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I always have mixed feelings when someone is warned about the riskiness / foolishness / stupidity of a course of action, and then suffers for it. On the one ha

I always have mixed feelings when someone is warned about the riskiness / foolishness / stupidity of a course of action, and then suffers for it. On the one hand, there's a certain satisfaction or Schadenfreude in the sense of vindication. And it's pleasant to feel like my own wisdom or self-control has been validated. OTOH, I know that everyone has limited wisdom / self-control / intelligence, including me. So it seems hypocritical to mock someone who trips, knowing that I'm just lucky to sometimes avoid the hazards that would trip me up. In the end, about the only conclusions I'm really confident in is that trouble besets us all, and usually it's good to default to kindness and sympathy. EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: I'm not saying that I want swindlers to succeed. I want such predation crushed into dust. My comment is about the people who don't intend harm to others.

blackoil 4y ago
It is in line of 'a death is tragedy, a million statistics.' when thousands of people are losing it in a ponzi scheme, it becomes a matter of memes and I told you so.
- Tao3300 4y ago
  Something Stalin may have said regarding the Soviet war dead is irrelevant here. Hypothetically speaking, if I really did warn someone, and they told me to "have fun staying poor!" or I pointed out the potential for a catastrophic collapse and the founder dismissed it as "r_tarded" and comparable events came to pass... I say bring on the memes for those people.
  - cosmodisk 4y ago
    That's exactly what I got told. Then there was something about yachts and champagne. Yeah, right
arcticbull 4y ago
All that 'ngmi' culture is coming home to roost. This isn't a bunch of kind old grandmothers getting suckered in by Madoff.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  I'm seriously waiting for my grandmother to tell me about how her broker just got her into crypto.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    A bunch of Canadian pensioners are in precisely that scenario: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-caisse-pension-fund-invest-celsius-crypto-crash/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-...
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Hot take: It’s fine when it happens to extreme hubris with paper wealth. It is not fine when it was someone unsophisticated chasing the herd who lost a meager sum that was meaningful to them. Comedy vs tragedy. Same thing with Archegos (Bill Hwang) and their rapid failure. It’s the hubris that makes it fun to poke fun, the sun blastin’ Icarus’ wings clean off. (no crypto exposure)
- DIARRHEA_xd 4y ago
  That take is far from hot. Tragedy has two inputs: What happened, and who it happened to.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    And comedy has two inputs: pain, and distance
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Tao3300 4y ago
  One of the things I noticed in the whole Terra/Luna drama is that there were lots of people on Twitter who seemed downright confused. People who didn't know where their money went or why. People who had complicated arrangements where their holdings were in the wrong kind of thing to get the 2.0 airdrop who hardly seemed to understand what they were talking about well enough to ask coherent questions. Those people make me sad. They got fleeced. Maybe they got lured in by the promise of easy money and should have known better, but that doesn't make it pleasant to watch lambs driven to the slaughter. The other kind, the ringleaders and the ones gloating "HFSP" during more bullish times. That's comedic gold.
  - DaveExeter 4y ago
    HFSP = Have fun staying poor
  - 4y ago
jjtheblunt 4y ago
Maybe you're feeling that there's a repressed positivity in a lesson learned?
BenoitEssiambre 4y ago
Note that the longer this lasts, the more people are going to get hurt in scams, the earlier it all collapses the more will be saved. It does make sense to be pleased when a societal danger is reduced, not to mention the environmental impact, money laundering etc.
cjbgkagh 4y ago
A fool and their money are soon parted. The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it affects the rest of us. It’s not just the extra tax of having to care for the newly impoverished. My former local community went all in on a bitcoin scam, they made commissions on new entrants so I never heard the end of it. I only talked about it when asked but my warnings not only fell on deaf ears I was effectively ostracized as people were worried that I would talk new entrants out of it. “Don’t talk to that guy, he’s a no-coiner who doesn’t want you to be rich, he’s ngmi”. It was worse than Amway. Even after the crash many of them still avoided me, I guess now out of embarrassment, or worry that I would shove it in their faces like they did to me. I would never. It destroyed the community and many local businesses. Edit: just found out which one it was, it was USI Tech. It failed 4 years ago so it’s not even part of the latest crop. Just sad that it keeps happening.
- rngname22 4y ago
  Could you expand a bit? It sort of sounds like you're describing a small town or a social circle / social scene where everyone got involved in some particular altcoin or something and invested a ton of their personal savings into it while encouraging others to do so as well, is that essentially it? Crazy if so.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    That’s essentially it, a small town where everyone knew each other and all hung out in the same bars. I didn’t pay attention to which one it was, I do remember hearing crazy interest, like >40%. I think you also got a cut from new entrants as well, so it reeked of pyramid + ponzi.
    - zeven7 4y ago
      I'm fascinated that some kind of place like this existed. I've only lived in large cities and the picture I've gotten of small towns from trips and media hasn't prepared me for the idea of a whole community that collectively buys into a get rich quick scheme.
siskiyou 4y ago
This is why the industry is functionally begging for government regulation
mbar84 4y ago
Worse than paper shuffling about and numbers changing in a computer is when peoples behaviours change due to such foolishness. People who thought they could retire early but should have been continuing to work. People who bought cars and propped up an industry that should have been shrinking, freeing up resources for other parts of the economy to grow. People who built houses with resources that could have been put to better use and which now stand empty.
dgudkov 4y ago
People may not have a choice about being wise or not. But being greedy or not is definitely a choice. Let's not pretend that obscene ROI promised by the cryptoindustry didn't play a role in seducing so many "uneducated" people to put their money into coins. These people deliberately decided to suppress their gut feeling that told them "it's too good to be true" and you didn't.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

blackoil 4y ago

It is in line of 'a death is tragedy, a million statistics.' when thousands of people are losing it in a ponzi scheme, it becomes a matter of memes and I told you so.

Tao3300 4y ago
Something Stalin may have said regarding the Soviet war dead is irrelevant here. Hypothetically speaking, if I really did warn someone, and they told me to "have fun staying poor!" or I pointed out the potential for a catastrophic collapse and the founder dismissed it as "r_tarded" and comparable events came to pass... I say bring on the memes for those people.
- cosmodisk 4y ago
  That's exactly what I got told. Then there was something about yachts and champagne. Yeah, right

arcticbull 4y ago

All that 'ngmi' culture is coming home to roost. This isn't a bunch of kind old grandmothers getting suckered in by Madoff.

datavirtue 4y ago
I'm seriously waiting for my grandmother to tell me about how her broker just got her into crypto.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  A bunch of Canadian pensioners are in precisely that scenario: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-caisse-pension-fund-invest-celsius-crypto-crash/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-...

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Hot take: It’s fine when it happens to extreme hubris with paper wealth. It is not fine when it was someone unsophisticated chasing the herd who lost a meager sum that was meaningful to them. Comedy vs tragedy. Same thing with Archegos (Bill Hwang) and their rapid failure. It’s the hubris that makes it fun to poke fun, the sun blastin’ Icarus’ wings clean off. (no crypto exposure)

DIARRHEA_xd 4y ago
That take is far from hot. Tragedy has two inputs: What happened, and who it happened to.
- mellavora 4y ago
  And comedy has two inputs: pain, and distance
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Tao3300 4y ago
One of the things I noticed in the whole Terra/Luna drama is that there were lots of people on Twitter who seemed downright confused. People who didn't know where their money went or why. People who had complicated arrangements where their holdings were in the wrong kind of thing to get the 2.0 airdrop who hardly seemed to understand what they were talking about well enough to ask coherent questions. Those people make me sad. They got fleeced. Maybe they got lured in by the promise of easy money and should have known better, but that doesn't make it pleasant to watch lambs driven to the slaughter. The other kind, the ringleaders and the ones gloating "HFSP" during more bullish times. That's comedic gold.
- DaveExeter 4y ago
  HFSP = Have fun staying poor
- 4y ago

jjtheblunt 4y ago

Maybe you're feeling that there's a repressed positivity in a lesson learned?

BenoitEssiambre 4y ago

Note that the longer this lasts, the more people are going to get hurt in scams, the earlier it all collapses the more will be saved. It does make sense to be pleased when a societal danger is reduced, not to mention the environmental impact, money laundering etc.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

A fool and their money are soon parted. The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it affects the rest of us. It’s not just the extra tax of having to care for the newly impoverished. My former local community went all in on a bitcoin scam, they made commissions on new entrants so I never heard the end of it. I only talked about it when asked but my warnings not only fell on deaf ears I was effectively ostracized as people were worried that I would talk new entrants out of it. “Don’t talk to that guy, he’s a no-coiner who doesn’t want you to be rich, he’s ngmi”. It was worse than Amway. Even after the crash many of them still avoided me, I guess now out of embarrassment, or worry that I would shove it in their faces like they did to me. I would never. It destroyed the community and many local businesses. Edit: just found out which one it was, it was USI Tech. It failed 4 years ago so it’s not even part of the latest crop. Just sad that it keeps happening.

rngname22 4y ago
Could you expand a bit? It sort of sounds like you're describing a small town or a social circle / social scene where everyone got involved in some particular altcoin or something and invested a ton of their personal savings into it while encouraging others to do so as well, is that essentially it? Crazy if so.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  That’s essentially it, a small town where everyone knew each other and all hung out in the same bars. I didn’t pay attention to which one it was, I do remember hearing crazy interest, like >40%. I think you also got a cut from new entrants as well, so it reeked of pyramid + ponzi.
  - zeven7 4y ago
    I'm fascinated that some kind of place like this existed. I've only lived in large cities and the picture I've gotten of small towns from trips and media hasn't prepared me for the idea of a whole community that collectively buys into a get rich quick scheme.

siskiyou 4y ago

This is why the industry is functionally begging for government regulation

mbar84 4y ago

Worse than paper shuffling about and numbers changing in a computer is when peoples behaviours change due to such foolishness. People who thought they could retire early but should have been continuing to work. People who bought cars and propped up an industry that should have been shrinking, freeing up resources for other parts of the economy to grow. People who built houses with resources that could have been put to better use and which now stand empty.

dgudkov 4y ago

People may not have a choice about being wise or not. But being greedy or not is definitely a choice. Let's not pretend that obscene ROI promised by the cryptoindustry didn't play a role in seducing so many "uneducated" people to put their money into coins. These people deliberately decided to suppress their gut feeling that told them "it's too good to be true" and you didn't.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]