Something to watch for, which I learned from stage magic but which is extremely relevant to detecting scams as well:
The magician or scammer will *tell you* how he is going to prove his honesty.
The magician rifles through the deck until you say "stop", then he says, "Are you sure? I'll keep going if you want." and asks "Now, you agree that you could have stopped anywhere you wanted, so there's absolutely no way I could know which card you got" and because it's a magic show and you aren't paying close attention you didn't notice he didn't deal a card from where you stopped, he dealt the bottom card of the deck.
The magician doesn't ask you, "What would it take for you to believe this" because you might say, "I'd need you to use a sealed deck" or "I'd have to personally shuffle the deck" or some other proof that would make the trick impossible.
Magicians say "You agree that if I did *this*, it would mean *that*, right?" and you say yes, and it feels like you are the one who got to verify things, but of course the magician is lying and the proof is nothing of the kind.
Scammers do the same thing. A really concrete example is phone scammers pretending to be working for the government will say, "Look, I see you're skeptical if I'm who I say I am, I'm going to hang up and call back, and you'll see on the caller ID it says, 'FBI' and that tells you that I'm really working for the government."
Now, caller ID can be spoofed pretty easily, so it doesn't prove anything at all.
But it *feels* to you like you demanded proof and the scammer was willing to give you the proof.
But you didn't tell the scammer what out would take to prove it to you, the scammer told you what the proof would be.
This is actually like a really basic thing to look for if you want to start decoding magic tricks and scams.
Unusual but sympathetic paper:
Language Matters: What Not to Say to Patients with Long COVID, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Other Complex Chronic Disorders
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/2/275
Imagine if they find Luigi innocent and he has to go through the rest of his life as That Guy Who Got Turbodoxxed That One Time Because Everyone Thought He Was An Assassin.
my friend took in a stray and she’s the cutest kitty ever but he named her oil so whenever he sends a picture of her me and my other friends look like we’re roleplaying as the US military
i don't care if it's nazis, mormons, or a bunch of misguided autistic people. if anyone ever tries to tell you your soul is from another planet and you're actually part of the class of impressive people that secretly did everything cool in the world but is now extinct and lives on through your broken genome, you RUN. YOU WILL RUN AWAY. YOU WILL SPRINT FULL SPEED AWAY FROM THAT.
crazy that in the 1970s they were like, "fine, women can play sports. but because they're innately less athletic than men, only in a special ghettoized League For The Frail And Delicate where they get paid less 😊". And not only is that still the system in 2023, but viciously lashing out at the smallest challenges to that system gets framed as Feminist Praxis
hey op i understand where youre coming from and your perspective is valuable. but like. could you validate me🥺🫶
i had a dream i worked in an underwater restaurant and people kept ordering ice in their drinks and then getting mad at me when it would float away. and i’d tell them beforehand that the ice would float away & they’d be like lol no that’s not how it works just give me the ice. I’m fighting customer service battles never seen before
I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:
Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin.
Here is a page of medieval weapons.
Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.
Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.
Here are some gemstones.
Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on.
Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.
Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised.
Here is every religion in the world.
Here is every language in the world.
Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.
Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.
Here are poisonous plants.
Here are plants in general.
Feel free to add more to this!
My roommate thought she hated cooking and then she moved in with me and started using knives that were actually sharp and realized cooking is fun. Sometimes I wonder how many other situations are like this. It's not you, or your skills. It's just the lack of correct tools. Everyone knows you need a knife in the kitchen but no one mentions a sharpening stone.