Ok pals I have a fun Friday treat for you: for the past SEVERAL YEARS, someone has managed to convince Sam Harris & Eric Weinstein that aliens are real and that the Intellectual Dark Web members will be the ones to help reveal it to the world https://skepchick.org/2023/03/whos-pranking-sam-harris-eric-weinstein-about-ufos/
On several different podcasts over several years, Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein have separately volunteered that a secret government operative has chosen to reveal mind blowing classified information to them. Why them? They never seem to wonder. https://old.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/119uj73/is_somebody_pulling_an_elaborate_hoax_on_eric/
@rebeccawatson Like you said, greed and hubris. Ny favorite saying is relevant here. "If an honest person finds out he is wrong, he either ceases to be wrong or he ceases to be honest."