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The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#41

Post by jdewerd »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #26
caseysoftware wrote: post #24

> What really annoys me in these situations is how the institutions show loyalty to the people who did research misconduct. When researcher X works at or publishes with institution Y, and it turns out that X did something wrong, why does Y so often try to bury the problem and attack the messenger? Y should be mad at X; after all, it’s X who has leveraged the reputation of Y for his personal gain. I’d think that the l…

[flagged]

> Russian Communist Party during the USSR

Or during Putin.

Here's another: Donald Trump's inner court.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#42

Post by gjhr »

mhb wrote: post #34
dragontamer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, there's so many card manipulation tricks it's hilarious. I can false shuffle a deck, I can seed a deck through shuffles. I can false cut. Tricks with my hands to 'do nothing's with a deck even though it looks like I'm shuffling or cutting the deck. When we get to truly skilled magicians, they can perfect shuffle (IIRC, 8x rifle shuffles in a row with perfect precision returns the deck to it's original state). The…

I think that it is thought ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riffle_shuffle_permutation ) that seven riffle shuffles randomize a deck. So you may be misremembering that eight returns it to the original state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riffle_shuffle_permutation#Per...

Shows that perfect shuffles can return the deck to the original state.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#44

Post by shuntress »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #26
caseysoftware wrote: post #24

> What really annoys me in these situations is how the institutions show loyalty to the people who did research misconduct. When researcher X works at or publishes with institution Y, and it turns out that X did something wrong, why does Y so often try to bury the problem and attack the messenger? Y should be mad at X; after all, it’s X who has leveraged the reputation of Y for his personal gain. I’d think that the l…

[flagged]

You are being overly dramatic.

_Everywhere_ has politics. It's not special in universities.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#45

Post by hnbad »

MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

I think the common thread with all such scams is creating a sense of urgency and high stakes. I'd generalize what you said though: if something involves a legal process or supposed pre-existing correspondence, anything crucial will happen in writing or in person and they'll be able to specifically provide you with the dates and details of anything they claim to have on you.

Personally I haven't had fake police calls yet (well, except for one Eastern European lady in a call center using a fake mobile number while pretending in broken English to be from INTERPOL, whom I immediately hung up on) but I have had calls about contracts I supposedly agreed to over the phone and was going to have to pay for either way but could now immediately agree to a compromise so I wouldn't have to pay the full amount owed but order (this time for real) something else or some contrivance like that. Of course calling back was not an option because this was already about to hit collections and they had recorded my previous (non-existant) call but couldn't play it back to me right now. It was all a bit ridiculous but I still felt a bit unnerved until I called my lawyer and learned that even if everything they said were true the contract as described would be invalid and any claims would have to be sent in writing before anything actionable even happened on my end.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#46

Post by maxbond »

DonHopkins wrote: post #37
hollywood_court wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Trump supporters are probably one of the most common recent examples of individuals being conned at a grand scale.

[flagged]

I'm the opposite of a Trump supporter. I downvoted because it's irrelevant flamebait.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#47

Post by hnbad »

dudinax wrote: post #39
MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

From one of my family members: if the bank transaction doesn't go through, and you call the bank and they tell you it's probably a scam, don't overrule them.

Also if you're in the EU make sure to check the actual SEPA/IBAN code. The first two letters are the country code and if this is supposed to be an organization/institution in your country then those should match most transactions you've done before. Don't be fooled just because the country code letter combination happens to also be the initialism of something else or a state/city/etc involved.

I've had an accountant fall for a company registration scam and while the letterhead was plausible, the bank account was in an entirely different country, which should have given pause.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#49

Post by hnbad »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #26
caseysoftware wrote: post #24

> What really annoys me in these situations is how the institutions show loyalty to the people who did research misconduct. When researcher X works at or publishes with institution Y, and it turns out that X did something wrong, why does Y so often try to bury the problem and attack the messenger? Y should be mad at X; after all, it’s X who has leveraged the reputation of Y for his personal gain. I’d think that the l…

[flagged]

Explain Jordan Peterson then. The only reason he ended up being "expelled" (and it was more of a resignation than an expulsion really) is because he stopped practicing for years and continued identifying himself with the position he held at the university while engaging in conduct that violated the professional code of ethics for that position. That's like working at McDonald's as a shift manager, going on indefinite leave, then touring media appearances to talk about your opinion on social issues while always making sure you're introduced as a McDonald's shift manager and then saying "You can't fire me, I quit!" when McDonald's politely asks you to stop associating with them in public. Hardly the academic behavior on par with the Russian Communist Party.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#50

Post by neilv »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #35
neilv wrote: post #4

> What really annoys me in these situations is how the institutions show loyalty to the people who did research misconduct. "Loyalty" means different things to different people, and not necessarily "doing what that party wants". So, if you don't call this "loyalty", it might be easier to imagine more of the possible/likely reasons for doing something that coincides with what that party wants, in an instance.

I'm wondering if the loyalty really is with the cheater, or if they are instead trying to protect weaker parties like the students and post-docs that can be largely or event entirely innocent. The latter option is possible and hard to discern from the outside.

Yes, and some academics have altruistic hearts of gold. (I used to assume they were all like that, and that was half the reason I wanted to be a professor, thinking of the university as a testbed or incubator for a better world.)

As an exercise to flesh out the space of possible reasons for behavior that seems misaligned with academic ideals, you can also imagine different characteristics and profiles of some hypothetical academics: selfish self-interest and a touch of ethical flexibility (that might've given them an edge to get to the position of influence), arrogance (from the position or other reasons), personal relationships (these are colleagues, often friends, sometimes more), group solidarity, normal human biases, funding politics, being beholden to organizations that are cynical or misaligned with what a good academic would do.

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