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My parents are the same age and have already been scammed a few times. I set up similar rules but I am afraid they might get sucked in again. I don’t understand

My parents are the same age and have already been scammed a few times. I set up similar rules but I am afraid they might get sucked in again. I don’t understand why law enforcement isn’t doing anything about this. Surely the surveillance dragnet they’ve set up over the last few decades can tell them who is making 750,000 calls a day to elderly people in the US?

IshKebab 4y ago
Yeah it's people in Nigeria etc.
smolder 4y ago
U.S. political will to make positive and reasonable changes, like legislating that telecoms crack down on scam call sources or prevent spoofing, seems to have fallen apart. So many people are caught up in culture wars, there's only one thing they care to get behind, and it's taking our country back from those terrible, immoral, brain dead people on "the other side". Voters don't deviate from their tribe, so there's little incentive as a candidate to deviate from standard tribe policy, and so votes are inutile with respect to policy. If there's a private sector solution to the scam calls that can be charged heavily for, that's what we're most likely to get. The competent parts of government aren't concerned with this stuff. Congress has to make it a concern, but they mostly toil on behalf of corporate lobbyists. Lobbyists aren't hired to help society at the expense of who they represent. Intelligent, informed voters and honest politicians would have solved this and many other problems already, but we're extremely far from that ideal, and I think still trending away. I've wondered before if posting in HN threads like this one is a better way to influence policy than going to the polls, since someone with influence could be reading. Maybe what I should actually be doing is writing to my representatives, as that's probably more impactful than either.
- jliptzin 4y ago
  You can do it all; going to the polls takes the least amount of effort out of anything else.

IshKebab 4y ago

Yeah it's people in Nigeria etc.

smolder 4y ago

U.S. political will to make positive and reasonable changes, like legislating that telecoms crack down on scam call sources or prevent spoofing, seems to have fallen apart. So many people are caught up in culture wars, there's only one thing they care to get behind, and it's taking our country back from those terrible, immoral, brain dead people on "the other side". Voters don't deviate from their tribe, so there's little incentive as a candidate to deviate from standard tribe policy, and so votes are inutile with respect to policy. If there's a private sector solution to the scam calls that can be charged heavily for, that's what we're most likely to get. The competent parts of government aren't concerned with this stuff. Congress has to make it a concern, but they mostly toil on behalf of corporate lobbyists. Lobbyists aren't hired to help society at the expense of who they represent. Intelligent, informed voters and honest politicians would have solved this and many other problems already, but we're extremely far from that ideal, and I think still trending away. I've wondered before if posting in HN threads like this one is a better way to influence policy than going to the polls, since someone with influence could be reading. Maybe what I should actually be doing is writing to my representatives, as that's probably more impactful than either.

jliptzin 4y ago
You can do it all; going to the polls takes the least amount of effort out of anything else.