I had (thankfully indirect) interaction with a shameless scammer. We know his full name, he has 70k followers and just steals money (fiat, crypto) under various pretenses (OTC trades, he even tried to sell citizenships). He has a full on act, it's quite interesting. When people realize he's a scammer, he just laughs and tells them they scammed themselves because they are stupid.

These people exist, it's super weird. I believe it's some kind of psychopathic disorder. Even his family knows, his brother helps, parents know and pretend they don't. Hundreds of thousands of euros.

I don't think they have a long lifespan, so it's not an evolutionary adaptation. But we live in the same world as they do.

For me, the main point is assuming other people's inner world is similar to mine (also called empathy) is super wrong. They're hacking this assumption.

A friend of mine has a good heuristic for this. When someone is talking to you, and you get obligated to listen, ask "are they trying to hack my brain through empathy?". Imagine a beggar. You might or might not want to help them, but you should be able to identify if and when it's a hacking attempt.