Once men consented to live by the redistribution of life’s goods through a god figure who represented life, they had sealed their fate. Because of this choice, acquaintanceship became important. In general acquaintanceship is an aspect of all social relationships that differ greatly in degree and kind will equally share it. Nonetheless, we can expect acquaintanceship to be a minor aspect of relationships. There are exceptions, however. Common sense designates by the phrase “mere acquaintance” a relationship in which the rights of social recognition form the principal substance of the relationship. Further, after persons have been “close” it is possible for their relationship to decay, stopping only at a point where they are “still on talking terms,” or, after that (and with a discontinuous leap), at a point when they are “not talking,” in either case conferring on mere engagement practices the power of characterizing the relationship. The special force of the obligation to give social recognition to persons with whom one is acquainted—the obligation, that is, to be readily accessible to them—can be discovered in different ways. Most obviously, we find in middle-class society a great taboo against the “cut”—the practice of pointedly denying an encounter overture. Etiquette books contain many warnings against this common practice: As a general rule never cut anyone in the street. Even political and steamboat acquaintances should be noticed by the slightest movement in the World. If they presume to converse with you, or stop you to introduce their companion, it is then time to use your eyeglass, and say, “I never know you.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Mrs. Post provides a slightly more contemporary version: “It may be annoying to be passed by an ‘unseeing’ acquaintance, but one should be careful not to confuse absent-minded unseeingness with alert and intentional slight.” The “Cut Direct.” For one person to look directly at another and not acknowledge the other’s bow is such a breach of civility that only an unforgivable misdemeanor can warrant the rebuke. Nor without the gravest cause may a lady “cut” a gentleman. However, there are no circumstances under which a gentleman may “cut” any woman who, even by courtesy, can be called a lady. A “cut” is very different [from poor sight or a forgetful memory]. It is a direct state of blank refusal, and is not only insulting to its victim but embarrassing to every witness. Happily it is practically unknown in polite society. From this rule it follows that when one person does not want to enter into a greeting engagement with another, one will usually act so that the other can believe (or at least take the line) that the slight was due to an unintended not-seeing of the overture; in turn, the person making the overture, if doubtful about one’s reception, will not press one’s greeting so obviously as to leave oneself no social fiction should one’s overture be declined. And when it is known that one individual may feel obligated to cut a second, others and the pair themselves will usually be at pains to keep them from coming together, an avoidance relationship being thus established. Nor is this taboo against but a matter of official etiquette only. Even when two persons have great moral cause for mutual animosity, they are likely to be willing to exchange a few civil words if brought together unavoidably. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

And even when they are not on talking terms, they may still feel an uncontrollable urge to exchange recognitional nods when brought together. This minimal courtesy has a special significance for us, for a failure to exchange this kind of greeting exposes such persons to the situation at large as two persons who are filled with hostility to each other, and not with the mood of the social occasion. To cut someone is thus to express lack of respect for the gathering at large, to display flagrant insensitivity to the minimal solidarity the gathering demands from all its participants. Acquaintanceship, then, obliges individuals to proffer each other engagement, if only in the form of passing smiles. This custom shows once again how the communication rules of the community tend to cut through particular interests of the moment. However, we should expect that there will be some accommodations, each, in its own way, throwing further light on communication regulations. There are circumstance, for example, in which consideration for the other requires that one give to one the right to decide whether or not social recognition and a greeting will occur. Thus, where the context is one that reflects negatively upon a person in it (especially where this person is a female and is noticed to be present by a male acquaintance), the person with most to lose by being made to face up to being present may be given the right to determine whether or not an engagement will occur. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

 Some writers on etiquette have felt that, since a gentleman can never know when a lady is in a context where she will be undesirous of having herself identified, the initiation should at all times come from the female: It is a mark of high breeding not to speak to a lady in the street, until you perceive that she has noticed you by an inclination of the head. However, other writers modify this stricture: Under formal circumstances a lady is supposed to bow to a gentleman first: but people who know each other well bow spontaneously without observing this etiquette. In some societies, it may be added, social recognition between the genders apparently may jeopardize the reputation of the female and, for this reason, be uniformly restricted. Hindu society provides an example: Outside of the household, relationships between the genders are very limited indeed. Women wear long veils, and are expected to look demurely at the ground on the approach of a man. A corollary of the fierce restraint on meetings between young men and girls is that every slightest encounter is interpreted as leading inevitably to pleasures of the flesh. Rural Paraguay provides another example: A woman must be exceptionally circumspect at all times. She should always avoid the appearance of having a private conversation with a man on the street in broad daylight. Tact with respect to social recognition and face engagements is of course not restricted to relations between the genders, but is found wherever one party to a recognitional engagement is considered to have extra rights or to be worth treating carefully. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

For instance, when  junior staff person and a senior staff person who were acquainted came into the staff common room at a time when few other persons were there, then the junior sometimes felt that sitting far away from the senior was an act of unfriendliness, and sitting within easy chatting distance a presumption, and so the junior would sometime take up a chair on the boundary between these two distances, placing the senior in the position of being able to determine how much spoken interaction, if any, was to occur. The assumption that an individual may purposely recognize an acquaintance, or cut one, or avoid recognition in various way, may give an oversimplified view of matters. As already suggested, the process cannot that easily be deliberately controlled, and lack of control must betaken into consideration in deciding on strategies of action. A sense of proper recognition conduct seems to take deep hold of a person once one has learned it, so that a current view one might have as to an expedient line of activity may not be one that one’s spontaneous tendencies in the situation will allow one to follow. In deciding rationally on a current course of action, one may well have to try to suppress more automatic tendencies—or rather, what have become automatic tendencies for one. (This is a factor apparent throughout communication behaviour.) If an individual avoids looking at another to whom one’s spontaneous attention is nevertheless drawn, one’s avoidance will have a special and self-conscious cast. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

In not looking at someone to whom one’s attention is spontaneously drawn, one usually displays a movement to one that is self-consciously blocked; this becomes especially apparent when one anticipates entering a face engagement with one, but is not in a position, socially, to initiate the encounter oneself. The physical character of many scenes of social interaction has a bearing on the discrepancy between what one intends to do and what one unconsciously begins to do. Often there will be present in the situation many barriers to visual and aural communication—these often being the bodies of activities of other people—which can provide excuses, however thin, for the not-seer, and which can in turn be seized upon by the not-seen as excuses the other had. While making communication rules more elastic, such barriers multiply the occasions when one person is oriented to engagement with another but hesitates because one is not sure the other is available. An example may be sited: As he [Rigault] entered the Rue Gustave-le-Bon he saw Maitre Marguet at the far end, walking on the opposite pavement. He never encountered him without a twinge of anxiety. The fact was that sometimes the lawyer recognized him, and returned his greeting or even anticipated it, and sometimes he passed by without noticing him. The things might be accidental, or it might be capricious (he himself never failed to recognize the town’s leading figures, some instinct warning him, even when his thoughts were elsewhere, to raise a hand to his hat. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Rigault kept his head carefully rigid, glancing furtively sideways to see what the other did. The lawyer was walking with his eyes lowered, seeming very preoccupied. Deciding that the raising of his hat would probably go unnoticed, Rigault resolved to begin this gesture only at the last moment, which left him the possibility of completing or abolishing it by pretending to scratch his ear. However, then a reasonless, almost religious apprehension caused him to hurry his movements. They were still four paces removed from the orthodox, level position when his hand went to his head. Maitre Marguet, on the opposite pavement, looked up and replied with an ample gesture; and Rigault, instantly relaxed, felt a wave of well-being pass through him. It was more than gratified vanity: it was the sweetness of a response, the fulfilment of a social instinct. Because we cannot always tell what frame of mind a person is in, would it not be nice to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feelings, create good will, and make the other person listen attentively? Face, to live in this World, we have to be able to communicate. Everyone deserves credit for being what they are—and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are. Feel sorry for others who are not social geniuses. Did you know 75 percent of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy? That is why it is a good idea for them to go to therapy so they can learn to work their problems out. However, it is not an option for everyone. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

Also, keep in mind that some people may just be trying to start an argument with you because they want to upset you. In many cases they know they are wrong. When people are upset, it may help to apologize and sympathize with their view point, as this may calm them down and let them express that they are also in the wrong, or totally wrong. Additionally, it will ease their temper and prevent the situation from escalading. Therefore, to win people over, be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires. It is also important to take care of your own needs and remember who you are to be able to deal with others in a proper fashion. When it comes to self-remembering, many would like to know would it be possible to hear something you do not ordinarily hear? Quite possible, but it depends what. You cannot expect to hear angels singing. The only way to increase one’s memory is by being more conscious. In no other system is there a method for improving memory. In this system it is definite: Remember yourself. Perhaps in the morning you say you will remember yourself at twelve o’clock. Then you forget all about it but perhaps you remember at one o’clock. That is how things happen. However, if you continue this may produce very unexpected results. The whole thing is to create continuity. Glimpses may happen but continuity needs effort. At the same time, you must not be easily dejected, because the result of work grows slowly. Sometimes, as an exercise in this system, people decide to remember themselves tomorrow at a certain time in certain circumstances. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Before the war when people went to Paris, I told them to remember themselves at the Gare du Nord. Nobody could. Once a friend was to meet me at the Gare du Nord and I asked him to remember himself when he got there. However, he only came with a very worried face saying, “I have forgotten something you asked me to do, was it something I had to buy?” It is necessary to distinguish what is self-remembering from what is not. For instance, it is quite different to remember that you said you were going to remember yourself at twelve o’clock, from actually remembering yourself. It is necessary to learn to think. We have much material for right thinking but it is necessary not to forget about it. In order to become strong in this system you must accumulate knowledge and being. As being is connected with memory of what we promised ourselves, we can strengthen our being in this way. Memory of our failures can also be very useful but sometimes it is quite useless. If you remember your failures and sit crying or accurse somebody else it will not help. “Receiving impressions is a mechanical process, is it not?” hey are used in different ways. Take knowledge—one may learn Mandarin Chinese with enough Chinese words. If one collects enough coronets and learns enough musical impressions, one learns music. Moving energy collects memories of a road or place. “Did you say that magnetic center is a group of permanent interests? Would you explain?” Yes. If we could remember what we liked last week, last month, last year—if we could remember—that would make a permanent center of gravity. Generally, we forget.  #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

However, if we can remember and continue to like the same things, that will make a center of gravity. It is better to remember even what you dislike than not to remember. “How can memory survive death?” Death is nothing, you may not notice it. If you do not notice that you die, you may not notice that you are born. “Is immortality impossible for man no.1, 2, and 3?” Yes, he has to become no. 5. That is one answer. However, there may be other answers. For instance, from the point of view of recurrence men 1, 2, and 3 may live again, may turn again, but they do not remember. In order to remember they must become man no. 5. “What is it that becomes immortal, essence or physical body and soul?” Only memory. Body is born again; essence is born again; personality is created again. So it is not a question of immortality but of memory. We may live ten thousand times without any advantage if we do not remember. If mechanical immortality is possible it would be of no advantage. We must remember ourselves and remember events; the more the better. Again I remind you: What is useful and necessary to remember is what we do not remember; never remember and that we do not know that we do not remember. “Did I understand you to say that if anything of us survived it was memory?” Probably not quite; because memory usually disappears first, if anything survives. Memory is very unstable. “It seems to me that in order to realize where we have missed an opportunity in a past life, we should first have to each a moment of awakening in this life.” Very good. Only, do that first. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Throughout the centuries, medicine has been constrained to maintain functioning tissues, since once tissues stop functioning, they cannot heal themselves. With molecular surgery to carry out the healing directly, medical priorities change drastically—function is no longer absolutely necessary. In fact, a physician able to use molecular surgery would prefer to operate on nonfunctioning, structurally stable tissue than on tissue that has been allowed to continue malfunctioning until its structure was lost. Brain tumors are an example: They destroy the brain’s structure, and with it the patient’s skills, memories, and personality. Physicians in the future should be able to immediately interrupt this process, to stop the functioning of the brain to stabilize the patient for treatment. Techniques available today can stop tissue function while preserving tissue structure. Greg Fahy, in his work on organ preservation at the American Red Cross, is developing a technique for vitrifying animal kidneys—making them into a low-temperature, crystal-free glass—with the goal of maintaining their structure such that, when brought back to room temperature, they can be transplanted. Some kidneys have been cooled to -30*C, warmed back up, and then functioned after transplant. A variety of other procedures can also stabilize tissues on a long-term basis. These procedures enable many cells—but not whole tissues—to survive and recover without help; advanced molecular repair and cell surgery will presumably tip the balance, enabling cells, tissues, and organs to recover and heal. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

When applied to stabilizing a whole patient, such condition can be called biostasis. A patient in boistasis can be kept there indefinitely until the required medical help arrives. So in the future, the question “Can this patient be restored to health?” will be answered “Yes, if the patient’s brain is intact, and with it the patient’s mind. According to NASA, on average with the current technologies, it would take about 7 months to get to Mars, which is placed a distance of 480 million km from Earth along its orbit. A spacecraft would need around 6 years to get to Jupiter and 9.5 years to get to Pluto. If you have ever been bored on a long-haul flight, imagine spending years waiting inside a spacecraft. How long would it take to travel between galaxies instead? For example, if we wanted to go to the Andromeda Galaxy, the closet large spiral galaxy, how much time would that take? The distance to cover is 2.537 million light-years which is about 22.833.000.000 million km. If we compare this number with the seven months needed to land on Mars, we can see that it would take about 28 million years to reach the Andromeda Galaxy. This figure is not exact but it can give us an idea of how much time one would need for intergalactic travels. Since no human can live that long and our consciousness is still perishable, how can we solve this problem?” Sandra Lee Adamson of the National Space Society has her eyes on distant goals. Some have proposed that travel to the stars would take generations, preventing anyone on Earth from ever making the trip. However, she notes that biostasis will “give hope to some fearless adventurers who will risk suspension and subsequent reanimation so they can see the stars for themselves.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Scientist exploring turbulence, instability, and chaos in nature and society know that the same system—whether it is a chemical system or a country—behaves differently depending on whether it is in an equilibrial or non-equilibrial condition. Push any system—a digestive system, a computer system, an urban traffic system, or a political system—too far, and it violates its traditional rules and acts bizarrely. When the environment becomes too turbulent, systems become non-linear, and this creates vast opportunities for tiny groups. We are, in fact, rapidly moving into a new stage of politics that might be called “opportunity time” for the pivotal minorities. As politics becomes increasingly de-massified, leaders who once dealt with a few big, more or less predictable political constituencies are seeing these splinter into countless small, temporary, single-issue grouplets, continually forming, breaking, and re-forming alliances—all at high speeds. Any one of these, finding itself at a strategic political intersection at just the right moment, can leverage its clout. In 1919 a railroad machinist names Anton Drexler headed a tiny political group in Munich—a group so small it was no more than a fringe of the fringe. At first public meeting it managed to attract only 111 listeners. The speaker at that meeting held the floor for thirty minutes. His name was Adolph Hitler. There are many explanations for Hitler’s rise, but one can be found in the new science of non-equilibrial systems. This new science teaches us that in moments of extreme instability of the kind found in Germany at the time, three things happen. Sheer chance plays an enlarged role. Pressures from the outside World carry more weight. And positive feedback creates gigantic snowball effects. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

An example of the snowball effect as it operates in today’s World is provided by the media. By focusing a hand-held camera, a reporter can instantly project even the tiniest group of political cranks or terrorists onto the World’s consciousness, and give it far more importance than it could garner on its own. Once this happens, the group becomes “news,” and other media cover its activities, which, in turn, makes it still bigger news. A “positive feedback loop” is set up. Snowballing can also come about in other ways. In a globally linked economy, a foreign political or commercial interest can pump money and resources into a tiny group, which suddenly explodes in size and, in turn, attracts more resources. Chance, outside help, and the snowballing process help explain why—throughout the history of mass democracy—extremist cults, revolutionary cabals, juntas, and conspiracies have flourished in times of seething turmoil, and why a once-insignificant group can suddenly become “pivotal.” The difference for mosaic democracies is that, in the past, a majority could sometimes restrain or overwhelm dangerous extremists. However, what if there is no coherent majority? Some pivotal minorities may, of course, be good. However, many are toxic to democracy. They vary. The P-2 Masonic lodge in Italy sought to take power in the country. The Jewish Defense League, with support from U.S.A. citizens, seeks power in Israel. Nazi-esque groups, some of them heavily armed, spew anti-Semitic and racist hate, and dream of taking over Washington. Some of their members have engaged in gun battles with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

An African-America organization in the United States of America, headed by an admirer of Hitler, saw its ranks swell with the assistance of $5 million interest-free loan from Libya’s Qaddafi. Add to “intelligence operations,” its branches and front groups reaching from the United States of America to West Germany and Mexico. In the United States of America, hate groups will proliferate as social unrest grows in the decades ahead, according to Dr. William Tafoya, the FBI’s outstanding expert on the future. These groups will attempt to infiltrate U.S.A. police agencies to facilitate acts of domestic terrorism. “If I were a racist, what better place to initiate my hidden agenda than behind the shield of a badge?” Tafoya asks. (And the beast will walk upon the Earth and all races of men will come together in this destruction and darkness.) Citing unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and illiteracy as breeding groups of social unrest, Tafoya has catalouged the rising frequency of race-related crimes, riots, and beatings and warns that the framework for social justice has become “loose dry straw” waiting for a spark to ignite it. Nor are domestic social conditions the only ones that matter. Émigré groups, like the Kurds in Sweden or the Sikhs in Canada, carry their political passions and sense of injustice from the “old country” into the new. In the past, emigrants were largely cut off from their original homelands. Today, with instant communication and jet travel, the old culture retains its grip and its political movements live on abroad. Such groups want to seize power, too, not in the host country but in the homeland, creating complex, strained international relations. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Insignificant in normal times, such groups reach a “takeoff” stage when the cultural and social soil is right and when the mainstream political parties are paralyzed or so evenly matched that a tiny coalition partner tip the power balance. Healthy democracies should tolerate the widest possible diversity, and there is nothing unusual or particularly frightening about the existence of such grouplets—so long as the political system remains equilibrial. But will it? We already live in a World of barely contained fanaticisms. Groups seek to impose totalitarian dogma not merely on one nation, but the entire World. Democrats incite murder, calling for the assassination of anyone who opposes their party. Separatist movements leave a trail of car bombs, riots, broken glass, dead people, and blood in defense of their national identity. And religio-political terrorists think nothing of hurling a grenade into a café or downing a 747, as if the death of a vacationing bank manager, or auto science engineer with his case full of prototypes would somehow win points from God. Because of an out-of-date conception of progress, many in the West assume that fanatic, irrational, hate-mongering ideologies will vanish from the Earth as societies become more “civilized.” However, nothing is more misleading and smug. Confessional conflicts, “holy wars,” committed crusaders and martyrdom-seeking warriors are not merely relics of the past. They are portents of the future. These high-intensity aggressive ideologies pose an international threat. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

However, for democracies, the threat is domestic as well, for culture and economics are fused I the new economy, and new emotionally charged issues arise, the dangers of pivotal minorities and global fanaticism escalate in tandem. A proletarian dictatorship, which America is becoming, that betrays a readiness to make concessions to the lower middle-class is threated with destruction of the government. The rise of a new kind of economy, never before known, threatening to many, demanding rapid changes in work, life style, and habits, hurls large populations—terrified of the future—into spasms of diehard reaction. It opens cleavages that fanatics rush to fill. It arms all those dangerous minorities who live for crisis in the hope of catapulting themselves onto the national or global stage and transporting us all into a new Dark Age. Instead of the much-touted “end of ideology,” we may in both global and domestic affairs, see a multiplicity of new ideologies spring up, each inflaming adherents with its single vision of reality. We may well face a thousand fires of fury. While we are body celebrating the supposed end of ideology, history, and the Cold War, we may find ourselves facing the end of democracy as we have known it—mass democracy. The advanced economy, based on computers, information, knowledge, and deep communications, calls into question all the traditional defenses of democracy, challenging us to redefine them in the 21 st-century terms. To do that, we need a clearer picture of how the system works and how it is already changing. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

The distribution of stress is not the only way that interactions within the system stimulate further activation of agents. Another important mechanism of this kind is the formation of work routines in organizations. Work routines also are recurring patterns of interaction among agents and artifacts. Because routines combine the distinctive skills of multiple human agents, the interactions in a single routine may be quite diverse. A chain of individual assembling a car can do many more things than falling grains of sand can do. However, the basic mechanism of stimulating further activation works in a similar fashion. Routines arise because interactions among agents increase the likelihood of later repetitions of those same interactions. Usually this happens through learning by the participants. They may become aware of valued result from an overall routine in which their actions played a part. (An emergency room worker hears that the patient who was referred to cardiology three days ago has been able to go home. A referral in future cases that are similar becomes more likely.) Or an agent is aware that some appropriate action has followed from a step previously taken. (The next worker on the line more easily processes the part a colleague carefully positioned. In the future, that same pre-positioning will be used.) We normally do not give too much thought to how routines arise. They are important sources of organizational productivity, but part of their value rests in accomplishing work while taking relatively little attention. So routines are noticed mainly when they do not work, when they resist needed change, or when they “fire off” inappropriately. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

The way routines form is important for organizations. The easier it is to create good ones and modify bad ones, the more productive organizations can be. Various process improvements methodologies, such as Total Quality Management and Business Process Reengineering, have flourished in recent years in recognition of this fact. The quality movement, in particular, has offered many procedures that make the linkage between events clearer to participants in order to make the linkage between events clearer to participants in order to make routines easier to learn and to improve. One of the most famous devices of the early days of quality improvement was the system of cords that allowed Toyota workers to stop a whole production when a defect was noticed. Tracing the effect to its upstream cause, rather than patching it locally, allowed al the participants to understand the interdependencies of the production routine. It is an expensive remedy, especially at first, when it is used often. However, it is hard to imagine that Japanese auto manufacturing could have attained its reputation for quality without something like it. And the postwar World would be very different if that had not happened. Looking at routines in this way, one sees that there are many devices for making the next step or the final result more visible to participants. These include feedback on total daily production, notices of receipt, in-boxes and out-boxed, periodic account summaries that report recent changes, even procedures to highlight the absence of feedback or complaint. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

It is important to note that all of these examples of propagating stress and of self-sustaining activity are about formation: of avalanche potentials, of boundaries, of recurring actions cycles. They are not about the observed structures but about how those structures arise. When we look for insights into harnessing complexity, we should ask how we can change the pattern of avalanche (or traffic jam) sizes, the shape and size of patches that form, or the number and complexity of routines that can be created. The theories often do not give us control over specific events. Rather they help us find interventions that may affect the averages of what happens, that may allow adaptation or learning, even without knowing in advance just what will change, or just what will be learned. Although two parties may not trust each other when the stakes are large, if the problem of commitment can be reduced to a small-enough scale, then the issue of credibility will resolve itself. The threat or promise is broken up into many pieces, and each one is solved separately. Honour among thieves is restored if they have to trust each other only a little bit at a time. Consider the difference between making a single $1 million payment to another person for a kilogram of cocaine and engaging in 1,000 sequential transactions with this other party, with each transaction limited to $1,000 worth of cocaine. While it might be worthwhile to double-cross your “partner” for $1 million, the gain of $1,000 is too small, since it brings a premature end to a profitable ongoing relationship. Whenever a large degree of commitment is infeasible, one should make do with a small amount and reuse it frequently. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Homeowners and contractors are mutually suspicious. The homeowner is afraid of paying up front and finding incomplete or shoddy work. The contractors are afraid that after they have completed the job, the homeowner may refuse to pay. So at the end of each day (or each week), contractors are pai on the basis of their progress. At most each side risks losing one day’s (or one week’s) work. As with brinkmanship, moving in small steps reduces the size of the threat or promise and correspondingly the scale of commitment. There is just one feature to watch out for. Those who understand strategic thinking will reason forward and look backward, and they will worry about the last step. If you expect to be cheated on the last round, you should break off the relationship one round earlier. However, then the penultimate round will become the final round, and so you will not have escaped the problem. To avoid the unraveling of trust, there should be no clear final step. As long as there remains a chance of continued business, it will never be worthwhile to cheat. So when a shady character tells you this will be his least deal before retiring, be especially cautious. Nearly all “confidence men” or scam artists are charming. Take Victor Lustig, for example. This conman managed to “sell” the Eiffel Tower and allegedly even swindled notorious mobster Al Capone. Indeed, conning is not a thing of the past. Today, the term “Ponzi scheme” is used to describe an illegitimate operation. However, the term actually came from the real-life Charles Ponzi, whose $15 million investment scheme claimed to turn the average American working man into a multimillionaire overnight. However, really, the scheme only worked to turn Ponzi himself into a multimillionaire overnight. Therefore, if anyone calls you and asks for any personal information over the phone, just hang up. And if you get a suspicious email or letter from a company you deal with, it may be best to talk to them in person so they can address your concerns. Also, be careful of who you let into your home, for renters this is not always easy, con artists will case your house and even steal mail. Make sure all contractors or anyone else has a verified work identification with them. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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