Scammers are excellent psychological manipulators who can identify your needs and scam you with them by exploiting your needs as weaknesses. But how do they do it?
Abraham Maslow, who's a famous pscychologist, created the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs in the 1940's. It can be roughly represented as the diagram below, starting from physiological needs at the bottom, go slowly up to group psychological needs, then finally to self-psychological needs. Self-actualization means you fully realize the power of yourself and reach your full potential.
Noticed any trends? That's right, scams don't want you to actually get to "self-actualization". They claim they will provide:
In reality, all of the needs are provided only with a caveat, if at all
What's worse, they don't want you to have any self-actualization. NONE!
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Abraham Maslow, who's a famous pscychologist, created the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs in the 1940's. It can be roughly represented as the diagram below, starting from physiological needs at the bottom, go slowly up to group psychological needs, then finally to self-psychological needs. Self-actualization means you fully realize the power of yourself and reach your full potential.
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| Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (source: Wikipedia) |
Noticed any trends? That's right, scams don't want you to actually get to "self-actualization". They claim they will provide:
- Safety -- aka "financial independence", "fire your boss", JOB = "just over broke", etc.
- Love / belonging -- your sales group / team is what you want, not your family and friends
- Esteem -- if you follow the system, you can get $$$ and esteem! Look at our "winners"!
But what do they ACTUALLY provide?
In reality, all of the needs are provided only with a caveat, if at all
- Safety? Hand over your money first. This is not a "job", this is an OPPORTUNITY! You can't win if you don't play! (Never mind the cost) Oh, and if you fail, it's your fault. Our system's perfect (for me).
- Love and belonging? Sure, our group will love you... until you fail. Then it's a huge shaming machine. And don't you ever try to quit. NEVER! And any one who's not in the system is either an enemy or a prospect to be recruited. So ignore your enemies (even if they're your best friends, family, or even spouse/partner).
- Esteem? You don't have any now except what I choose to share with you. Bask in my halo! You have to fake it to make it! Spend your credit cards! Invest in yourself! (If you can't make any money, don't come to me, I just give advice, you must be really lazy to fail)
What's worse, they don't want you to have any self-actualization. NONE!
- Morality? Nah. My scheme cannot be a scam. God created it!
- Creativity? What creativity? Follow the system! You don't need creativity!
- Spontaneity? You're not following the script! Follow the system! Repeat after me...
- Problem solving? There is no problem. Our great system is infallible!
- Lack of prejudice? Our system is the one, the only, the greatest. I am prejudiced for us!
- Acceptance of facts? Only of the facts that "we" provide. Everything else is "negavitity"
Many scams present themselves as changing the lives of people who joined it. But is it really change for the better... or worse? How can schemes that goes AGAINST self-actualization be good for you?
Or are you too worried about your more basic needs to realize the truth and accept facts, such as "scams are bad for you"?
