Deserving Trust

Popehat

How could you earn trust, even as a commentator?

Focus on values. The best path to deserving trust is focusing on values rather than personalities or factions. Values can be principled; factions can't. Which values? That's up to you. What do you care about? It might be due process of law and equality before it, or limited government, or freedom of expression. If you are open about what values are important to you, open to discussing why those values are worthy and how heavily they should weigh in the balance, and open in your analysis of why particular policies promote or weaken those values, you can earn trust and credibility. If you focus instead on teams, and treat the virtues of one team as self-evident, you won't. The goal is not to persuade everyone or to "win." Some righteous values are unpopular and always will be. The goal is to offer the clearest, the best-supported, the most principled defense of the values you care about.

Question essentialism. Part of focusing on values is being skeptical of essentialism. Essentialism is the belief (for instance) that Trump is bad because Trump is bad and therefore things Trump proposes must be bad. Essentialism is the loudest voice in our political culture. The Koch brothers support that, it must be bad! That's a Hillary Clinton proposal, so it's liberal and awful! Essentialism is popular and persuasive with people who already agree with you, but to everyone else it's a signal not to trust you, because your analysis is nothing more than "red team is bad." Essentialism is also seductive, because it carries with it a feeling of belonging.

Asking who proposed a policy — or asking cui bono — can be a good starting point, but it's not an endpoint. The endpoint has to be an analysis of the act or policy, not just the source of it. Essentialism writes off a large segment of America — be it "conservative" or "liberal" — as irredeemable, and therefore abandons any effort to persuade those people that your values are the right ones, or that you are worthy of trust.1

Praise what is right. If you focus on values, you'll support policies that promote those values, even if you don't like the source. A politician you don't like will probably do some things right. Praise them when that happens. It's the right thing to do, it promotes the value you care about, and it earns trust.

Criticize what is wrong. People you support will make wrong choices that are bad for your values. Say so. Ignore party loyalists who complain you are "concern trolling." In fact, this ought to be your first priority. Start with the mote in your own eye. It's essential to trust.

Be skeptical. There's tons of misinformation out there. Much of it will support your views. Be skeptical. When you bite on a bogus story — and we all will — be forthright afterwards in noting that the story was false and you bit on it.

Promote knowledge. You have specialized knowledge of some sort. That knowledge can be relevant to policy debates. Support the debates by sharing the knowledge. Provide primary documentary support for the knowledge — in a world of easy hyperlinks, there's no excuse not to — and try to make the knowledge accessible. In other words, "here's the facts, and here are the sources of the facts, and here's how to read the sources" is preferable to "I'm right because I'm an expert." (Except on Twitter, obviously).

You can do absolutely everything right and some people will still belittle you because of who you are or what values you support. That's fine. Get over it. The goal isn't forcing people to agree. The goal is offering the best possible defense of the values you care about, and — hopefully — in the process earning trust from people who can be persuaded, from people willing to change their minds.

Citizen journalists don’t need “Press Credentials” — but that badge may help

Citizen journalists don’t need “Press Credentials” — but that badge may help

...The ACLU also cautions against breaking any unrelated laws, like trespassing, while photographing or videotaping. Pretty simple, right?Yet the police harassment of citizens with cameras or video recorders continues. About the only thing that police will respect– sometimes – is a display of press credentials.& Enter the Constitution First Amendment Press Association, or CFAPA. Started by James Rawles, survivalblogger and author of several
post-apocalyptic best-selling books, the CFAPA website will issue free press credentials and a press badge.
Here is how it works: go to the CFAPA website, found at cfapa.org, read and agree to the Constitutional Journalist’s pledge and member terms. These essentially spell out ethical rules for journalists and provide indemnity for CFAPA. Then download and fill in your name and date of issuance for your press credentials and badge. The press badge would also need a recent photo before you laminate it. That’s it!
Even for someone who does not intend to seek and record the actions of the police in public, it is good to have the CFAPA press credential and press badge handy, just in case. And besides, they are free. CFAPA operates on donations, or sales at its Amazon store, which, humorously, lists for sale trench coats and fedora hats. Presumably, wearing this will enable the citizen journalist to look like one of the reporters in the movie His Girl Friday. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously,” Rawles told me.
But the CFAPA Amazon store also contains more serious items like press badge holders, cameras, voice recorders, books on reporting style and dealing with the police.

6 hostage negotiation techniques that will get you what you want - The Week

6 hostage negotiation techniques that will get you what you want - The Week

Not just for hostage situations.

It's not something that only works with barricaded criminals wielding assault rifles — it applies to most any form of disagreement.
There are five steps:
1. Active Listening: Listen to their side and make them aware you're listening.
2. Empathy: You get an understanding of where they're coming from and how they feel.
3. Rapport: Empathy is what you feel. Rapport is when they feel it back. They start to trust you.
4. Influence: Now that they trust you, you've earned the right to work on problem solving with them and recommend a course of action.
5. Behavioral Change: They act. (And maybe come out with their hands up.)
The problem is, you're probably screwing it up.

How I learned a language in 22 hours | Education | The Guardian

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/nov/09/learn-language-in-three-months (via shareaholic.com)

Ed had moved on to other things and co-founded an online learning company called Memrise with a Princeton University neuroscience PhD named Greg Detre. Their goal: to take all of cognitive science's knowhow about what makes information memorable, and combine it with all the knowhow from social gaming about what makes an activity fun and addictive, and develop a web app that can help anyone memorise anything – from the names of obscure cheeses, to the members of the British cabinet, to the vocabulary of an African language – as efficiently and effectively as possible. Since launching, the site has achieved a cult following among language enthusiasts and picked up more than a quarter of a million users.

10 Dirty Negotiation Tactics and How to Beat Them

Link: http://www.openforum.com/articles/10-dirty-negotiation-tactics-and-how-to-beat-them (via shareaholic.com)

Here's how to spot 10 tactics that many negotiators use. These have nothing to do with the win-win successful agreements of a good negotiation. Learn what to do when somebody pulls these tricks. Awareness of these tactics can strengthen your own negotiation skills.

1. Left at the altar - The other party feigns backing out of a deal just before you are ready to complete the agreement. Hoping the tactic brings the other party closer to their position, the tactic often yields 11th-hour concessions.
   Your countermeasure: Don't fall for the bait. Let the deal drop and go through a quiet period. Try resurrecting the deal after no less than 30 days, or when the other party calls you. At that point, it will be your turn to get concessions.

2. Making balloon futures - The other party forecasts future sales growth, which is accelerated from historic averages. This is similar to the "call-girl principle," in which a service is worth more before it's performed.
   Your countermeasure: Base your decision or price only on past history. Make future bonuses or payouts available if accelerated growth actually happens.

3. Calling a higher authority - The other party says that they are unable to make a final decision or won't tell you who the final decision maker is.
   Your countermeasure: Stop negotiating until you are discussing directly with that decision maker. You are wasting your time and energy.

4. Crunch time - The other party applies a lot of pressure by saying, "that's nonsense, you have to do much better than that."
   Your countermeasure: Use the "flinch" tactic, showing shock and amazement that this issue has been raised. Repeat the offer you just made.

5. Bring in the dancer - This is when a member of the other party talks for a long time without saying anything substantive to the real issues. This is usually intended as a distraction. This can also be a snow job, bringing in unnecessary data to support the other party's position.
   Your countermeasure: Ask, "specifically, what does this have to do with what we are talking about?" Repeat several more times if necessary.

6. Re-trading the deal - The opposite party attempts to reopen points from the negotiation after agreement has been reached. This is also called "forgotten issue."
   Your countermeasure: Simply say no. Call them out for breaking the agreement. This may become "left at the altar" (#1).

7. Huntley and Brinkley - Two people for the other party team up against you at the same time.
   Your countermeasure: If you can't handle the pressure, get someone to join you or ask to negotiate with only one person at a time.

8. Turning Soviet - A really mean negotiator that doesn't care if the your side gets anything out of the deal. This is the opposite of win-win.
   Your countermeasure: Ask for someone else to negotiate with and don't start again until your request is granted.

9. The walkout - Deliberately walking out of a negotiation to show disinterest.
   Your countermeasure: Let them walk out. If they do not come back, leave. Do not call them for a month.

10. Roaring brains - These are people that talk a lot with no real experience in a particular area.
    Your countermeasure: Do the research so you have the facts to question their experience and data.

PJ Lifestyle » 4 Crucial Techniques for Reprogramming Yourself into A Better Person

PJ Lifestyle » 4 Crucial Techniques for Reprogramming Yourself into A Better Person

So, here’s a question: Since you’re being programmed by outside sources on a day in, day out basis, why not run some of your own programming that’s designed to make your life better? There are a number of ways to do it.

Generic Iconoclasm vs. Some Sensible Things You Were Taught in School

Ruth Stout, who once wrote a book on the virtues of mulching and composting in her garden, once joked, "when I go to plant seeds, I read the instructions on the back of the packet and then carefully violate every one of them."

Here are nine rules to carefully violate.

Generic Iconoclasm vs. Some Sensible Things You Were Taught in School

via The Volokh Conspiracy by Eugene Volokh on 5/8/12

(Eugene Volokh)
Forbes runs this item:

Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School

Be aware of the insidious and unspoken lessons you learned as a child. To thrive in the world outside the classroom, you're going to have to unlearn them.

Dangerous things you were taught in school:

1. The people in charge have all the answers. That's why they are so wealthy and happy and healthy and powerful — ask any teacher.

2. Learning ends when you leave the classroom. Your fort building, trail forging, frog catching, friend making, game playing, and drawing won't earn you any extra credit. Just watch TV.

3. The best and brightest follow the rules. You will be rewarded for your subordination, just not as much as your superiors, who, of course, have their own rules.

4. What the books say is always true. Now go read your creationism chapter. There will be a test.

5. There is a very clear, single path to success. It's called college. Everyone can join the top 1% if they do well enough in school and ignore the basic math problem inherent in that idea.

6. Behaving yourself is as important as getting good marks. Whistle-blowing, questioning the status quo, and thinking your own thoughts are no-nos. Be quiet and get back on the assembly line.

7. Standardized tests measure your value. By value, I'm talking about future earning potential, not anything else that might have other kinds of value.

8. Days off are always more fun than sitting in the classroom. You are trained from a young age to base your life around dribbles of allocated vacation. Be grateful for them.

9. The purpose of your education is your future career. And so you will be taught to be a good worker. You have to teach yourself how to be something more.

I've always been quite skeptical of this sort of generic iconoclasm, for three related reasons: (1) It debunks categorical assertions that the debunkees actually rarely make in that categorical a way, and that in case are obviously wrong if made so categorically. (2) This debunking is rarely useful, because just as "always" assertions are rarely right where practical matters are involved, "not always" assertions are rarely useful. (3) The things being debunked are actually often pretty good rules of thumb for daily life, which are right more often than not; friendly amendments pointing out the exceptions can be helpful (especially if they are specific rather than generic), but categorical attempts at debunking miss the general wisdom in the rules.

For instance, behaving yourself is often more important than getting good marks. Sometimes even knowing when to question the status quo and when to follow it is important, as is knowing when to at least temporarily follow conventional wisdom (especially in an environment where error can cause a lot of damage) instead of coming up with your own approaches. But beyond that, "behaving yourself" in the sense of learning how to operate productively within an organization of two or more people, in a way that maximizes results while minimizing needless friction with your colleagues, superiors, and subordinates, and needless pushback from people who see you as misbehaving is a tremendously important life skill in a vast range of occupations. Even geniuses need it, and ordinary people who will have to work closely with others and will rarely have the "he's rude and a pain in the neck, but he's brilliant" excuse need it even more.

As to the purpose of education, schools rarely teach that the only purpose of your education is your future career (especially since many literature and history teachers realize that such an argument will go only so far with their students). But throughout your life you'll want access to goods and services, and unless you try to force people to give them to you, you'll need to offer something in return; in our society, many of the things you offer require specialized knowledge, which a good education will help give you. And while college is certainly not a very clear, single path to success, and it won't get you to "the top 1%," for many people it's a pretty important part of the path to careers that are both more financially and intellectually rewarding.

Likewise, the best and brightest follow the rules the great majority of the time, and we take it for granted because it's "just following the rules." They follow rules about how to do good science, how to write well, how to craft effective arguments, how to operate within organizations, how to deal with other people's understandings of what is their property or institutional bailiwick, and so on. Of course, they realize that to succeed in really big and innovative ways they need to do more than follow the rules. "Always follow the rules, and nothing more" would be lousy advice. But "learn the rules well, because they are the repository of important wisdom accumulated through the efforts of many smart people, and then think creatively about how to go beyond the rules or even break some rules" is good advice.

What's true of the rules is also true of the books and of the messages passed along by people in authority. What the books say isn't always true, but they have a lot of truth in them, and 99% of what we need to know we learn from the books (especially if we learn how to find the right books). Similarly, the people in charge often have some pretty important answers — again, answers that are so important and foundational that we take them for granted (once we learned them from people in charge).

That's true of specific knowledge about particular academic subject matters; teachers are hardly perfect, but they know some important information that most students need to learn to succeed. It's also true of "answers" in the sense of character traits that are conducive to success: Answers to questions such as, "Should I work hard?," "Should I invest for the future?," "Should I work well with others?," and so on; and these answers do tend to make people more "wealthy and happy and healthy and powerful," though of course they are not perfectly correlated with success.

Finally, while learning doesn't end when you leave the classroom, standardized tests don't measure your entire value, and days off aren't always more fun than sitting in the classroom, few schools seek to try to teach that, and my sense is that few students actually learn this. Rather, classroom learning — if done right — is an important part of your learning, being able to demonstrate your abilities even in the imperfect way that tests capture is important in a society where employers and universities have to sort through thousands of applications, and classroom learning even at a good institution can involve kinds of work that aren't as fun as what you can do on your own but are still important.

So if the Forbes column is merely saying "remember that the practical rules for life that you're taught in school are true only most of the time, and always think about whether some occasion is an exception to the rule," then it's correct but banal to the point of uselessness. And if it's trying to say that those rules really are things that you have to outright "unlearn," to the point of actually rejecting them much of the time, then it seems to me to be generally wrong.

Online Textbooks for Free

Online Textbooks for Free

Bookboon: They have some neat books. Thoroughly peppered with ads, but still quite useful.

Protecting Your Privacy at International Borders

Protecting Your Privacy at International Borders

via Schneier on Security by schneier on 1/11/12

The EFF has published a good guide.
My own advice is here and here.

100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads

100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads

via Largehearted Boy by david on 10/17/11

Every day I offer 10 free and legal mp3 downloads and bonus live recordings in this blog's Daily Downloads feature. In almost 10 years of music blogging, I have gathered quite a collection of bookmarks to repositories of free and legal music downloads.
These sites range from the huge (the Free Music Archive and Live Music Archive each hosts tens of thousands of mp3s) to the tiny (They Might Be Giants offers a single track a week), but all are free and legal sources, and great places to discover new music and beef up your music library.
Do you have a favorite site for free and legal music downloads? What sites have I missed? Feel free to leave a comment.

The list of 100 online sources for free and legal music downloads:

3hive - music blog
Alina Simone - singer-songwriter
Amazon MP3 - online store with albums and singles
Aquarium Drunkard - live sessions
Barsuk Records - record label
The Bay Bridged - live sessions
Beat the Indie Drum - record label
Better Looking Records - record label
Better Propaganda - music site
Big Ugly Yellow Couch - live sessions
Boompa Records - record label
Bradley's Almanac - live concerts
Caught in the Carousel - music site
Cloud Chapel Records - record label
Daytrotter - live sessions
Deep Elm Records - record label
Donewaiting - live sessions
Drag City - record label
EardrumsPop - record label
Epitonic - music site
Fat Wreck Chords - record label
Fingertips - music blog
Free Albums Galore - music blog
Free Music Archive - music site
Free Music Is Awesome!!! - music site
Fuel/Friends - live sessions
Green Label Sound - music site
Guided By Voices - band
Halfway House Music - live sessions
Hallelujah the Hills - band
HearYa - live sessions
Hometapes - record label
Hush Records - record label
Indiecater Records - record label
Insound - music store with free mp3s
Insubordination Records - record label
Jagjaguwar - record label
Jane Siberry - singer-songwriter
Jealous Butcher Records - record label
John Vanderslice - singer-songwriter
Josh Ritter - singer-songwriter
The Key - live sessions
Kill Rock Stars - record label
La Societe Expeditionnaire - record label
Labrador Records - record label
Lapdance Academy - music collective
Largehearted Boy - music blog
Last.fm - social music community
LaundroMatinee - live sessions
Live Music Archive - live concerts
Lujo Records - record label
Lullabyes - live concerts
Magnet Magazine - music magazine
Mashable - technology blog
Matablog - record label blog
McGuinn's Folk Den - Roger McGuinn's folk covers
Misra Records - record label
MountainGoats.net - Mountain Goats fansite
Nels Cline - guitarist
New Weird Australia - record label
No Idea Records - record label
No Sleep Records - record label
NoiseTrade - music site
nyctaper - live concerts
The Occasional Archivist - live concerts
Old 97's - band
Pitchfork - music site
Planet Claire - live sessions
Radiohead Not for Profit - live Radiohead downloads
RCRD LBL - music blog
Recording LA - live concert downloads
Records on Ribs - record label
Robert Pollard - singer-songwriter
Rock Proper - record label
Secretly Canadian - record label
Serious Business Records - record label
Sigur Ros - band
Silber Records - record label
Sinewave - record label
Song, by Toad - in-studio sessions
Song, by Toad Records - record label
Sound as Language - music blog
Southern Shelter - live concert downloads
SPIN - music magazine
Spinner - music blog
Stereogum - music blog
Strange Attractors - record label
SubPop - record label
Sweet Adeline - Elliott Smith official website
The Switchboard Sessions - live sessions
Team Love - record label
They Might Be Giants - band
Thrill Jockey - record label
Tim Fite - singer-songwriter
Triple J - Australian indie rock radio station
True North Records - record label
Urban Outfitters - free indie rock compilations
Violitionist - live sessions
Visible Voice - live concert downloads
XO Publicity - indie rock publicity firm

also at Largehearted Boy:
other lists at Largehearted Boy
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

NAS makes 4000 science books free for download

NAS makes 4000 science books free for download: "The press release … FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The National Academies Press Makes All PDF Books Free to Download; More Than 4,000 Titles Now Available Free to All Readers WASHINGTON — As of today all PDF versions of books published by … Continue reading →"

Instapundit » Blog Archive » LIST: Some bug-out bag recommendations. Related: A bug-in bag. “Basically a bag to get you hom…

Instapundit » Blog Archive » LIST: Some bug-out bag recommendations. Related: A bug-in bag. “Basically a bag to get you home…

LIST: Some bug-out bag recommendations.Related: A bug-in bag. “Basically a bag to get you home should SHTF while you’re away from your house.”
Plus, survival on the cheap. Still more here.

DIY Western Civ Courses

Instapundit has some answers: THE OTHER DAY, READER JASON WHITWORTH ASKED: “For those of us that were in school in the late 80’s/early 90’s and never had a Western Civ course, can you or your readers recommend one?”
Why, yes, he can. Or his readers can.

An anonymous reader emails: “Try The Rise of The West – W H McNeill…”
Rev. Todd Hester emails: “Glenn, Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation is forty years old now, but peerless in my estimation. Clark was an avowed humanist and anti-Marxist, and it showed. I was an English major in the early nineties; it was the basis for my humanities coursework, and was still deeply relevant. I suspect it is more so now.”
Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “In response to Mr. Whitworth, let me bang the drum for Jacques Barzun’s, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present. A life’s worth of scholarship has been distilled in this work. Beautifully written, Barzun takes you on a grand 500 year tour of the Western world that will leave you in awe of all that has preceded you, but also in awe of a model of classical scholarship that Barzun represents.” I read that, and it’s excellent.
Linda Seebach emails: “Columbia’s course was called Contemporary Civilization, and Amazon has a number of used copies at reasonable prices (new are ~ $85). I took a version at Gettysburg in the late ’50s, but I don’t think that was ever commercially published. Also links to reading list, study guides online, for instance at http://www.wikicu.com/Contemporary_Civilization.”
Reader Dwight Green writes: “I saw the request one emailer made for Western Civ classes. There are many online courses available now at sites like Academic Earth (http://academicearth.org/) or Open culture (http://www.openculture.com/). There really is a burgeoning online industry for courses that I’m happy to see. For those that feel overwhelmed at taking courses, their best bet may be exploring the flourishing world of book blogging. Anyone interested, even casually, in reading is sure to find several that fits their tastes and style. For example, I’m currently working my way through Thucydides and posting my thoughts on it…it’s a challenging read but so well worth it.”
Josh Mandir sends: “I think a good start on Western Civilization is the book Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson. It covers 9 battles in world history from the Battle of Salamis to the Vietnam War, describing the unique properties of Western Civilization. I learned more about Western Civilization (and, really, history overall) than I did in college.”
Reader William Berry emails: “In response to reader Jason Whitworth’s query about a course in Western Civ for one who missed out on it the first time around, I would suggest the seminar reading list at St. John’s College, available at this link . There is Western civilization, laid out in all its glory. St. John’s is the best college most people have never heard of, where the humanities still flourish. Our eldest son is a student there now, and loves it. But if you can’t go there, the next best thing is to work through the readings on your own.”
Claudia Brown writes: “Your reader who’s looking for a Western Civilization course might consider purchasing the textbooks to the Providence College (Rhode Island) two-year Civ core. Two of my kids went to Providence, and we were really impressed with the course. During various campus visits we met other parents who had themselves attended Providence, and looked back on the Civ course as one of the best they ever took, regardless of what they ended up majoring in or what profession they pursued. (You don’t declare a major at Providence until late in Sophomore year — that’s a good sign.) Even without a course, I’m sure the readings textbook would be valuable.”
Andrew Morriss writes: “The Teaching Company has many, many marvelous courses on the essentials of western civilization. Prof. Rufus Fears’ courses on Rome are spectacular – he’s got a great voice! The best ‘why we got rich’ book is Deidre McCloskey’s Bourgeois Dignity – fabulous, well written, erudite, etc. Basically: don’t kill entrepreneurs and be nice to them and your society will prosper. It is the only explanation that fits the data. Her web page is here, and her website has the book for downloading, reviews (including mine), etc.”
Speaking of how-we-got-rich, the classic is Nathan Rosenberg’s How The West Grew Rich. Many readers recommended this.
Reader Will Danford recommends Roots Of Freedom: A Primer On Modern Liberty. “It was written (by my dad – sorry) for college students, but it was adapted from lectures delivered via Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty before the wall fell. It’s a concise summary of the Western political tradition.” Nothing wrong with plugging your dad’s work.
Reader Jonathan Good recommends this video series on the Western Tradition.
And, of course, if you’re in a big hurry, there’s always Andrew Klavan’s video history of Western culture in 2 1/2 minutes.

5 Rules for Coping with Tragedy

1. First reports may be wrong. At least, follow the "48-hour rule".
2. Don't politicize the tragedy -- you're more likely than not to be wrong.
3. Don't blame heated rhetoric. Rhetoric is always heated.
4. Keep the tragedy in context.
5. Letislate carefully. (Indeed, craft policy at any level carefully.)

Fwd: A New Breed of Debt Collectors

Megan McArdle writes about:

 A New Breed of Debt Collectors

The last decade or so has given rise to a new version of an old phenomenon:  the bottom feeding debt buyer.  It's often thought of as being linked to the bad economy, and perhaps it is, a little bit--businesses in trouble are probably more willing to look to their old collections as a source of revenue. But it's also a result of increasing improvements in computer technology.  It's easier to aggregate very small amounts--say, hundreds of unpaid co-pays from a doctor's office.  Those debts can be unloaded at pennies on the dollar to firms which then use the interwebs to find their victims debtors and dun them for cash.


Often these firms don't bother with the abusive high-pressure tactics that are used for large sums--the hourly wage on collecting $29.99 just isn't a good use of resources.  But that's small comfort, because instead, they file blizzards of lawsuits against people who they can't find, resulting in default judgements against someone who may not owe the money, or may not realize they owe.  And those hundreds of aggregated small debts hit the credit reports of people who probably didn't intend to skip out on a $15.87 termination fee when they cancelled some utility, but now can't get a car loan because there's a black mark on their credit.

Moreover, there's a booming market in old debt, which may be purchased for a penny on the dollar.  These collectors aren't merely behaving badly; they're breaking the law.  There are good reasons for statutes of limitations, which is why we have a whole law, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which says that you cannot attempt to collect any debt older than seven years.  (Unless you're the IRS or a student loan lender, because why on earth would Uncle Sam have to follow the laws it makes for everyone else?)

....

So as a public service, here are some tips for anyone who gets contacted about a years-old debt they didn't even know existed.  I can't vouch for them personally, but they are the accumulated lore of many years of personal finance reporting:

1. You have a right to validation of the debt.  Demand that they provide documentation that the debt is legitimate--and no, a name and an account number do not count as "documentation" of a debt; they are documentation that they have a name and an account number.  Demand this in writing, with a certified letter return receipt requested.  They have thirty days to provide validation; if they fail to, they may not legally continue to collect the debt and must remove it from your credit report.
2. It is illegal to collect a debt after the statute of limitations has run out in your state.  This varies by state, but you can find out what it is online.
3. Debt collectors are not allowed to contact your neighbors or your employer (unless they have an order for garnishment).  They can contact you at work, but once you have told them that they can't contact you there, they are bound by law to honor that.
4. Debts must come off of your credit report seven years and six months after the date they were incurred--not the date that the latest bottom-feeder reported them.  It is illegal to report a debt after that date.
5. It is illegal to threaten you with anything other than a judgment.  They can't tell you they'll take your car or whatever.
6. Here's the fun part:  if you report them to the FTC, they get fined at least $1,000 for each violation (that would be one phone call to your office after you've told them not to call there).  Most debt collectors aren't very well trained, and will repeatedly violate the FDCPA without even knowing it.  (Or, frankly, caring)
7. You can also sue them in small claims court, secure a judgement, and maybe even sell that judgement to . . . another collections agency.
8. You are perfectly free to record your calls as long as you inform them of this; if they won't consent to the recording, say, "I'm sorry, but I don't talk to anyone unless they consent to recording" and hang up.  In many states, it is illegal to record someone without their consent, so don't do this unless you know that one-party consent is legal in the state where you live, and the state where they are calling from.  In general, the hang-up is your best friend; use it liberally, along with certified cease-and-desist notices when they violate your rights.