Documented Type II "Vigilante Karen" Sighting in San Francisco

A Type II "Vigilante Karen" was documented on Reddit harassing a father with his disabled child in San Francisco's Lands End, mistaking them as "old man dragging a drugged kid" over the July 4th weekend in 2023, and park police was summoned. 

I am not going to repeat the whole story, you can click through the link yourself, but here's the TL;DR version: 

Father, in his 40s, was with his disabled 7-year old son with severe intellectual disability at Lands End for some nature. 

They were just walking on a trail when a wild Karen appeared... 

This Karen in her 20s (no other description given) ran up to them and kept asking do they need any help which they clearly do not. However, Karen will not let them go, and even blocked their path. Karen kept insisting she only wanted to help them, even though she's scaring the kid. 

They turned back, and was soon confronted by park police. Apparently someone called in "elderly man dragging a drugged child". Police quickly determined nothing's wrong, gave the kid a sticker, and that's that. 

No word on what happened to the Karen when police arrived and cleared the father of any wrongdoing. 

EDIT: Please click through and read OTHER PERSPECTIVES on what is going on. Alleged witnesses and perhaps even Karen herself had came forward. 

Father speculates that the Karen probably called in the police before confronting them as a delaying tactic, and may have realized her mistake when looking at the child up close. 

Skeptic's Analysis: This is a classic case of Type II Vigilante Karen who summons law enforcements or tries to enforce some laws to "improve the society and right some wrongs" even though there was nothing wrong, merely her perception of such as an entitled Karen. 

Have you spotted any Karens lately? So far, I've identified 5 types:

Type I: "Serve me!" Karen, usually in a store, source of "I don't work here, lady" stories, mistaking some random person as a store employee and demanding service.

Type II: "Vigilante Karen", see above, mis-perceives the situation as unethical or criminal, summons law enforcement for the perceived crime or tries to enforce the law herself, but not physical

Type III: "Punisher Karen", Vigilante Karen that got physical

Type IV: "Robber Karen", indulgent mother who decided to rob others of items for her child. could be pet, toy, model, etc., could be in public or against other children.

Type V: "How Dare You Karen", negligent mother who decided her child's perfect and anyone who dare to correct her child would need to suffer her wrath, similar to Type IV but less physical, similar to Type II and Type III.

Please share reports of "Karens in the wild!" 

 

Psychology of Karen V: The "How Dare You" Karen

Previously, we had discussed the four sub-types of Karens;

(NOTE: for consistency, I'll be using the term Karen, and "Ken" if the subject is male. Apologies to actual people named Karen and Ken)

Type I: "Serve me, peon!" Karen -- entitled Karen wanted people around her to serve her, no matter how inappropriate (i.e. "I don't work here, lady!" stories)

Type II: Vigilante Karen -- narcissistic Karen believes she's doing the world right by enforcing some "law" or "standard" in her head, even though it was uncalled for, i.e. "Karen calls the cops on my wobbly disabled father for alleged public intoxication" or "Karen tried to kidnap unaccompanied minor in an airport, chased her across multiple terminals". 

Type III: Punisher Karen -- narcissistic Karen believes her target needs to be punished for whatever transgressions in her head. Example: "Karen tries to rip out server's hair because Karen can't believe they are not extensions". 

Type IV: Robber Karen -- entitled parent who decided she must obtain whatever her child wanted by harassing the owner, or outright robbery, esp if the owner is a minor. This can range from a game console to musical instrument worth thousands, all for free or for a toy's price, of course. There's no logic in this other than she somehow had determined that her child is more "deserving" (i.e. entitled) to the item than you, and she's going to "correct" that injustice. So there are similarities to both type I and type II. Example: "Karen tries to steal model train set at show caused hundreds in damages."

Today, I like to propose a 5th sub-type of Karen: the "How Dare You Karen", aka the "anti-mom Karen"

The How Dare You Karen is an entitled and negligent parent, usually accompanied by one or more entitled kids. The kids, used to the negligent parenting of Karen, are wild and unmannered, run around and screams in public, with zero decorum, mess with stuff that's not theirs, because Karen believes in "free-ranging" her kids and not setting limits, believing that to be, well, good parenting. Her mommy instincts however, will emerge when anyone else dare to teach her kids decorum or help her kids when they got into trouble or hurt themselves. 

Example: "Kid hits head horsing around, CSM helps, Karen mom calls corporate to complain about CSM attitude" TL;DR version: Mom and 2 kids (5-8?) checking out at a store. Kids wander off, boy started messing with wheel chair, which has a swing basket. The basket got dislodged and bopped him on the head. Boy started crying, so manager walked over to check on him. Kid's okay, manager then told the kid "That's why we don't climb on things we aren't supposed to because you can get hurt doing that" just as mom walked up with the other kid. Mom took both kids out. Ten minutes later, corporate called. Apparently Karen mom complained to corporate that manager told her kid "served him right". 

This type of Karen feel that her kids are flawless, anyone dare to correct her kids had to go through her first. In other words, she's going to discipline everyone BUT her kids with her vigilante attitude, making her related to Type II and Type III. So she's the "anti-mom" or "No Mommy" Karen as well. "How Dare You Do My Job (as Mommy)"?! 

Do you agree with the classification / taxonomy? Do we need more subtypes? Comment below! 

Psychology of Karen IV: The Robber Karen Sub-type

Previously, we had discussed the three sub-types of Karens;

(NOTE: for consistency, I'll be using the term Karen, and "Ken" if the subject is male. Apologies to actual people named Karen and Ken)

Type I: "Serve me, peon!" Karen -- entitled Karen wanted people around her to serve her, no matter how inappropriate (i.e. "I don't work here, lady!" stories)

Type II: Vigilante Karen -- narcissistic Karen believes she's doing the world right by enforcing some "law" or "standard" in her head, even though it was uncalled for, i.e. "Karen calls the cops on my wobbly disabled father for alleged public intoxication" or "Karen tried to kidnap unaccompanied minor in an airport, chased her across multiple terminals". 

Type III: Punisher Karen -- narcissistic Karen believes her target needs to be punished for whatever transgressions in her head. Example: "Karen tries to rip out server's hair because Karen can't believe they are not extensions". 

Today, I like to propose a 4th sub-type of Karen: the "robber Karen". 

The robber Karen is an entitled parent, usually accompanied by an entitled kid who wanted something the subject has, could be anything, from a pet to a handheld console, to a laptop, to professional items such as musical instruments and cosplay lightsabers. Due to the narcissistic nature of Karen, she considers everyone else's belongings as hers. In this aspect, it is very similar to Type I with the "serve me!" attitude. 

The story usually starts with the entitled kid, who wanders around, saw the subject possessing a certain item. The kid demanded to play with the item, was refused, then went off to find mommy.  Karen will then demand the item usually with verbiage like "it's just _____, you don't need it" or "my kid just wanted to play with ____".  

At this point, the logic she used does not matter, as it probably made no sense anyway. Often, it's "you're too old/too young for _____" when the logic would have also applied to the entitled kid. The reasoning can be simply "you don't deserve ______" (and her entitled kid does) though it may not be verbalized that way. Instead, it's usually phrased as "How DARE you refuse entitled kid?! Hand it over!" 

The subject will, of course, refuse. But Karen is not taking no for an answer, no matter the sheer gall of demanding an item that does not belong to her or her kid. 

If the subject tries to rebut with "but it cost this much ______, so no" she'll express incredulity, like "that is just a toy" and offer a ridiculously low price like "that's just a toy, I'll give you $50" when it's worth $300+, because she does not recognize the item's worth and thus will not believe the answer. 

In fact, any rebuttal reason will be turned around by Karen into a logic pretzel. "The dog's too dangerous for a child? Well, you shouldn't have it then!"  Never mind that it'd be even MORE dangerous to strangers such as Karen and entitled kid. To a Karen, your reasons are irrelevant. Only her entitled kid and her truthiness matter.  

At this point, Karen will often attempt to take the item by force (or help the entitled kid do so) because transgression against her "reasonable" demand or offer was refused, and thus the subject must be "punished", and in this aspect, they resemble type III Karen. 

At this point, the incident turns into strongarm robbery against the subject, often a minor. 

If the subject managed to retain the item, Karen will sometimes call the authorities, claiming to have been robbed, when she was the one doing the robbery. Indeed, in most Reddit stories, this is where they forgot there are surveillance cameras overhead, similar to various type I stories. 

One example would be "Karen tries to steal model train set because EK wanted it, caught red-handed, caused hundreds in damage"

Another example, "Karen pulled my hair so her son can touch it, my mom pressed charges"

Similar to a type I Karen, Type IV Karens will lie to authorities to get their way, but often, they are against owners who *can* prove ownership, and thus, often lose badly. Though it makes you wonder if they ever did it to kids who did not know what to do to fight back. 

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So how do you deal with a type IV Karen? 

Escape and evade immediately. You don't need the drama. Move away from the area, change your stance. If you were standing up, sit down. If you were sitting down, stand up. Change your clothing and/or your look temporarily (put on or take off a layer of clothing, if possible). Go into a restroom if need be and change. They can't engage you if they can't find you. 

Else, be in a crowd. 

If they managed to engage you, you can try the "why" tactic, but with the child there to remind her of her mission, distracting Karen is far more difficult. On the other hand, her mobility would be limited if she had to drag the child along. It's easier to escape and evade instead. 

If this is in public, you can try public humiliation instead, by proclaiming loudly "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT TO ME!"  You don't have to be specific, just turn away in disgust and walk away. She'll be so confused (for a moment) her mission temporarily forgotten as she had attracted way more attention than she wanted.  

Psychology of Karen III: The Punisher Karen Sub-type

A recent Reddit thread on r/entitledpparents has pointed out yet another "subtype" of Karen, which I am dubbing "the punisher Karen", or type III. It shares traits from both type I and type II. 

A type I Karen behaves out of entitlement and views everyone else beneath her. Type I Karens are the subject of "I don't work here, lady!" stories, as they often have the "Serve me!" attitude. This type of Karen may use physical attacks but often will summon others to do their bidding, usually by lying about being attacked. 

A type II Karen (vigilante Karen) behaves out of "moral superiority" and is out to ENFORCE the rules that she perceived as important, without regard to social norms of propriety. When an old feeble man using a cane falls, your instinct was probably to approach to help. But to a type II Karen, the infirmity was a sign of public intoxication, so without checking, she called the police on a disabled old man being helped up by his son. (another Reddit topic)

Yet a third type of Karen has characteristics from both prior types and thus needing a new classification. You'll see why I chose "punisher Karen" while I relay the whole story. 

TL;DR version: A female server at a restaurant was serving Karen and her husband. At first, the encounter was normal. Then Karen complimented the server about her hair, and asked where she had her extensions done. The server did not use any extensions, so she stated so. Karen expressed incredulity, "Nobody's hair is that thick."  Karen decided the server was lying, and when the server turned to leave, grabbed her by her ponytail, apparently trying to "rip it out" to prove the server's lying. After a few seconds, Karen's husband intervened, and the server was able to escape. The couple was banned from the restaurant immediately. 

You can see that Karen's attack motivation was "punish a liar", because "she knows a liar when she sees one", which seems to make her type II. Yet the judgment was a very personal reason, not doing the society any good (unless you REALLY generalize about lies), which seems to make her more of a type I. That's why I decided this deserves a new type, though it's possible it exists as a subtype of type II, as the Punisher (comic book character) really is a vigilante.  Yet, most vigilante Karens do not resort to physical attacks, but Type I Karen's do. 

Upon further reflection, I believe the most famous Karen, aka "Central Park Karen" was really a type III, not type I. TL;DR --a man (who happens to be black, but shared her surname) asked Karen to please leash her own dog in the leash-required area of the park, she called the police claiming he had threatened her, even though he was filming the entire encounter and no threat was ever muttered. Apparently, Karen was offended that someone would dare to tell HER to follow the rules, and she must "punish" the offender by lying to authorities. 

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What can you do about a Type III Karen? 

If you were attacked, disengage immediately. Escape and evade. If necessary, defend yourself if the attack is physical. If you were merely threatened, start recording something on your cell phone, even if it's audio only. Summon the authorities yourself and get the incident on record, WITH your proof and your side of the story. 

Psychology of Karen II: The Vigilante Karen sub-type

 Last November I wrote a post about "Psychology of Karen", but I realized I had left something out... a subtype of Karen that base their actions on their supposed superiority (narcissism) rather than entitledness. I call this subspecies of Karen the "vigilante Karen". 

To recap, I postulated that "regular" Karen do things because she:

["Karen"] feels entitled to service (narcissism) and due to either temporary or permanent psychopathy, refused to see her own mistake(s). When confronted by others, instead of self-reflect, her response was to counter-attack by any means available, including doubling down on her mistake, and making false reports to police, because she MUST win, even if she had to engage Machiavellianism by lying. 

However, this is not quite the case in "vigilante Karen". A vigilante Karen, for one reason or another, decided to take on someone else's problem, even though there is either no problem or is none of her business. A vigilante Karen decided to "right some wrong" with her inappropriate behavior. This is in contrast to most "regular" Karens where her behavior is self-centered: "serve me!" "listen to me!" and so on.

Two examples of Vigilante Karens:  

"Vigilante Karen" (a): Karen mom, towing her own child, stalked an unaccompanied minor at an airport because she believed the child's a runaway (she's just waiting for the next flight). 

"Vigilante Karen" (b): picked up a baby from a stroller and was unwrapping the baby despite repeated "no" from the mother, gets accused as a kidnapper and bolted (without the baby). 

The decision-making process is actually quite similar, except the behavior did not stem from entitledness ("I deserved to be served!") but rather, a different aspect of narcissism: a sense of their own importance, that they know better than you. 

If you read through both of the links above, you'll see that both "Karens" believe something and they *must* be right. In (a), Karen believed the child must be a runaway and in (b) the baby should be held, not left in a stroller. And they decided to "right the wrong" by aggressively going after the target, despite multiple indications that their help is neither necessary nor appreciated. 

"Vigilante Karen" feels she knew better than anyone else narcissism) and due to either temporary or permanent psychopathy, refused to see her own mistake(s) and/or why her behavior was inappropriate.  

In case (a), Karen was only stopped by an airport gate employee, who threatened to call security on her, after apparently walking through half of the airport looking for her target. In case (b), Karen apparently realized she really did behave like a kidnapper and bolted. (Though it's possible she really is out to kidnap a child?!)

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So how do you deal with the vigilante Karen? 

A vigilante Karen wanted to be "right", and will probably WANT to cooperate with the authorities. She probably would not lie, as she may genuinely be concerned, though her "solution" may be wildly inappropriate. In (a) she wanted to drag the target to a different terminal (where her own flight) and turn her over to the authorities, never mind this is practically kidnapping. And in (b) she decided the baby should be held, and picked the baby up despite objections from the mother. 

Unfortunately, if you are the target, there's nothing you can do to convince Karen she's wrong. Her superiority complex will cause her to ignore all such evidence as happened in (a) "That doesn't prove anything", maybe escalated to "you're lying". 

Generally, you will need to involve the authorities yourself, or shout out and demand attention from everyone nearby, and if the transgression is so egregious, people will react (hopefully). Which should get Karen to back off, and/or authorities be summoned. 

Vigilante Karens do not escalate when people around started paying attention, esp. when summoned by heinous accusations like "kidnapper!", or stopped by someone who actually has authority (like airport gate personnel). They wanted to be "right", and having the crowd or the authorities turn against them is not in their plans. 

This is a marked contrast to the "regular" Karens who can and will exaggerate the problem to authorities. Regular Karens wield authorities (police, manager, etc.) as a "tool" in order to "win", to "punish" people who will not obey her.  Vigilante Karens wanted to be "right" so they will generally want the facts on their side, so they will generally NOT lie and make false reports because that would prove they were wrong to start with. They will usually quit when they realize they can't win. 

VIgilante Karens, being Karens out of "righting some wrong", is less destructive than "regular" Karens who act that way out of entitledness, and therefore inherently less destructive in general. They know when to quit, whereas regular Karens will double- or triple-down, make false reports to police, and so on, and don't know when to quit. 

But they are definitely related.

The Psychology of Karen: How willful blindness and self-righteousness lead to crazy behaviors

In 2020, the name "Karen" became a pejorative, meaning a probably white woman acting in an extremely socially inappropriate manner. The name Karen is now the embodiment of "white entitledness" usually a white female in her 40's wearing a particular shorter haircut. (note: the male version is often named "Chad")

But Karen is real. Earlier in 2020, Amy Cooper was dubbed New York's "Central Park Karen" when she called the police and claimed a black man threatened her life. In reality, a bird-watcher (who happens to be black, also surnamed Cooper, no relations) asked her to leash her dog in a leash zone in Central Park. If not for him recording the encounter on his phone, "Karen" false accusations may have resulted in him going to jail. 

Many "Karen" tales appeared on Reddit.com in the various "TalesFrom______" subreddits where "a wild Karen appeared" usually preceded by "ahem!". "Karen" then starts making outrageous demands of another person with words such as, "you were moving inventory, you MUST work here! Why don't you serve me? Get off your lazy *** or I'll get you fired!" The story then diverges, but often involving either Karen physically attack the narrator for ignoring her, or summons a manager to deal with the "rude employee". "Karen" then started to embellish the story in her own retelling, claiming to have been attacked by the narrator. The ending may feature "Karen" getting her comeuppance at the hands of either security guard or police. 

Many of which are obviously fictional, but they are rather popular tales. They SOUND plausible. And in the case of Amy Cooper, they actually do exist.  All because Mr. Cooper asked her to leash her dog (that she was supposed to), Amy Cooper called the police to report that an "African American man" threatened her life. It was documented by her 911 call. When the story went viral, Amy Cooper was fired from her job and surrendered her dog, her life basically ruined.  

But what was she thinking? How could she justify her outrageous behavior, even go as far as making a false report to the police? And if a seemingly normal white person can do that... who else is capable of this? And how many other black people or other minorities have suffered from this sort of false reporting in the past? It is an extremely disturbing thought. 

To figure out what a "Karen" was thinking, we need to dive into the mind of a narcissist. 

How to Combat Falsehoods: It's NOT a matter of opinion or being neutral!

As a skeptic, it is often troubling to see the amount of bogosity available in public, much less the Internet, where anyone with some free time can offer advice, and many people just eat them up, with absolutely zero due diligence about the veracity of the information received. It doesn't help when social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on help (inadvertently) spread the misinformation.

Recently, a post on Slate documented how the subreddit /r/askHistorians struggle to control the deliberate misinformation campaign by Holocaust deniers, and how social media, afraid of lawsuits, basically left them to say ANYTHING they wanted. Fortunately, that subreddit has a crew of volunteer moderators that use the banhammer when it was called for.

And what they found about Holocaust deniers applies to ALL sorts of deniers, such as antivaxxers, pyramid scheme and ponzi scheme proponents, and so on. You should go read the article yourself, as I will only be discussing their findings.  Deniers generally use these tactics:

1) Cite bogus experts who are proven to have ignored facts that did not fit their narrative, or experts who had nothing to do with their field, but merely sympathetic to their field.

Holocaust deniers cite David Irving and Fred Leuchter

Antivaxxers cite Andrew Wakefield, Bob Sears, and Mercola.

Scam proponents cite their own leader(s) or uplines

2) Cite minor mistakes in citings and frame it as "Just Asking Questions"

Otherwise known as "JAQing off", this technique requires a lot of effort to dispell since there are an infinite amount of details they can focus on while sounding earnest, usually by leaving out the context of the question.

Holocaust deniers deny fundamental facts about the Holocaust, such as the number of deaths, whether Nazis have a campaign of extermination, and so on.

Antivaxxers are well known to deny that vaccines work at all, whether vaccines have eradicated most infectious diseases, and even deny that some infectious diseases are deadly.

Scam proponents are well known to deny their scheme is a scam, often even AFTER the scam had been shut down by authorities. They will often deny pyramid scheme by obfuscating-conflating it with "pyramid organization".

Attempting to engage them by doing the research does not appease them, but instead, waste a TON of time. They are NOT interested in the facts. Their questions, seemingly innocent, casts doubt on the facts: "if they didn't get this 100% right, what else did they get wrong?"

Scam Psychology: Theory on Stupidity, Scam, ponzi, and pyramid schemes

Ever heard of Professor Cipolla's theory on stupidity? Neither have I until recently, but it explains quite clearly how the world works, esp. scams.

According to professor Cipolla, you can measure a person by 2 axis: benefit derived from their own actions... and benefit to others because of their own actions

It roughly goes like this:

Cipolla's theory on stupidity, summarized

How to be a cranky troll: Guide to IGNORE all useful feedback

(Author's note: This is written as a contrarian piece... The advice is BAD for you, and you are meant to do exactly opposite of all this. Got that? Okay, enjoy.)

Do you have absolute belief in yourself, that you can do no wrong, therefore, everybody else must be wrong? Are you surrounded by people who intend to change your mind even though you know YOU are right and they are wrong, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary?

Here are six tips to help you silence the world and live only within your head where you are always right:


1. Reinterpret specific advice to be personal attack on you, your business, your "family"

Any and all advice that you don't like is obviously an attack on you, your "family", your business, and your way of life, no matter where it came from, including your dear mama. They obviously... "don't understand" about how you work, how you think, how you live and therefore they have no business giving you advice!  In fact, anything other than "great job" is an attack on your beliefs!


2. Ignore advice until they are no longer relevant, then rant about how the advice is useless

Ignore all advice until it becomes "overtaken by events"... i.e. completely useless, then claim the advice is useless. Go ahead and insult the advice giver as useless and worthless, never mind you never took the advice any way. That's merely some inconvenient truth to be swept under the carpet.

Mythbusting: The Trump University is based on (some) bogus research

Trump University was in the news a lot, and it seems it may be the only thing that really got Trump riled up, as it's something he can't deny or denigrate... since it's his own. So instead, he denigrated everybody else... including the judge, which lead to furious denunciation by Republican leadership, who are put between the rock and the hard place of "supporting" their presumptive nominee WHILE wondering WTF happened that lead to this guy winning. The furor was so loud even Trump himself furiously backpedaled, claiming his comments were "misconstrued".

But we know EXACTLY what you mean, Mr. Trump.

In digging through some info about the Trump University, I came across its sales playbook dug up by Politico a while back. And it has some interesting information in it. Basically, they don't talk to the media, they don't let the lecturers over promise (any such incidents are reported to main office), and they will use psychological pressure to push you into buying their more expensive courses...

Including a bogus urban myth, such as "most persuasive words... from Yale University"

On page 99 of the document, you can find this:

Trump University Playbook, as posted by Politico.com, see URL on top

The important part says:

The most persuasive words in the English language according to a study by the Psychology Department of Yale University are:  You, New, Money, Easy, Discovery, Free, Results, Health, Save, Proven, Guarantee, and Love

Except there was no such study. This is an urban legend.

MLM Basics: Is there such thing as "good MLM"?

The MLM Skeptic has been asked repeatedly, "is _____ a good MLM?"

The short answer is: I don't know.

The longer answer is: I don't know. I can't do your due diligence for you, as I am not you.

But perhaps here's a more philosophical question... Is there such as thing as a "good MLM"?

Almost every MLM claimed they are good, and some may go as far as point out a few "bad apples" that had been stopped by government action, but they won't name a running company, unless the company's so egregious nobody is surprised they got shut down, such as Monavie head outright stated that Zeek Rewards is a ponzi scheme.

But first, we have to answer the question...

"What is a 'good mlm'?"

Good for the participant, good for the society, or good for the owner(s)?

I am going to assume that by asking this question, the asker is looking for the right company to participate in, and therefore, 'good mlm' means a company that justly compensates the participant for the effort put in. The other two factors (good for owner, good for society) are not really relevant for the participant, but they'd be nice to have.

But what exactly means "justly compensates participant for the effort put in?" While it may be "obvious" to everyone that one wants to be paid the maximum amount for doing minimal work, the real world is exactly the opposite... companies want you to do the maximum work for the minimum pay. The actual amount of work and pay is somewhere in between... at least, that's what's supposed to happen in a real job. Nobody want to be paid peanuts for hard labor, and no company will pay 1M a year for doing something that can be done in a few minutes with minimum skills.

The next question we have to answer: in MLM, are you rewarded for your own efforts?

But you're only PARTIALLY rewarded for your own efforts. Depending on how many levels of downlines you've developed (and how well they sell), you may make practically nothing based on your own efforts (your PV, personal volume is bare minimum), and you live mostly on the commission based on your group volume (GV) generated by your downlines.

In other words, the longer you spend in the business, the more you're rewarded for OTHER PEOPLE'S EFFORTS, as you build up your team. In fact, many MLM participants only knows how to recruit downlines. They can't sell the products they are supposed to be selling, and just buy the products themselves for self-consumption just enough to qualify for commission based on group volume.

And that's assuming you are in a real MLM selling real products

Keep in mind those "real product" MLMs can be illegal too. Just look at FHTM and Vemma.

Stop Believing Bull****; Follow This Guide! (Bonus "Food Babe" debunking)

The following guide was found on io9 via The Last Word on Nothing.

It is easy to stop believing in bull****. After all, bull**** doesn't spread by itself. Someone have to believe the bull**** to pass it on. I've slightly reworded the original

0. Assuming anything any one told you is bull**** unless disproven (by following)
1. Who is telling me "this"?
2. How does s/he know "this"?
3. Given #1 and #2, could s/he be wrong?
4. If yes, maybe, or "I dunno", find UNRELATED source that says the same thing, then apply the SAME TEST  (Go to 1)
5. If you got here, answer to 3 must be "pretty f***ing unlikely". 

Congratulations. You now have something that may not be bull****.

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Remember: just because someone says something that "makes sense" doesn't mean it's true.

Let us take a recent example... Vani Hari, i.e. "Food Babe" rant about some chemical that she claims was used to make yoga mats. That's NOT TRUE. The chemical, which makes harmless bubbles, *can also be used* to make yoga matts, which is bubble foam. She knows nothing about science or food safety. She's selling her looks (calling herself "Food Babe", eh) and trying to parlay her followers into spreading misinformation. That is just plain STUPID.

Let's apply the test... Should you believe Food Babe's warning about azodicarbonimide in Subway's sandwich bread?

Scam Psychology: What Are YOUR Communication Vulnerabilities?

Scammers are often very good communicators. They can tailor their message for a wide variety of audiences and they are quick in recognizing your particular communication vulnerabilities, and thus, exploit you using those vulnerabilities. To counteract this, you need to know what type of communication vulnerabilities do you have. These are four questions you need to ask. Are you:

• Idea or evidence?
• Direct or diplomatic?
• Think about it or go all in? 
• Accept a map or blaze your own trail? 

Each of these questions may indicate a communication vulnerability. If you have more than one, you need to beware. If you have 3 or 4 you may be especially vulnerable. You may want to keep score for yourself. 

Are you an Idea person or Evidence person?

Some people are caught up in ideas. As long as they like the idea they could care less about the evidence. It's much like ideology, or as Stephen Colbert put it "Truthiness". Others are more about the evidence, and refuse to commit to an idea until they see enough.

In general, scammers prefer "idea person" as they are much easier to sell to. Once they sell the "idea",  the "idea person" will look for evidence to convince him- or herself.

Scams often involve a nebulous high concept (the "idea") that sounds logical and feasible, but in reality have tons of complexities that most people are not aware of or are impossible to research without being a professional.  The evidence people would want more evidence, while idea people would just accept the idea without further proof.

If you're an "idea" person, add 1 to your score.


Are you a direct person or a diplomatic person? 

Do you prefer cutting straight to the point, or do you prefer a bit more socialization?

Scammers prefer those of you who socialized, as they want to hit you with (real or fake) social proof and exploit various cognitive biases that all people have. They can also distract you with fancy displays and language, bandwagon effect, crowd hysteria, shilling, and other tricks.

Scammers also don't want any "direct" person to ask questions about more evidence. If you are too diplomatic you may never get any evidence, or just enough to convince yourself.

Scams often involve fancy events, elaborate presentations, exotic locations, and so on, where you mingle with people who were already convinced of the "idea" (see above).

If you're a diplomatic person, add 1.

Scam Psychology: Charlie Munger on How You Screw Up: Part 3 of 6

Charlie Munger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You may have heard of Charlie Munger. But if you haven't, you should have heard of his partner: Warren Buffet, one of the 5 richest man in the world.  In 1995, Charlie Munger gave a speech at Harvard... about how people misjudge things. Here's my personal interpretation of his lessons, as applied to network marketing. You can read the full speech.  Please also check out the previous sections 1-4, and 5-8

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In the speech given at Harvard in 1995, Charlie Munger identified what he called "24 standard causes of human misjudgment." What he really meant is "24 reasons why you screw up".  Here is 9 through 12

9) Failure to Recognize Contrast Bias

Contrast bias is simple to explain... If I give you one item and ask you to rate it, you will give your honest opinion. However, if I have you rate that item, plus an HORRIBLE item, that original item will be rated higher, on the average, because there's a contrasting item.

Here's a simple experiment by Professor Cialdini. Two buckets of water, one quite cold, one quite hot (neither will actually harm). Volunteers are asked to put one hand in hot water and one hand in cold water for 5-10 seconds. Then both are removed and placed in the same bucket of water. The hand what was in hot water now feels cold, and the hand what was in cold water now feels warm/hot, but they are feeling the SAME bucket of water. It's the contrast that makes the water feel hot or cold.

And this experience shows up everywhere. It's often recommended in some pickup artistry books that you bring along an ugly friend or two to make yourself look better. This is the same idea: contrast.

A somewhat anecdotal and apocryphal real estate sales technique if you want to get rid of a not-so-good property is you show the prospects two really awful properties, have them go tsk-tsk and shake their head, then you take them to this "better" property, and they'll probably bite.

On the flip side, without a contrast or a measure against a neutral background (control group), you may not be aware of creeping changes. This can be termed "anti-contrast bias".

Then there's the "boiled frog" urban legend, where the claim is if you put a frog in a pot of water, but you cook it VERY VERY slowly, the frog will never jump out. It's not true, but it's an interesting legend and illustrates this point. You can "creep" in changes and if the movement is small enough it may escape notice.

So beware of this being used on you... Either a special contrast example is used to make a position to look better or worse than it really is... this coercing a bias, or someone tried to "creep" in some changes and rely on your momentum bias to say nothing.

BREAKING NEWS: TelexFree Sheeple Turned Lion, "occupied" TelexFree until police showed up

According to various Youtube videos, all published today, a bunch of Telexfree sheeple apparently grew spines and decided to occupy Telexfree office, much like they did a few weeks ago, when Steve Labriola basically told them to leave, and back then they did. This time they won't take no for an answer, and Labriola apparently was not able to control the crowd. Police was called and there was no violence, but basically all TelexFree folks hid in the backoffice and left police, outside, who told people to get organized, and hire a lawyer, and complain to attorney general and state senators and reps and congresspeople.

Thanks for BehindMLM for the coverage, where you can also see the videos.

This is how sheeple no longer be sheeple, folks... by asking real questions and demand real answers, instead of PR fluff.

Related articles

• Bad Propaganda: How TelexFree just made a liar out of itself... and all if its affiliates
• Scam Absurdities: What Sann Rodrigues of TelexFree do NOT want you to know about his past
• BREAKING NEWS: TelexFree cancels recruitment seminar on Jersey
• TelexFree just gotten even more bizarre... to the observers

Guest Post: Vemma and Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", part 4 of 6

Previously we had SlayerofScams, a fellow scambuster on IGN, posting his essay on how people misconstrue Napoleon Hill's advice to coerce the weak-minded sheeple.  Here is part 4 of 6.

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SlayerOfScams, January 8, 2014

Round Four of Napoleon Hill's Smackdown of Vemma/Verve From Beyond the Grave

Hill says that to become successful or rich, one must perform an annual self-analysis/self-inventory. With the New Year just starting, what better time for the Verve reps to do that?

Here are some questions from Hill's self-inventory that are especially pertinent to Vemma reps:

25. If I had been the purchaser of my own services for the year, would I be satisfied with my purchase? 
...
27. Has the purchaser of my services been satisfied with the service I have rendered, and if not, why not?

To help you consider the correct answers, ask yourself: are you happy with having lost and continuing to lose $150+ USD per month in order to buy cans of Verve that you do not want and cannot sell, in the false hopes that Vemma will pay you fat commission checks for the rest of your life off of the recruitment and purchases made by your fictitious, non-existent downline victims - fictitious and non-existent, of course, because real people (other than, perhaps, a few odd exceptions) are not actually stupid enough to sign up for this scam underneath you?

Next, ask yourself if any of the few downline victim suckers who you may have been lucky enough to dupe into the Vemma pyramid scam underneath yourself, and who are (like yourself) inevitably losing money every month to Verve, would be satisfied if they asked themselves the same questions given above.

Scam Psychology: Charlie Munger on How You Screw Up, Part 2 of 6

You may have heard of Charlie Munger. But if you haven't, you should have heard of his partner: Warren Buffet, one of the 5 richest man in the world.  In 1995, Charlie Munger gave a speech at Harvard... about how people misjudge things. Here's my personal interpretation of his lessons, as applied to network marketing. You can read the full speech.

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In the speech given at Harvard in 1995, Charlie Munger identified what he called "24 standard causes of human misjudgment." What he really meant is "24 reasons why you screw up".  Read 1 through 4 here. Here is 5 through 8.


5) Not Understanding momentum bias and its causes

You are under the influence of other people every day, much like the dogs in Pavlov's famous experiment, so you have learned to associate two completely unrelated events, like the dogs salivate at the ringing of a bell, after they've been conditioned to associate bell with food. And you will continue to recognize the unrelated events as being related when they are not, and base your decisions on factors that were never relevant, or are no longer relevant. You have momentum bias.

Momentum bias is basically... that's the way it's always done... why change? Though there are some additional factors such a s Pavlovian association and how your mind looks in your memory and tries to find correlations... even when those aren't really applicable.

My dad once fixed a transmission problem by replacing the battery in a vehicle. Apparently the bad battery is confusing the computer and causing it to shift improperly. It is a very rare circumstance. However, ever since, my dad advocates "swap the battery" for all transmission problems even when it makes no sense. He has momentum bias. 

In terms of network marketing, you are trained early on that company = success and leaders = success, even though that may not be the case, and if you took that attitude with you to the next opportunity where it no longer applies, you have a momentum bias.

Learn to detect momentum bias in yourself and others. Do things because they are the proper decision for the time based on available evidence, not because "that's the way things are around here".

Scam Psychology: Charlie Munger on How You Screw Up, Part 1 of 6

You may have heard of Charlie Munger. But if you haven't, you should have heard of his partner: Warren Buffet, one of the 5 richest man in the world.  In 1995, Charlie Munger gave a speech at Harvard... about how people misjudge things. Here's my personal interpretation of his lessons, as applied to network marketing. You can read the full speech.

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In the speech given at Harvard in 1995, Charlie Munger identified what he called "24 standard causes of human misjudgment." I call it "24 reasons why you screw up".  Here is 1 through 4.

1) Not understanding power of incentives

Incentives is the standard way if you want to influence someone's behavior. If you are not getting the results you want, you are probably using the wrong incentives. And if you don't understand how incentives work, you won't get the full use out of them (or understand how they're used on you)

One of the most direct ways network marketing company influences its affiliates is the compensation package, also known as the comp plan. And comp plan is the best indication how serious the network marketing company about retail is how it structures its comp plan. If the comp plan rewards self-consumption by tying commission to your downline's self-consumption, you have a pyramid scheme, as little if any product is actually being retailed. By studying how the incentives are actually applied, you can see which way the company wants the affiliates to jump. And if that doesn't match what they say they are, perhaps the business is not what it appears to be.

Another way incentives play into network marketing is not realizing the way incentive actually works, generally by overestimating one type of incentive vs. another kind. One of the most frequently used rebuttals in network marketing "So-and-so is famous and works with MLM X. So-and-so can't POSSIBLY work for a scam as it would ruin his reputation, so MLM X can't be a scam." This argument basically postulates that Incentive A: MLM X paid So-and-So 75K for a special appearance at a convention for a speech is NOT sufficient to overcome Incentive B: Negative reputation due to MLM X may be a scam. However, when you think about it, this makes absolutely no sense at all. Plenty of celebrities have pitched for scam at one time or another. Snooki had shilled for Zantrex the super-caffeinated diet pill that was called out as bunk by doctors. Bob Eubanks was once tricked into making a test show which was then used as "pilot" to scam investors into funding a show that doesn't exist.  Celebrities are people too. They can be tricked, or they simply don't care as you're more focused on his/her celebrity status rather than what s/he endorses. The negative incentive is nowhere as big as the rebuttal claimed to be.

By not understanding the power of incentives (even negative incentives), some people came to the wrong conclusion.

MLM Absurdities: The "Big Placebo" industry that markets nutritional supplement woo

Dietary supplements Do they actually improve your health?
(Photo credit: Andrei Z)

In studying the network marketing industry, MLM Skeptic had come to a conclusion that most network marketing companies deal with nutritional supplements and skin care, or as the somewhat pejorative slang goes: "lotions and potions".

The "potions and lotions" often promise some very vague and generalized health effects, with weasel descriptions such as:

• Support your "stem cell physiology" (Huh? What does that mean?)
• Leading expert on importance of brain health (a chiropractor)

Recently I came upon a quote by Richard Dawkins, and found it very applicable here:

If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn't been tested or it has failed its tests. 

The same applies to any sort of nutritional supplement, really. If any nutritional supplement is properly scientifically tested and proved to be effective, it will be adopted as national or even global nutritional standard. And it's clear that except for a few select examples, most nutritional supplements on the market are just woo, as they have not been tested properly, or have failed its tests to be effective in something.

So why do these nutritional supplements proliferate, and can be found in supermarkets and pharmacies and more?

The reason is quite troubling, as this has to do with growing scientific IGNORANCE and science denial.

Bad Propaganda: Found and Lost on Oprah's Website

Given the amount of woo that had been pushed by Oprah and her various spawns like Dr. Oz, it's very ironic that her own quiz of what's a scam and what's a cure, is no longer available.

Wonder if it hit a bit close to home?