I couldn’t believe we were setting up our office where Thomas Edison once worked.
It was the old Grand Trunk Railway Station. Edison had worked there as a young man and devised one of his first inventions there. A system by which he would be woken up from a nap should two trains be on a collision course with each other… the prevention of which was his main job. A man after my own lazy heart.
I ordered a lovely print of Edison and sourced an authenticated piece of paper with his signature to frame and hang on our office wall. You know, just to make sure all that came through our door would know that the longstanding tradition of history, industry and imagination that had started with Thomas Edison was obviously continued in me.
Right before possession of the office, the deal fell through.
Then the ‘authenticated’ signature arrived… which was a fake.
An expensive fake.
My own belief that I was part of something special reduced my critical thinking. Obvious red flags were ignored. e.g. Did they even have felt tip markers in Edison’s day?
I learned that whenever potential personal gains are offered to you (and you can even justify them by saying everyone will benefit just like you), it can make it hard to see when you’re being played.
We’re in a period of great advancement, terrible strife and daunting uncertainty currently. Those are the perfect conditions for ne’er do wells to take advantage of us.
Take this next segment, for example…
Technology is making the impossible possible at a dizzying rate. We’ve never been more connected. Insanely wealthy captains of industry are leading the charge to a better tomorrow. Medical advancements are arriving to save us from disease. There seems to be a better way of life for us within our grasp. It’s our time and we will no longer be denied what’s ours!
We’ve been told who and/or what’s holding us back and now we just need to believe in the previously unbelievable.
This could be describing right now, but I also could be referring to life in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
As P.T. Barnum said, there’s a sucker born every minute. Actually, he didn’t actually say that, but being right doesn’t matter. Right?
I’ve always been fascinated by the events of the previous turn of the century. Ponzi and his scheme, Barnum and his ‘Feejee’ Mermaid, the Cottingley Fairies and their early consumer camera trickery.
They all took advantage (to varying degrees of seriousness, obviously) of people’s desire for magic, certainty, prosperity, and someone to tell them their lack of happiness is not their fault.
When we see something previously impossible become possible… anything’s possible, right?
Thanks to social media, crypto currencies, and highly fragmented news sources… we’re right back there.
The Golden Age of the Sucker 2.0.
I’m not saying social media, crypto or fragmented news sources are absolutely bad (some are) but I am saying a great number of us are still learning how to think critically about them and what they offer us.
There are people who are aware of this weakness and are working hard to exploit it. The P.T. Barnums and Charles Ponzis of today.
Wealthy industry leaders who want us to trust them to provide ‘freedoms’ that they say we’re being denied.
Politicians who are happy to let a lie slip past their lips (or Twitter fingers - to borrow from Drake) and spread across a country to grow their popularity before, if ever, recanting it.
I’m NOT saying we can’t believe experts like the majority of doctors and scientists. We’ve had enough practice thinking critically about what they offer.
It’s the people who thrive and profit in the confusion of progress and change that we need to look out for. The ones who offer little more than ‘trust me’, or abstractly blaming others as their proof.
If someone offered you a chance to invest and you only got your investment back with interest provided someone else new invested too… you’d see through that.
If someone showed you a monkey’s head and torso crudely stitched to the body of a fish… you’d call the Humane Society and police to see what else this weirdo was doing.
If someone shows you a picture of them with some fairies and the fairies look like drawings… you’d pat the young girl on the head and say ‘nice try’.
We learn.
In the Golden Age of the Sucker 2.0, we just need to learn quicker.
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(Pictured: Author, outside train station, newly woken from nap to welcome arriving train)