This email inbox screenshot from January 8, 2026 is an example of a spate of similar pitches intended to alarm or provoke an automatic (defensive motion) reaction. Ideally, the person looking through mostly authentic inbox messages will stumble onto one of these - sort of like a buried landmine that explodes when activated - and anxiously search for a "contact us" or "help" button. Once they have demonstrated a living person is attached to the email account and can be lured into revealing name, address, and bank account, then the theft of identity and assets is practically complete.
Thanks to malevolent and perverted use of Artificial Intelligence to craft "truthy" websites, text messages, robocalls, and email messages, the difference between actual senders and bogus ones is sometimes hard to distinguish. It goes without saying that a generation ago - long before the current crop of A.I. and slop that it discharges in volume and in diverse versions - such things were beyond even science fiction. Merely to describe how the psychological games and triggers are engineered would exceed most people's imaginations around 1999. In 2026, though, expectations for decency, honesty, accountability, and outrages of excess and of neglect have shifted. Many people under the age of 60 have very low expectations. Their 'normal' includes abuse, fraud, and corruption at small and at large scale, perhaps in line with the daily lowering of the bar set by POTUS, #TrumpConvictedFelon. Where all these declines in social infrastructure, hollowing out of social capital (trustworthiness), and impoverished cultural capital, and agitation of emotional reserves will lead is an open question. But it does not leave a lot of room for common decency, common sense, common good, or hope.
