Interesting TED talk, by Pamela Meyer: "How To Spot A Liar."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_6vDLq64gEYeah, I know, it means twenty minutes away from the trollbox
, but it's worth a look and listen. The trouble is, the best proven techniques of "lie-spotting" rely on interpreting body language which is simply unavailable here. But there are two techniques that can be adapted for here:
1) [The big one]: Know Thyself - meaning, Know Thine Hot Buttons. Dr. Meyer framed this in a way I don't completely like, but she does have a good point when she notes that a successful lie relies on 'co-operation' of the victim. That's why so many con artists ply their trade while feeling good about themselves - and why so many con artists despise their victims. "The mark was asking for it." <-- standard self-exculpatory excuse in the con-artists circuit. That's why con artists really have no shame about what they're doing.
So...it might be a good idea to step outside, go for a nice long walk and mull over what your 'mark buttons' are: what'll make you go gaga to the point where you forget to check up on the exciting story you're reading.
2) Watch For Inconsistencies. The easiest ones to spot, of course, are internal inconsistencies. But it might be worthwhile to befriend a professional programmer who'll help you spot any external inconsistencies: code innovations that are just too good to be true, for example. If you're considering an IPCO for an "innovative" coin, ask your programmer buddy about the realism of the timeline and then ask the dev about any point of unrealism. Once you've done that, watch how the dev responds! If he schmoozes or blows the question off, you have good reason to either use escrow or just save your BTC and move elsewhere.
This red flag, I actually bumped into when the Sharex/Sharecoin scam was running. I politely asked about the security of the Sharex exchange, innocently concerned about the exchange being robbed by an outside hacker. ziplibrary blew the question off. It didn't occur to me at the time, but that was a real foreshadowy red flag. Instead, I concluded that the dev was too casual about security - so I resolved to withdraw any coins I bought from there and hold them in my wallet. I wanted to be a good fellow - I really believed
- but I was prudent enough to limit my Sharex feeshare purchase to the free coins I got.
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Two other points worth sharing:
a) An honest person, falsely accused of being a liar or scammer, actually seethes about the accusation.
b) Aggressively challenging a liar will not make him come clean - it'll make him truculent, however he disguises it.
And one final note: Applying the above rules of thumb will yield a lot of false positives - but if you've got the rules-of-thumb tuned right, the false positives will be people who really don't have what it takes for their self-selected responsibilities. In other words, people whose ambitions exceed their capacities.
