The Guardian:

In the end, Adam Wheeler, a 24-year-old who conned his way into Harvard and benefited from more than $40,000 (£26,000) in grants and prizes, flew too close to the sun. Not content with having bragged his way into one of the world’s most prestigious universities, he felt driven to apply – equally fraudulently – for Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships.

The application was a deception too far, and led to the discovery of a string of lies that this week earned Wheeler 10 years on probation and the order to repay Harvard $45,806. He pleaded guilty to all 20 counts against him, including larceny, identity fraud and pretending to hold a degree.

”I’m ashamed and embarrassed by what I’ve done,” he told a Massachusetts court in a voice so quiet it was barely above a whisper. ”As much as possible, I want to put this behind me and move forward.”

Wheeler’s impressive record of deceit began in 2007 when he was expelled from Bowdoin College in Maine for plagiarism. Instead of reflecting on the wrong he had done, he went the other direction, developing a whole new persona and turning lying into an art form.

Även när lögnarna försöker upphöja deras oärlighet till en konst misslyckas de, precis som de måste göra.

Det finns en vidare lärdom att dra av detta. Jag har hört folk, till och med objektivister, säga att om oärliga människor åtminstone till en början ”kommer undan” med sina lögner, då kommer de med viss rätt att dra slutsatsen att oärlighet fungerar. Men det är en förhastad generalisering som inte motiveras av vad de vet. Så länge de inte vet varför det ”fungerar”, har de ingen grund för sin generalisering. Deras slutsats är inte mer berättigad än spelare som tror att de har listat ut hur de ska satsa, bara för att bollen alltid har hamnat på rött i en runda roulette. Detta är känt som ”the gambler’s fallacy”:

The gambler’s fallacy is the fallacy of assuming that short-term deviations from probability will be corrected in the short-term. Faced with a series of events that are statistically unlikely, say, a serious of 9 coin tosses that have landed heads-up, it is very tempting to expect the next coin toss to land tails-up. The past series of results, though, has no effect on the probability of the various possible outcomes of the next coin toss.

Oärlighet lönar sig inte – inte i längden. Precis som spelare som faller för the gambler’s fallacy, lurar oärliga människor i slutändan bara sig själva.