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Why our fears of being scammed are corrosive and damaging

10 points by robaato 3y ago

onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]
sparrowInHand 3y ago
Thats the future. One gigant mexican stand off, between automated systems. You write "Hi" and a chat GPT instance is spun up, optimized to waste your time, shadowbanned and thinking your in conversation. Analysis about your intent and your likelihood of being a real person is gathered, and might allow the conversation to escalate towards a real person, battling with the anxiety of isolation and the paranoia. This is not even HN, this is a generated version, to keep you away from the real site for spamming.
jstarfish 3y ago
I expected to be outraged at this (was waiting for the day articles started to come out in favor of normalizing fraud) but was pleasantly surprised. However: > This aversion to special treatment is a form of prejudice that relies on an automatic reaction: perceive a scam, repudiate the scammers. If members of a marginalised social group are seen as genuinely asking for equality, then they are making a deep moral claim that’s hard to dismiss. Morally and intuitively, the right response to inequality is solidarity and cooperation. But if those people are instead perceived as asking for “special favours”, then it seems morally optional to grant what they want. And if they are thought to be asking for special treatment but pretending they only want equality, that just seems like a scam, a reason to reject them out of hand. While true, the author ignores the fact that this play leverages emotional manipulation (guilt) over perceived injustice (there is never investigation, trial, or even any critical thought) to unfairly tip the scale in one's favor. Decrying it as "special treatment" is being generous-- in practice it's outright cheating. You change the rules so you're evaluated on ability to evoke pity instead of earned merit, by jailbreaking the arbiter. Small wonder all these overprivileged white kids on TikTok claim to have more disabilities than aging Vietnam War vets; it's ludicrous but that's what it takes to tare the scale and be able to compete again. You optimize for what works. Times and values change; honesty and merit are disadvantageous strategies in a now-kleptocractic society. What the author suggests was accurate at one point in history, but has since been hijacked by opportunists of all stripes (the "Oppression Olympics"). I daresay that the author failing to pick up on this makes them a...sucker.
lapcat 3y ago
> If I can be fooled by a peer, or even by someone whom I thought had a weaker position than mine, that takes me down a peg. The fear of that social demotion helps explain a common tendency that people have to guard against exploitation by outsiders and strivers more vigilantly than exploitation by those with the power to do real harm. Wow, I never thought of it that way, but it explains a lot.

10 points by robaato 3y ago

[dead]

Thats the future. One gigant mexican stand off, between automated systems. You write "Hi" and a chat GPT instance is spun up, optimized to waste your time, shadowbanned and thinking your in conversation. Analysis about your intent and your likelihood of being a real person is gathered, and might allow the conversation to escalate towards a real person, battling with the anxiety of isolation and the paranoia. This is not even HN, this is a generated version, to keep you away from the real site for spamming.

jstarfish 3y ago

I expected to be outraged at this (was waiting for the day articles started to come out in favor of normalizing fraud) but was pleasantly surprised. However: > This aversion to special treatment is a form of prejudice that relies on an automatic reaction: perceive a scam, repudiate the scammers. If members of a marginalised social group are seen as genuinely asking for equality, then they are making a deep moral claim that’s hard to dismiss. Morally and intuitively, the right response to inequality is solidarity and cooperation. But if those people are instead perceived as asking for “special favours”, then it seems morally optional to grant what they want. And if they are thought to be asking for special treatment but pretending they only want equality, that just seems like a scam, a reason to reject them out of hand. While true, the author ignores the fact that this play leverages emotional manipulation (guilt) over perceived injustice (there is never investigation, trial, or even any critical thought) to unfairly tip the scale in one's favor. Decrying it as "special treatment" is being generous-- in practice it's outright cheating. You change the rules so you're evaluated on ability to evoke pity instead of earned merit, by jailbreaking the arbiter. Small wonder all these overprivileged white kids on TikTok claim to have more disabilities than aging Vietnam War vets; it's ludicrous but that's what it takes to tare the scale and be able to compete again. You optimize for what works. Times and values change; honesty and merit are disadvantageous strategies in a now-kleptocractic society. What the author suggests was accurate at one point in history, but has since been hijacked by opportunists of all stripes (the "Oppression Olympics"). I daresay that the author failing to pick up on this makes them a...sucker.

lapcat 3y ago

> If I can be fooled by a peer, or even by someone whom I thought had a weaker position than mine, that takes me down a peg. The fear of that social demotion helps explain a common tendency that people have to guard against exploitation by outsiders and strivers more vigilantly than exploitation by those with the power to do real harm. Wow, I never thought of it that way, but it explains a lot.