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This excerpt seems to lack perspective. What email scam has taken people for over a dozen billion dollars[1]? And that's just a single example. The OP article

This excerpt seems to lack perspective. What email scam has taken people for over a dozen billion dollars[1]? And that's just a single example. The OP article also seems to be highly colored nostalgia. Really, a "market" with numerous "rules not written in any book that you adhered to, or else" is believed to be a paragon of efficient markets? I do believe it was a party in there, just not one that anyone but the most well connected and capitalized had any access to. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

minimax 12y ago
I do believe it was a party in there, just not one that anyone but the most well connected and capitalized had any access to. Except it was the exact opposite of that. The archetypal Chicago futures pit trader was a normal guy off the street, usually without a college degree, who managed to scrape together a few thousand dollars to cover the margin for a couple of contracts.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Were/are pit traders primarily trading their own money? My impression is that they were/are essentially hired guns for the big money on the other end of the phone.
  - minimax 12y ago
    In the pit you have a mixture of brokers (near the outside) who are working orders for financial institutions and other clients, and prop traders (a.k.a. "locals") who are trading their own money.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
peri 12y ago
coughs I'm not sure what time zone you're in, but my folks have been scammed like this since tulips were a thing.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Right, people have been scamming each other face-to-face since history has been recorded (uh, slavery?). The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. It's text on an LCD screen. Most spam doesn't even get to my eyes and on the rare occasion that it does, it goes straight to the trash bin.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. Right or wrong, the assertion seems to be not that email makes the scam itself easier, but that it lessens the social impact on the scammer (making it easier to decide to be a scammer, and ignore the impact you are having on the other person).
    - jsprogrammer 12y ago
      Sure, but if the scammer doesn't have an environment within which s/he can exist, s/he won't be around for long.
      - peri 12y ago
        I am cool with the content of your messages in this thread, but you should be aware that many of us come from linguistic backgrounds with more complicated nomnitive reference sets than (he || she).
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    You have me really curious. What's the connection between scamming and slavery?
a3n 12y ago
I think the point is not that email makes scamming more efficient or effective, which seems to be what you're disputing, but that because it's not face to face, it's easier for someone to cross the line and be a scammer, since there's no immediate face to face social feedback to discourage it. The same thing happens when someone in car screams and swears at someone for not driving up to expectations, or not getting out of the crosswalk in a timely manner. That same screamer would never do that at work, because of immediate social pressure if nothing else. Distance and darkness does less to inhibit unchecked corruption than regular social feedback.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  To be a scammer means that you have successfully scammed people. Just sending out bogus emails is not a scam, you need to successfully extract money or some other object from a real person. Face to face contact is a powerful tool for a scammer, it is a much more personal interaction, and as has been noted, is something that the wannabe email scammer lacks. Projecting confidence at another human and being able to read and respond to their responses in real-time is pretty much the basis for the entire cottage industry of con-men. Email is very impersonal and is easily ignored.
- NittLion78 12y ago
  I think this is a fair point, and it may be one that is really difficult to grasp now in 2015. But, after 20 years of not doing business face-to-face, what effect will that have on the trustworthiness of transactions when it becomes the norm? I'm neither doomsaying nor cheerleading, but it's something worth watching.

minimax 12y ago

I do believe it was a party in there, just not one that anyone but the most well connected and capitalized had any access to. Except it was the exact opposite of that. The archetypal Chicago futures pit trader was a normal guy off the street, usually without a college degree, who managed to scrape together a few thousand dollars to cover the margin for a couple of contracts.

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Were/are pit traders primarily trading their own money? My impression is that they were/are essentially hired guns for the big money on the other end of the phone.
- minimax 12y ago
  In the pit you have a mixture of brokers (near the outside) who are working orders for financial institutions and other clients, and prop traders (a.k.a. "locals") who are trading their own money.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

peri 12y ago

coughs I'm not sure what time zone you're in, but my folks have been scammed like this since tulips were a thing.

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Right, people have been scamming each other face-to-face since history has been recorded (uh, slavery?). The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. It's text on an LCD screen. Most spam doesn't even get to my eyes and on the rare occasion that it does, it goes straight to the trash bin.
- pyre 12y ago
  > The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. Right or wrong, the assertion seems to be not that email makes the scam itself easier, but that it lessens the social impact on the scammer (making it easier to decide to be a scammer, and ignore the impact you are having on the other person).
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    Sure, but if the scammer doesn't have an environment within which s/he can exist, s/he won't be around for long.
    - peri 12y ago
      I am cool with the content of your messages in this thread, but you should be aware that many of us come from linguistic backgrounds with more complicated nomnitive reference sets than (he || she).
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  You have me really curious. What's the connection between scamming and slavery?

a3n 12y ago

I think the point is not that email makes scamming more efficient or effective, which seems to be what you're disputing, but that because it's not face to face, it's easier for someone to cross the line and be a scammer, since there's no immediate face to face social feedback to discourage it. The same thing happens when someone in car screams and swears at someone for not driving up to expectations, or not getting out of the crosswalk in a timely manner. That same screamer would never do that at work, because of immediate social pressure if nothing else. Distance and darkness does less to inhibit unchecked corruption than regular social feedback.

jsprogrammer 12y ago
To be a scammer means that you have successfully scammed people. Just sending out bogus emails is not a scam, you need to successfully extract money or some other object from a real person. Face to face contact is a powerful tool for a scammer, it is a much more personal interaction, and as has been noted, is something that the wannabe email scammer lacks. Projecting confidence at another human and being able to read and respond to their responses in real-time is pretty much the basis for the entire cottage industry of con-men. Email is very impersonal and is easily ignored.
NittLion78 12y ago
I think this is a fair point, and it may be one that is really difficult to grasp now in 2015. But, after 20 years of not doing business face-to-face, what effect will that have on the trustworthiness of transactions when it becomes the norm? I'm neither doomsaying nor cheerleading, but it's something worth watching.