Imagine you're an astronomer. You spend your
entire life just peering through telescopes,
cataloging the heavens. Right, mapping out the
majestic clockwork of the universe. Exactly,
the permanent stuff. And then, well, the day
finally comes. You actually discover a new celestial
body. Oh, wow. Yeah, a massive rock that's going
to orbit our sun in the silent vacuum of space
for like... billions of years. It's a huge deal.
It is. And you have the absolute honor of giving
this ancient permanent object a name for the
rest of human history. Right. And what do you
do? You decide to name it after a cheap, fleeting
street crime. Welcome to the deep dive. It is
quite the juxtaposition to start with, I have
to say. I really cannot stop thinking about it,
because usually when we do this show, we're looking
at, you know, a dense research paper or some
sprawling historical biography. Heavy stuff.
But today we're doing something entirely We are
looking at a single word, and the incredibly
bizarre, almost chaotic footprint that word has
left across human culture. And that word is swindle.
Yes, Swindle. And the source material we are
pulling from today is, it's actually just a Wikipedia
disambiguation page. Just a raw list. Right,
a list of everything in the world that happens
to share this exact name. Which is, I mean, such
a brilliant lens to use, because before you look
at the different things named Swindle, you kind
of have to understand the anchor, right? The
core definition of the word itself. Yeah, the
baseline. Exactly. At its heart. A swindle is
a confidence trick. It's an asymmetry of information
that has been, um, weaponized against someone's
trust or their greed. So it's a deception. But
not just any deception. I mean, a magician performing
a card trick is deceiving you. Right. But that's
entertainment. Right. You bought a ticket for
that. Exactly. A swindle implies a victim and
a perpetrator. Someone is manipulating your perception
of reality specifically to extract something
of value from you, usually money. Yeah. It's
an inherently cynical temporary human action.
The con artist rolls into town, creates a false
reality, takes your wallet, and, you know, vanishes
before the illusion even breaks. And that is
the mission for today. We're going to explore
how this one, very specific, very cynical concept
of a fleeting crime, has somehow permeated human
culture, geography, our media, and yeah, even
the cosmos. It's everywhere. It really is. We're
going to see how the simple list acts as a completely
unintentional cultural mirror for you, the listener.
OK, let's untack this. I think the best place
to start is, well, with the physical world. Because
you just mentioned that a swindle is supposed
to be fleeting. Right, like a ghost. Yeah, a
ghost. Yeah. But when you look at how this word
has actually materialized in our reality, it's
left some incredibly permanent footprints. Which
feels like a massive contradiction. I mean, for
starters, swindle operates as an actual surname
for real, living people. They cut the psychological
burden of that. or at least the daily friction.
You would have to have a phenomenal sense of
humor. Oh, definitely. Imagine walking into a
bank to apply for a mortgage or, I don't know,
setting up a financial consulting firm and your
legal given surname is literally synonymous with
fraud. Hi, I'm Mr. Swindle. Please trust me with
your life savings. Yeah, you'd likely develop
a very quick disarming joke to handle the introductions.
Or you just go by your middle name. Right, exactly.
But that is just on an individual level. The
concept gets literally etched into the earth,
too. Yes. There's an actual physical landmass
in British Columbia, Canada, named Swindle Island.
A physical place where tides wash up against
the shores, where trees grow and weather patterns
form. Yeah, it's permanent. A place that exists
entirely independent of human deception, forever
bearing the title of con job. I'd imagine the
local tourism board has a nightmare of a time
with marketing. I'm sure they do. But that brings
me back to the astronomer because it doesn't
stop at Earth's atmosphere. There is an asteroid
out there officially designated as 8690 swindle.
A giant piece of rock and ice just hurtling through
the dark. I have to push back on this or at least
demand some kind of explanation because it feels
entirely backwards to me. How so? I mean, it's
a bit like finding out your local community center
or library is officially named after a pickpocket.
Why on earth do we attach a word that is fundamentally
about a temporary malicious human interaction
to permanent unmoving fixtures like land masses
and space rocks? That's a fair question. Like
an asteroid is billions of years old, a con lasts
maybe an afternoon. Well, what's fascinating
here is the sheer absurdity and permanence of
human naming conventions. Okay. When we name
a place, whether it's a mountain range or a celestial
body, we're usually trying to honor something.
Right, like scientists or Greek gods. Exactly.
We use the names of mythological figures, noble
concepts like hope or discovery, or the names
of the people who found them by applying a word
like swindle. to these ancient fixtures, we create
this permanent cognitive dissonance. It's like
we literally launched our psychological baggage
into orbit. We absolutely did. It prompts you
to really think about the legacy of language.
I mean, to the universe, asteroid 8690 is just
a collection of minerals. Right. The universe
has no concept of a confidence trick. But human
beings cannot help but project our very flawed,
very specific social constructs onto the blank
canvas of the cosmos. It strips the word of its
malice and turns it into just another arbitrary
sound we use to categorize the void. I mean,
you'd probably triple check your lease agreement
if you were buying property on Swindle Island,
though. Oh, undoubtedly. OK, so if the physical
world, the islands, and the asteroids represents
the static, unchanging footprint of the word,
I want to pivot to how humans process this concept
dynamically. The cultural side. Exactly. Because
a Swindle isn't just an event. It's a performance.
It requires an audience, a script, and a stage.
And that brings us to how we've spent decades
trying to capture this performance through art.
And the transition from the physical world to
narrative media is incredibly telling. The physical
world is static, like we said. But in film and
literature, the swindle becomes a living, breathing
story. And the cinematic history attached to
this single word on the disambiguation page is
absolutely staggering. It really is. We are looking
at a global tour of filmmakers who are completely
obsessed with the con. We start in post -war
Italy. In 1955, there's a film called Il Bidone.
The English titles are The Swindle or The Swindlers.
Right. And this isn't just some forgotten B -movie.
It's directed by Federico Fellini, one of the
most legendary filmmakers in history. And Fellini
tackling a con in 1950s Italy. carries a very
specific weight. Yeah. Yeah, you're looking at
a society recovering from a massive war, dealing
with poverty and sheer desperation. In that context,
a swindle isn't just a clever trick, it's a brutal
survival mechanism. But then sticking with Italy,
we jump a couple decades to 1977 for Squadra
antitrufa, which also translates to the swindle.
Different vibe entirely. Right. Directed by Bruno
Corbucci. Then we cross borders entirely. In
1997, France gets in on the action, but with
a massive tonal shift. We get a crime comedy
film, simply titled The Swindle, directed by
Claude Chabrol and starring Isabelle Hopper.
A comedy. Notice how the same concept stretches
to a comedy, both tragedy and farce. And then
we jump across the Atlantic to the US in 2002
for a gritty, dark crime thriller called Swindle,
starring Tom Sizemore and Sherilyn Fen. Yeah.
And as if the cross -pollination wasn't enough,
just two years later, We get a 2004 Spanish -French
co -production, a thriller called Swindled. That
timeline and geography provide a remarkable cross
-section of global cinema. So what does this
all mean? Look at the wild tonal shifts across
this source material. We have a 1950s Italian
neorealist masterpiece. We have a breezy 1997
French comedy. We have a gritty American thriller.
I actually struggle with this a bit. What's the
struggle? I get that scams happen everywhere,
but why is it such a popular genre? If I get
scammed in real life, I am devastated. I feel
foolish and violated. Of course. Why would I
pay my hard -earned money to sit in a theater
in Paris or Rome just to watch someone else get
scammed? Does this repetition across borders
prove that we have a universal obsession with
deception? I think it proves that we have a universal
obsession with the mechanics of deception, provided
we are at a safe distance. Ah, the safe distance?
Yes. The evidence here strongly suggests that
a confidence trick transcends language barriers
because the underlying emotions are universally
understood. Trust and betrayal. Precisely. Everyone,
regardless of whether they grew up in 1950s Italy
or 2000s America, understands the psychological
tension of a lie. Right. When you sit in a movie
theater and watch a swindle unfold, you're experiencing
the asymmetry of information we talked about
earlier, but safely. You're in on it. Yes. You,
the viewer, often know the trap is being set.
You get to watch the perpetrator build the illusion
and you watch the victim walk into it. It's the
ultimate intellectual puzzle. It's an engine
for dramatic irony. It's the suspense of waiting
for the other shoe to drop. You're either marveling
at the genius of the trap or you're watching
the tragic, inevitable fall of the victim. And
depending on who the director wants you to sympathize
with, it becomes either a dark thriller about
human cruelty or a fast -paced comedy where the
swindler is a charming rogue outsmarting a corrupt
system. It really bends to whatever the creator
needs. Exactly. The word is incredibly flexible.
Which brings up another fascinating piece of
media on this list. It's not just the moving
image. The source notes a bimonthly arts and
culture magazine simply named Swingle that ran
from 2004 to 2009. That's a great example. Why
would an arts publication name itself after a
crime? Think about what underground or avant
-garde art tries to do. It tries to expose the
artificiality of mainstream society. Right, pulling
back the curtain. By choosing Swindle as its
title, that magazine was actively co -opting
the word. It suggests that the word isn't just
about criminal behavior anymore. It's a subversive
statement. It's a reclamation. They're winking
at their readership. They're essentially saying...
The real swindle is corporate culture or mainstream
consumerism, and we are the ones exposing the
trick. They're letting the reader in on the con.
Which perfectly sets up the final and I think
the most surprising conceptual leap we see on
the stage. Where are we going next? Well, because
up until now, whether we're talking about an
island in Canada, a Fellini film, or an arts
magazine, we've been passive observers. Right.
We live on the island, or we watch the movie,
or we read the article. But the final category
here forces us to transition from passively watching
a deception to actively participating in one.
Ah, so we move out of the realm of narrative
and into the realm of strategy. Here's where
it gets really interesting. Right at the top
of this final section is a definition for swindle
as a specific highly technical chess term. Chess,
of all things. Yeah. The source defines it as
a ruse by which a chess player in a losing position
tricks his opponent. A ruse from a losing position.
That context changes the entire emotional weight
of the word. It totally flips the script. A chess
window isn't just a malicious fraud. It's like
throwing a smoke bomb when you're completely
cornered in a laser tag match. That's a great
way to picture it. Imagine you're down to your
absolute last hit point. Your opponent has you
pinned behind a wall. They're closing in, completely
confident they've won. They think it's over.
And instead of surrendering, you pull off this
wildly unexpected desperate illusion that causes
them to shoot their own teammate, allowing you
to escape. In this context, the word completely
morphs. Yeah, it really does. It goes from being
a greedy street crime into a brilliant desperate
survival tactic. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, you can see how interactive formats
completely reframe our moral judgment of deception.
How do you move? When a con artist steals money,
it's a crime because it violates the social contract.
Right. But when two people sit down at a chess
board, they are entering a sealed artificial
universe where the explicit goal is to outsmart
the other person. The social contract is temporarily
suspended. Exactly. In that arena, deception
isn't a crime. It's a tool. And a chess swindle
specifically relies on exploiting the opponent's
psychology. Playing the player, not just the
board. Yes. The opponent thinks they're winning.
They experience cognitive ease. They drop their
guard. The player in the losing position weaponizes
that overconfidence against them. Wow. The swindle
becomes an honorable, almost heroic display of
intellect against overwhelming odds. And because
it's interactive, you are the architect of the
deception. You are the one throwing the smoke
bomb, which is exactly what happens in video
games, too. The 2015 game, right? Yep. The source
explicitly lists a 2015 video game titled The
Swindle. You aren't watching someone pull off
a heist. You are the one holding the controller,
hacking the systems, executing the ruse. You're
invited to appreciate the cunning nature of the
trick from the inside. Which finally explains
something that was really bothering me on this
list. What's that? If a swindle was purely an
evil destructive act, you would absolutely never
find it in children's media. Good point. But
the source lists Gordon Corman's 2008 children's
novel simply titled Swindle. It was a huge hit,
even became a 2013 television film. Why are we
handing children a manual on confidence tricks?
Well, consider the alternative. If you shelter
a child entirely from the concept of deception,
they become the perfect mark. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Teaching children the mechanics of a swindle
through a novel or a TV movie acts as a psychological
inoculation. An inoculation. I like that. You
give them a safe, dead version of the virus,
so they... build immunity. Exactly. You're allowing
them to explore the concepts of trust, betrayal,
and manipulation in a completely safe controlled
environment. Through a story. Right. They learn
how to recognize a trap by reading about characters
who fall into one or characters who have to use
a clever ruse to defeat a bully. It demystifies
the manipulation. It takes the power away from
the real world con artists. That makes so much
sense. It's very practical. But we cannot wrap
up this section without mentioning the absolute
most surreal evolution of the word on this entire
page. I think I know where you're going with
this. We've gone from a crime to a place to a
movie to a chess move. But we also have to talk
about the Transformers universe. The action figures
in the cartoons. Yes. The disambiguration page
specifically notes that Swindle is the name of
several fictional characters in the Transformers
franchise. Think about the linguistic journey
that represents. It's wild. It goes from a verb,
an action you do to someone, to being personified
as a distinct, walking, talking character trait.
The hustle personified as a giant, sentient robot.
In the context of a Saturday morning cartoon,
Character names are heavily coded. If a child
sees a character named Optimus or Valor, they
know exactly what moral framework that character
operates within. Right, the good guys. But a
character named Swindle, that tells you immediately
that they are the wild card. They are the manipulator.
Their allegiance isn't to a noble cause. Their
allegiance is only to the hustle itself. Yeah.
It turns a complex psychological concept into
a visual archetype. It is brilliant branding.
You know exactly who not to trust with your energon
cubes. So stepping back from all of this, looking
at the entire landscape of this one seemingly
boring Wikipedia period, it is kind of mind blowing.
It really expands your perspective. We started
with a single dry definition at the top of the
page, a kind of fraud. And what did it turn into?
A rather comprehensive map of human behavior
and psychology. Think about the journey we just
went on. For you listening, we looked at a simple
word for a con job. And that single word connects
a floating space rock millions of miles away
in the freezing dark to a 1955 Federico Fellini
cinematic masterpiece about post -war desperation,
to an intricate desperate survival tactic on
a chessboard, to a giant transforming robot.
It's quite the list. All living side by side,
bullet point by bullet point. This raises an
important question though about how the digital
world organizes human knowledge. What do you
mean? Well, when you look at a disambiguation
page, you are seeing vastly different human endeavors
stripped entirely of their traditional hierarchy.
Stripped of hierarchy? How so? Well, in the real
world, an ancient celestial body is fundamentally
different from a 2015 indie video game. And a
legendary Italian film is culturally categorized
differently than a 2008 children's book. Sure,
they don't usually sit next to each other in
a library. Exactly. They occupy different spheres
of importance. Yet here, On this one digital
crossroads, they are presented as absolute equals.
They're linked only by the arbitrary phonetic
sounds we use to label them. That's fascinating.
It forces you to realize that language is the
ultimate chaotic equalizer. It is the great leveling
field. Federico Fellini holds the exact same
weight as Gordon Corman. The cosmos holds the
same weight as a game of chess. It is all just
data under the umbrella of a single word. It
is a beautiful kind of disorder. Well, as we
wrap up this deep dive into the anatomy of a
swindle, I want to leave you with one final thought
to chew on. Something for you to think about
the next time you look up at the night sky or
the next time you sit down to play a game. We've
established today that a swindle can be both
a desperate, brilliant move to save a losing
chess game and a permanent piece of rock silently
orbiting our sun. a wide spectrum. So consider
the people who hold the power to name things
in our world. Think back to that astronomer we
talked about at the very beginning, the one who
first spotted that rock through a telescope,
calculated its trajectory, and then officially
submitted the name Asteroid 8690 Swindle to the
international registries. Right. Was that astronomer
just pulling a fast one on the rest of us? Were
they, in fact, executing their own quiet permanent
cosmic swindle? A delightfully paranoid possibility
to consider. Something to keep you awake tonight,
wondering if the universe itself is in on the
joke. Until next time, keep driving deep.