As these frauds get more sophisticated, it won't just be "dumb" money getting burnt. The answer to "someone stole this from me" isn't "well you shouldn't have been so dumb" - whether it is your wallet, a package from your doorstep, or a bit. Theft is theft.
Bitcoin forums are filled with people that are both incompetent and well off, that's going to attract sharks. For similar reasons Google brought in investment advisers pre IPO to educate staff that where about to become targets.
PS: That's not to say any form of theft is ok. Just locked doors keep people honest and let police focus on more important things.
The above says nothing about people who do rob banks.
This example isn't even one of those murky ethical grey areas around property (see: copyright law extensions, squatters' rights, medieval concepts of hunting rights, privatization of public resources, farmers' rights to re-grow seeds, etc.) - it's out-and-out theft.
PS: Look up Duty of Care, people can share responsibility even if a third party is commuting a crime. Placing a 10 lb solid gold statue on your roof and advertising this is is not just negligent, but flat out dangerous.
If everyone walked around holding a loaded gun, you would see far more gun violence. That has nothing to do with morality, just impulse control.
I am not saying people are not responsible for their own actions. Just that forms of crime prevention do actually work.
The whole subthread kind of looks like you're disagreeing with the idea that theft is theft.
> I am not saying people are not responsible for their own actions. Just that forms of crime prevention do actually work.
So we agree on that. My point is that it's not either-or - effective crime prevention doesn't make a crime not a crime.
I don't. If you're reading that into what I said that's on you.
A mass murder will commit fewer crimes in solitary confinement. That does not mean solitary confinement makes them a better person, or not a murder. It simply prevents future murders. So, the concepts are independent.
When dealing with electronic goods, where do we draw the line with theft. Even in video games, electronic goods do have an effective market value (even if real money trading is banned), and there have been a few court cases surrounding items of great value. Often times the items stolen has a market value too small to be worth investigating, but what of the cases where there is a significant investment. Eve Online has some interesting cases where the market value being above a few thousand US dollars. Diablo 3 use to have a real money auction house with items worth up to $300, and with a gold market that allowed for items to be sold for even more than that.
Now, Diablo 3 bans scams and would take action against players engaging in them. But in Eve Online, it looks like some of the tactics used are allowed. In another game, Path of Exile, scamming people is allowed (and there even seems to be some protections for scammers). While Path of Exile bans real money trading, there is still a black market and certain items do have a market value, some worth noticeable amounts.
And while I can't think of any case yet, it would be possible for a video game to be created where the in game currency is a crypto currency that is usable outside the game as a crypto currency as well.
I'm not saying we should legalize all scamming, but I do think it is worth discussing further where we draw a life, if we draw a line, and what that line looks like.
legit question, has there ever been an online scam that isn't obvious after an hour of research?
rhetorical question, is it reasonable to expect people to do an hour of research before "investing"
>The answer to "someone stole this from me" isn't "well you shouldn't have been so dumb"
Sometimes the answer really is "you shouldn't have been so dumb". "People shouldn't steal" is not a blank cheque to be negligent.
There are a lot of unsophisticated "investors" who cannot differentiate investing from gambling.
We have experience with extra-systemic irrational exuberance. Too light-tough and the risks contaminate broader markets, thus fomenting a crisis. Too heavy and the risks go underground. There they (a) fuel broader criminality and/or (b) metastasize into the broader markets, thus fomenting a crisis.
A strategy focussing on three things emerges from the literature:
1. Stomp out obvious, easy-to-enforce-against fraud. This keeps regulators engaged, helps keep everyone wary and removes fuel from the fire.
2. Monitor lending channels. In the late stages of a bubble, the devoted few will borrow to buy. Run properly, this transfers wealth from them to those exiting. What you don't want is for said zealots to re-transfer their risk to lenders e.g. by buying on a credit card.
3. Support prudent, de-leveraging instruments used by sophisticated investors. You want a controlled place where the smart money can slowly exert countervailing pressure without causing a panic. Bitcoin futures, which encourage sober shorting while causing the effects of a bad bet to come home to roost every day, are a good example.
The best general-use analog I've found for bubble control is riot control, some principles of which are described in this video [1].
I can see the argument for allowing people to use unregulated services, but legalizing fraud and misrepresentation seems like insanity to me.
Imagine buying anything in a market where fraud is legal... you’d never know what you’re actually buying.
A guy famously did that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGCdBsOIKYA
Why should the rest of society pay for their inability to protect themselves? I've got mine.
(As soon as this becomes policy, I'll be looking for, ah, business partners.)
I find this an abhorrent behavior that predates the uneducated. We have failed as a society to provide some people, actually a lot of people, with a good education. That people has a hard time defending themselves. Your solution to our failure is to let them being victims of scammers as punishment for being born with a lack of resources.
This is not only morally wrong but even from a purely utilitarian perspective only creates an incentive for companies to move from normal business to legalized scam practices.
> I know saying this makes me unpopular Take this as constructive feedback. This way of starting your comment creates the same kind of feeling than starting your sentence with "I'm not racist but...". It doesn't add anything to the conversation and it looks like you are trying to excuse something that yourself find wrong to start with.