"Psychic" convicted

It's there to protect everyone from fraudsters.

I have never understood the If you are stupid you deserve to be conned mentality. If someone is genuinely "stupid" - which is just a crass word to suggest their genetic roll of the dice meant they were born less intelligent than the average person - then why do they "deserve" to be a victim of suffering and exploitation exactly? When does anyone "deserve" to suffer for something that is not at all their fault?

I do not think such a person "deserves" to be exploited in such a way any more than a blind person "deserves" to walk into a wall. Just because of how they were born. In fact if the protections we construct in our society are for anything at all - are they not for protecting the most vulnerable among us from those who would exploit those vulnerabilities?

All that said however it is very often the case that those exploited by the con man career path we call "psychics" are not at all stupid. Rather they are vulnerable and desperate for other reasons. They have suffered traumas and griefs that leaves them desperate for any kind of reprieve. They genuinely want to believe that their dead lost loved one is still somehow out there somewhere. And it is often desperation rather than stupidity that these charlatans exploit.

I was recently watching an interview with a man who sent a lot of his money to one of those "Romance cons". A woman in another country who was professing her love for him but he had never met or talked to her other than through email. And every time she was to fly to meet him she of course had some issue which prevented her. Every person hearing his story knew he was being conned. In the interview however the surprise was that he himself said he sorta knew it was a con all along. But he was just. So. Desperately. Lonely. That he allowed himself to be conned all the same. False hope was better than no hope at all - and while the con was in play he was still able to derive some sick meaning from it.

This is not "stupidity". It is abject vulnerability and pain and desperation. And in many ways can be often exploited more easily than mere stupidity can. Because at this stage even the most stupid among us know a Nigerian Prince is not holding onto millions of euros for us - or a fat old bag of wrinkles living in a council flat is probably not in touch with the realm of spirits. But it is easy to point at such a man and laugh and say he deserves it for being such a dumbass as to fall for it. I wonder if it is not the persons doing such pointing and laughing who are not in fact the only "stupid" ones.