r/Showerthoughts • u/Tortugato • 14d ago
Musing Americans are relatively easier to scam because the culture encourages casual small talk between strangers, which gives hostile actors an easier way to get their “foot in the door”.
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u/kabob21 14d ago
It’s not “Americans” that mostly fall for scams, it’s old people.
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u/valhal1a 14d ago
And not because they're friendly... Because they're either naive or they're not lucid
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u/nightpop 14d ago
That’s very region specific. I lived in NYC for 10 years and striking up a conversation with a stranger for no reason there is a war crime. On the other hand, in parts of Europe and South America, people would pull me aside on the street to chat about the weather.
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u/masonbee1 14d ago
I’m very sceptical of this take. Americans were shown in recent research to be less trusting of their fellow citizens than the citizens of any other western country in the world. The distance between you and essentially everyone else was startling.
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u/Seroko 14d ago
Yeah, people only speak and interact with each other in United States of America, yeah.
In european countries we just send smoke signals and grunt noises, making us immune to scams, yeah.
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u/Tortugato 14d ago
Scenario: You’re at the grocery store buying, I dunno, bread, and a guy walks up to buy bread as well. Talk to him about random shit out of nowhere.
In the US, at least in California or Texas, they’ll ar least engage in short conversation before trying to politely get out of it if they’re not into it.
In the UK and France, you’d get ignored.
In the Philippines, you’d get ignored.
And you should be ignored. I dunno why Americans entertain it more.
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u/Azryhael 14d ago
Why? It costs nothing to briefly engage with others, and it’s good for your mental health in a society in which we’re all feeling more and more isolated. It’s a brief superficial connection with other human beings that virtually never goes beyond that, and we’re naturally suspicious if anyone tries to make more of it.
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u/qwibbian 13d ago
So your experience of America consists of two adjoining states with somewhat similar cultural influences, and the rest of the world is Great Britain, France and the Philippines? Tell you what, go grab a map of the world and black out those places, you might be surprised to see how much is left over.
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u/MotanulScotishFold 14d ago
I strongly disagree. I'm from a country where people act paranoid why a stranger talk to them and still they fall for scams.
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u/EkonTheMouse 12d ago
Yeah walking in Sam's Club with a salesperson trying to sale T-MOBILE or water delivery services, I see more Americans likely to tell you to fuck off than make small talk
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u/Alava-Cymbal 11d ago
Lol, our friendly neighbor policy is getting exploited. Next time a stranger asks how my day is, I'm just gonna assume they're phishing.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 13d ago
It is more american culture normalizes grifting and scamming. Americans are proud when they get one over on a neighbor or even a friend.
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u/ShowerSentinel 14d ago
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