Tunmise Ogunniyi

This is something I used to ask myself until I realised that we live in a low-trust society. It's often easier to scam Westerners precisely because they come from high-trust societies, and we mistake that trust for stupidity. Take the US, for example. You can print your own check, deposit a check by simply taking a picture with your banking app, and even start using some of the money before the check has fully cleared. You don't even have to visit a bank. Compare that with most parts of Africa, where something as simple as forgetting your banking app password can mean physically visiting a bank branch with all your identification documents. We have become so accustomed to suspicion and distrust that we mistake our cunningness for intelligence and other people's trust for foolishness. We think we are smarter because we are harder to fool, without realising that we have built societies where nobody trusts anybody.