Vincent F. Hendricks: Professor, Director | Center for Information and Bubble Studies | University of Copenhagen

SUCKER NATION | NEW BOOK | MAY 2026

Posted on Jan 22, 2026

SUCKER NATION
The Philosophy of Trading Wits for Vanity

Vincent F. Hendricks
New York: Springer Nature, 2026
ISBN 978-3-032-22787-4



Vincent F. Hendricks’s Sucker Nation asks the questions ‘Why do intelligent, informed people continue to participate in systems they privately distrust?’ and ‘Why does exploitation persist even when manipulation is widely recognized?’ This timely book argues that the answer lies in a structural ‘hustler/sucker’ distinction—not a matter of intelligence or morality, but of epistemic asymmetry and failed common knowledge. Drawing on game theory, epistemic logic, and the philosophy of attention, it shows how rational agents can become trapped in equilibria where acting reasonably still means paying a price, i.e. trading wits for vanity.

“At a time when the President of the U.S. appears to see everything in terms of deals and when most activities in life have been given a financial value there should be more than a little attention paid to a book with a title like Sucker Nation … Politicians of all stripes have often been seen as hustlers and there is little doubt that at least a couple currently operating could be put into that category. The problem is that, by not playing the game, many of their opponents could end up looking like suckers.” – Roger Trapp, Forbes, June 1, 2026

From financial markets and crypto bubbles to political communication, online scams, and platform society, agency itself becomes the resource that others extract. This book shows that to act, one must be visible; to be visible is to be exploitable. Insight does not dissolve this condition—it clarifies it. What remains is a tragic form of agency: damaged, unavoidable, and still necessary. A must-read for all those who have online lives – that means all of us …

Power Games – Attention Economy – Vanity – Getting Played – Modern Agency

A new theory of exploitation without deception
The book shows how hustler/sucker dynamics persist even among rational, informed agents, replacing familiar stories of ignorance and bias with a rigorous account of epistemic asymmetry and failed common knowledge.

A unified framework across markets, media, academia and politics
Crypto bubbles, day trading, fake news, online scams, academic publishing and platform capitalism are analyzed using the same formal and philosophical structure, revealing a single logic behind seemingly unrelated phenomena.

Game theory meets tragedy
By grounding modern agency in epistemic game theory and Aumann-style reasoning, the book reframes rational choice as inherently tragic: Wisdom arrives inseparably from loss, and no strategy restores innocence.

Vanity redefined as infrastructure
Drawing on attention economics, the book reconceives vanity not as narcissism but as a structural requirement of agency—explaining why “trading wits for vanity” is rational, unavoidable, and exploitable.

A non-moralizing diagnosis of modern vulnerability
Rejecting blame, cynicism, and self-help solutions, the book offers a sober philosophical diagnosis of why no one can fully escape being a sucker—and what responsible agency looks like after that realization.

SUCKER NATION (2026) is the second installment of the trilogy also including What About Me Ism (2025) and Nobody Cares (2027):

1. Whataboutmeism: Insights from Game Theory, Behavioral Economics and Moral Philosophy (2025)

Whataboutmeism argues that when citizens prioritize personal validation over shared facts, democracy devolves into a zero-sum game of competing egos.

2. Sucker Nation: The Philosophy of Trading Wits for Vanity (2026)

Sucker Nation shows how the digital attention economy strips away individual autonomy by trapping even rational agents in exploitative, high-visibility power games.

3. Nobody Cares: The Philosophy of Indifference (2027)

Nobody Cares warns that the ultimate cost of this hyper-individualism is a state of mass apathy where the collapse of mutual concern makes collective democratic action impossible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1: Hustlers, Suckers and the Price of Being Seen

CHAPTER 2: The Hustler’s Game for Suckers

CHAPTER 3: No Common Knowledge in Sucker Nation

CHAPTER 4: Hustlers, Suckers and Bubbles

CHAPTER 5: Hustlers, Suckers and Attention

CHAPTER 6: Hustler/Sucker Platforms

CHAPTER 7: Wits, Vanity and Authenticity

CHAPTER 8: The Tragedy of Agency

CHAPTER 9: Escaping the Trap

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

REFERENCES

PRESS

Cover: Nanna Grunwald

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