tests for jobs. Clueless but deep pocketed companies liked them for some reason. I’m not sure what insight they were supposed to give but hiring always followed a formula- prestige of school, ivies, near ivies only, then gpa, then work/internship experience. Dartmouth geology major wind the real estate job over the UMass finance major who interned at Coldwell Banker Commercial…
So, a new word coined: scamyep.
"“Scam” is arguably appropriate anytime someone uses lies to influence your behavior."
Are you using a narrow or broad meaning for "lies"?
Do you accept the statement "Alcohol is a scam"?
"I watched, and he seems like a person that tells you not to fall for that scam, because he wants you to fall for his scam."
"Is it a scam? Yep" is Falcone's tag line and I'm sure he's aware that you can say that in itself is a scam.
Makes me think of the old Letterman bit "Will it float?"
Competition was eliminated by Ronald Reagan?
Since when? Leftists are a scam. YEP.
…you’re not obligated to like Larry Ellison but you shouldn’t justify your hate with commie politics and economic scams that prey on people’s ignorance, including tour own…
…as Ann suggests is that a scam? yep.
"BTW, I should have said, “OPPD, I will not be ignored” but they would have taken it the wrong way."
Especially if any of them have pet bunnies.
And THIS is why I visit Althouse Blogspot every day … and that's no scam.
Performative = scam, so yeah there's scams all the way down.
Woodford reserve is not a scam. Poor yourself a glass of her and she always puts out.
**Ann Althouse said...Are you using a narrow or broad meaning for "lies"?
Do you accept the statement "Alcohol is a scam"?**
I accept the statement, "most advertising is a scam, including most alcohol advertising." Not sure what you mean by alcohol is a scam (I'm working my way though the video--it's too long to watch in one sitting. Does he talk about alcohol near the end?)
Lying liars lie
Scamming scammers scam. (D)
Scammer neat trick = when scam includes a small pocket of truth. That's the lure used to grab the idiot. (economic or otherwise)
I shared the guy's opinion about probably half the topics; the rest I found to be "anti-capitalist" feelz that I can't agree with because, for instance, I myself don't believe (or need to believe) that rich people are "the worst people in the world," as he asserts (he calls them this *before* they buy and store fine art out of public view; it might be *slightly* more defensible if he waited until after they did that, but ... only slightly).
I'd say that I agreed with the parts that were based in fact (like the economics of mail-away plastics recycling and who came up with Meyers-Briggs and how) rather than in his convictions about the warmth of socialism.
Pappy Van Winkle is a scam. It's great, but it's not $5000/bottle and wait-forever-for-availability great. Also, almost all high end wine is a scam. The more French the wine, the bigger the swindle.
My understanding is that a scam involves extracting money from the mark, in exchange for something of little to no value, that is not what it has been made to appear to be.
Alcohol would never fit that description.
The left bastardize Capitalism - then shriek in unison to destroy it. (Destruction and harm are the backbone of modern cult leftism)
Bernie Sanders(D) is the biggest hypocrite of all.
He and his family use non-profits to stuff tax payer and donated money in their pockets.
It's amazing how totalizing politics has become. A couple of the segments are a little interesting, but then he frequently just descends into standard Dem party whinging: "X is a micro-blogging platform for Nazis". Well, that's enough from you, partisan drone.
Key to Falcone's shtick is the mix of some facts with the fast-talking cadence and the tone of letting you in on "confidential" knowledge about a scam. Anyone who understands street cons will recognize the techniques.
No, I don't remember a failed business venture involving Elon Musk and solar panels. I must not be obsessed with him enough.
Sure, everything is a scam. What's really going on isn't reflected in what the public is told. But don't wear out the word. It's too important.
Another blogger suggests that institutional drift makes everything a scam. We still think Congress makes laws. Congress isn't making laws, and the rules that government makes come from elsewhere. The press was valued because people remembered Woodward and Bernstein and Edward R. Murrow. They were scammers too, but we still have John Peter Zenger.
Another reason everything is a sham is public relations, and behind that, the litigators ready to pounce on any admission that one has done wrong or that things aren't working.
Well, I did a little research (asked ChatGPT) and it turns out the venture didn't actually fail, and the share holders that sued Musk lost. In the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Was Cousin Brucie a scam? Turns out he’s not really my cousin and most likely isn’t your either.
Scamming has a lot of other meanings now. Ask the kids or Urban Dictionary.
Only 5 things not a scam:
Mother
Apple pie
Robert Plant in the kitchen with Dinah
Working on the old creaky railroad
Snake oil
https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/fact/snake-oil-wasnt-always-a-scam/?lctg=bc0329d3-88ba-4475-9760-d390f25306f0
Tourist travel is a scam? You would not be moved to look at the Lion Gate of Mycenae and reflect that 3000 years ago Agamemnon rode out through tgst gate to lead the Greeks against Troy? You would not be amazed to go to the ruins of Akrotiri, formerly entombed by lava, and see that the Minoan civilization had flush toilets during the Bronze Age? The Pyramids would be boring to you?
You have no soul, woman. You have no soul at all.
Is alcohol a scam?
Alcohol says "I want to #### your#### out."
Sobriety says "I'm not that kind of a ###"
Sobriety is actually lying.
Talking fast is the first mark of scam artist, imo.
'Light' beer is a scam.
Filtered Hefeweizen is a scam.
Non-alcoholic beer isn't a scam. It's a fraud.
He attacks Ellison and Elon Musk. Which makes me believe his video on scams is itself a leftwing scam.
Red wine is good for you was always a scam. MJ isn't harmful - another scam. No mind altering drug is harmless. You always pay the piper in one way or another.
Dogs will never scam you. Cats? Not so sure.
I tried to watch it with an open mind but ... he's a scam artist trying to get you to come around to HIS opinion.
BTW, I find it interesting that you'll find constant negative references to booze in the MSM, but never marijuana. You have to search for the negative medical side effects. Its obvious they're running a scam.
They also run a scam on Illegal immigration which they refuse to even label as such. They now label it "migration"
As althouse has noted, the big glossy travel sections in Newspapers are designed to "Scam" you into travel to some foreign land and spend thousands.
Hello, Newman.
6 feet apart
Masks
The Jab
Jordan Peterson: "The Myers-Briggs has zero predictive utility in regards to performance prediction." At least he got that one right.
AI.
His shirt is a good match for his speaking style. Intentional, I suppose.
“Not sure what you mean by alcohol is a scam”
Read the first few paragraphs of the linked article.
I think reading history is more valuable than going to a particular place where history happened long ago. If the actual historical buildings are still standing, there is value to seeing them, but going all the way to a place, incurring all the delays and getting pushed around and waiting and seeing all kinds of unpleasant people just so you can get yourself jazzed up about something in the place where it happened is a strange thing to do. people get themselves pumped up about it because they’re conned by a lot of propaganda about how this is the good life, this is what people do when they are retired if they have some money to spend, and it will be very gratifying to have this material to impress your friends or to answer the inevitable question from your hairdresser, did you go anywhere last summer. And then there’s the way you have to eat every meal in a restaurant once you are there and you know restaurants are a scam.
On the travel, history, scam… last year we went to Oahu, and for me, that meant an obligatory trip to Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial. As Althouse notes, I read the history, knew the events, and actually seeing the reality meant something to me.
At the end of the memorial is the names of the crew that died, with survivors that have since passed being named on benches in front of the original memorial wall. Of course, people observe the wall as it was meant to be, and tourist take photos to say “I was there” (you weren’t there when those people on the wall were there!). While there, a young kid, knowing nothing of what this is all about, bored to tears, and frustrated, breaks free from his parents and runs to the open bench to lay down for a nap. The young parents are mortified. To me, the kid is doing exactly what makes sense for the child to do.
There is an atmosphere, a climate, and sometimes a phenomenon attached to places.
...'I think reading history is more valuable than going to a particular place where history happened long ago. ...'
Have you been to the Gettysburg battlefields? There's a vibe there unlike any other, if you're sensitive to such things - not everybody is. I found it very unsettling.
Apparently at Mesa Verde National Park, there used to be areas of the cliff dwellings that they would lead tours into, and they would always have a second ranger accompanying the tour guide, because there would be visitors on occasion that would become unsettled by the vibe and need escorting back from the group to the park headquarters.
Anybody else notice that Instagram is full of people discovering things that you knew about 40 years ago, as if they’re discovering new stuff?
Scamble on!
Now's the time, the time is now.
Little interpostalarity for youse. CC, JSM
The gift link feature the Times provides for its subscribers is a scam.
The gifter is fluffed to feel that he is using his status as a Times subscriber to share something of value with others and the gifted is led to believe he is receiving something of value but is actually being fished for his email.
"people get themselves pumped up about it because they’re conned by a lot of propaganda about how this is the good life, this is what people do when they are retired if they have some money to spend, and it will be very gratifying to have this material to impress your friends or to answer the inevitable question from your hairdresser, did you go anywhere last summer."
After 10 trips over 13 years (currently planning #11) we still haven't figured out we're being scammed. When are we going to figure out we are not enjoying ourselves?
"And then there’s the way you have to eat every meal in a restaurant once you are there and you know restaurants are a scam."
Airbnb.
I will say we aren't much for the tourist "hot spots".
The great corporation, where I was chained to the oars on the lower decks, took Myers-Briggs quite seriously. I found it useful in my career to adopt a certain category - easy enough to do. They thought it made me better fit for roles I wanted, So in a way I was scamming them back.
“ There is an atmosphere, a climate, and sometimes a phenomenon attached to places”
That reminds me. The beach is a scam.
The sunrise over Lake Mendota is a scam.
It seems like it's a scam to say that auto dealerships (all of them?) are a scam because when "lawmakers" (not a scam?) sued (sued who? where?) against some unspecified law saying they can't scam (!?), the auto dealerships won (why? On what basis?). Maybe there are scams involved. But c'mon. Life is complicated and you are no longer a teenager, Dude.
"The gifter is fluffed to feel that he is using his status as a Times subscriber to share something of value with others and the gifted is led to believe he is receiving something of value but is actually being fished for his email."
I don't get asked for my email for the gift link.
This leads me to believe that Google has already given them my email (which is gmail, and which I had to give them anyway to comment on Blogger). Which would be a scam.
Getting people to choose voluntarily to pay their own money pay money for things they otherwise wouldn't be inclined to (or wouldn't even know about) is not a "scam." It is marketing, and commerce, and the reason why some things are better than others, instead of everything being controlled by government to be "fair" so everyone gets stuck with the same low-quality junk, which is what this guy seems to think is the way things ought to be.
"“Not sure what you mean by alcohol is a scam”
Read the first few paragraphs of the linked article."
The first few paragraphs of the article correctly identify why calling everything you disapprove of a "scam" is itself a scam. I agree with the writer of the article, and accordingly disagree with the claim that "alcohol is a scam"
What do I win?
"'I think reading history is more valuable than going to a particular place where history happened long ago. ...' Have you been to the Gettysburg battlefields? There's a vibe there unlike any other, if you're sensitive to such things - not everybody is. I found it very unsettling."
I think I'm more "sensitive" to written descriptions in a book. The sense of a place might affect me, but not so predictably that I want to invest time and money going a great distance to expect myself to have a feeling. Afraid any such feeling might be fake and would be "sensitive" about that and about whether it's a cheap sort of uncanny feeling, akin to the belief that one is detecting ghosts.
"Apparently at Mesa Verde National Park, there used to be areas of the cliff dwellings that they would lead tours into, and they would always have a second ranger accompanying the tour guide, because there would be visitors on occasion that would become unsettled by the vibe and need escorting back from the group to the park headquarters."
I've been to Mesa Verde but eschewed the guided tour. I would be very annoyed if my attempt to experience the place was impinged on by other visitors who were acting out their special feelings. I'm "sensitive" to other tourists diminishing the authenticity of my own potential connection.
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