I don't think severely diminished critical thinking ability is too far off the mark. Perhaps it sounds harsh, but the reality is that many elderly people do have diminshed mental capacities. It's how life works. It does not even need a citation because we all know it. I have never heard of a scam that was highly successful of bilking 30-somethings for millions (other than our consumer culture, but that's a different story).

Also, you can watch hundreds of vidoes on Youtube and hear exactly the types of scripts that are used in these scams once a live person is on the line. To anyone running at average mental capacity these are clearly scams, regardless of how computer-literate you are. Also, in TFA, as well as in reality, most scams are against the elderly: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/results-of-elder-fraud-swee...

There's a reason for this. It is because all of our mental faculties decrease as we age. That diminished capacity may cause people to be more trusting, but the root cause is diminished capacity. And it is neither oversimplying or insulting, it is real information that can help direct actual solutions.

Here's an abstract for Age-Associated Financial Vulnerability: https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2456133/age-associat...

The very structure of the brain changes as we age, reducing our bullshit detection (see mid-way through the article): https://whyy.org/articles/age-of-fraud-are-seniors-more-vuln...

Your interpretation is what I was trying to get at, but I changed the phrasing because I didn't intend to be provocative/harsh.

Many scams, including the example parent gave, trade on fear rather than a fake reward. How does "more risk tolerant" play when the victims are cooperating because they think they will be prosecuted by the IRS or sued if they don't pay up?

If you comply, then you risk losing the money (what if it was a scam?) versus the benefit of avoiding jail.

If you refuse, then you risk jail (what if it was real?) versus the benefit of keeping the money.

If you get a scam IRS call, then refusing is correct. But the risk-tolerant person considers the alternative: the potential for benefits of compliance over the risk of compliance; they might think "Could be a scam... but I'd rather not go to jail!"

If you get a real IRS letter, then complying is correct. But the risk-tolerant person considers refusing and benefit of keeping their money; they might think "Could be a scam... I'm not paying!"

You acknowledge it yourself. There’s “risk” to both complying and ignoring the call.

Anyway, risk tolerance isn’t the right lens to look at this. It’s about knowing whether that’s the way the government would actually issue demands and take payments. That requires some savvy and insight about the world. Some people have it and some people don’t. And relatedly, it’s about being skeptical vs. trusting in general.

I agree... Thought about overnight and it doesn't make sense to look at as risk tolerance/aversion because there are risks both ways.

This is exactly it. I have received several “your social security number will be cancelled” calls. The caller id is the real social security 800 number. If you didn’t know better and relied on disability or social security benefits, I can imagine that would be pretty frightening.

edited. I don't think greed plays a big role in the refund scam I described because a lot of the victims are on the "mark list" and actually did pay for some tech support contract in the past from another scammer. So it's not fair to say that they are all being greedy trying to accept an erroneous refund offer. But I agree that greed plays a big role in many other common scams.

Can we really not acknowledge that some people are dumb or ignorant and easily taken advantage of? It’s harsh but if you’re not willing to accept that, then you won’t be able to understand the world and make it better.

You could try being less insulting? Dumb and ignorant are not nice things to call someone.

It is, however, the truth.

I consider myself somewhat smart, but i have done many dumb things. I also am quite ignorant about many more things than I am knowledgeable about.

The GP was, and now I am, objecting to your speaking "brutal truth" and then acting like the brutality of it is a virtue. As if it's courageous to be mean to people. And then talking about being unable to understand the world, it being like sticking your head in the sand, without it! .. It's not 'euphemism' to speak respectfully about people. The point is less brutality, not less truth.

I would never advocate for being mean. There’s no warm and fuzzy way to put it, that some people are taken advantage of because of their low intelligence. I was responding to someone who said that the suggestion was “insulting”.

You simply could have said "easily taken advantage of", omitting the needless offensive words; you were not in a discussion where it was necessary to provide a root cause diagnosis for why people are easily taken advantage of, nor is your diagnosis especially useful, since the overlap between credulousness and low intelligence is significant but not perfect.

More importantly, in that conversational circumstance, why double down on it? Wasn't your point that we should acknowledge fallibility and use it as a policy premise? Why get off track?

In my opinion, we could all use a little more "brutal truth" in our life.

Yes, the words "dumb" and "ignorant" are harsh, but so is truth. Marcoperaza wouldn't use those words to insult them to their face, and neither would I, but it's important to be able to talk about things honestly.