This essay isn’t to explain the solution to the Monty Hall problem—you can look that up anywhere—but to ask a related question: why does it seem to drive some people crazy? Why do they get so attached to their wrong answers, and so upset by the correct answer? That’s weird, right? People don’t usually care enough about math problems to get worked up over them, but there’s something about this particular problem that really pushes people’s buttons.

We are in a golden age of grift. Where adventurers once flocked to California or the Yukon because “there was gold in them thar hills,” the fastest way to get rich today is by fleecing suckers. We’ve got crypto rug pulls, meme stocks, nutritional supplements, MLMs—anything to make a quick buck. Fraud is hardly a new phenomenon. The Great Depression brought with it a wave of con artists, mythologized in movies such as Paper Moon or The Sting.