Nobody's Fool - SFBA Book Club

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published July 11, 2023 by Basic Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-5416-0223-6

(1 review)

From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to fake art, chess cheaters to crypto hucksters, and marketers to magicians, our world brims with deception. In Nobody’s Fool, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris show us how to avoid being taken in. They describe the key habits of thinking and reasoning that serve us well most of the time but make us vulnerable—like our tendency to accept what we see, stick to our commitments, and overvalue precision and consistency. Each chapter illustrates their new take on the science of deception, describing scams you’ve never heard of and shedding new light on some you have. Simons and Chabris provide memorable maxims and practical tools you can use to spot deception before it’s too late.

Informative, illuminating, and entertaining, Nobody’s Fool will protect us from charlatans in all their forms—and delight us along the way. 

3 editions

Phil in SF reviewed Nobody's Fool by Daniel Simons

Interesting

4 stars

Lot's of interesting pop psychology on why people fall for scams. There's lots of techniques that scammers can use to prime people for scams. For example, that most people don't want to be the impolite person who asks hard questions especially in front of others.

As for what we can do about it, most of the sections have a technique or two designed to slow down a person's slide into the scam. However, they're all variations on "be vigilant enough to think about X". For example, "ask yourself why an offer is being made to you." The techniques will work best for someone who is already cranky and vigilant like me, and probably less so without training for others. And I really really wish all these techniques were put together in one section at the end, to provide a coherent overall thinking process.

But it's still pretty interesting.