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Comment by sweezyjeezy | Hacker News Reader

May I ask - do you have first-hand experience of poverty? Do you understand what that means, and why these people may be more susceptible to make mistakes like this? Do you really believe that it is a good thing that they are getting scammed out of what little they have?

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Yes, I grew up poor in a single parent household. Generic food brands at discount grocery stores, clothes from thrift stores, etc. I know what being poor is.

>Do you really believe that it is a good thing that they are getting scammed out of what little they have?

Do you really believe that's what I said? I said I have no sympathy for people who choose to lose their money in irresponsible ways. I believe people have agency and they should be held accountable for their decisions. That's part of being an adult. The alternative to that is: daddy government tells everyone what they're allowed to do with their money, because nobody has any responsibility.

It doesn't need to be mutually exclusive. Did these people ultimately make the decision themselves? Yes. Do people know that those in poverty are prone to being nudged to make these sorts of "investments" because of the psychology behind scarcity? Also yes. I certainly have sympathy that they're preyed upon.

Do casinos prey on the vulnerable? Does the state lottery? That's not where I draw the line for "preyed upon." When I think "preyed upon", I think of a con artist who is orchestrating bad situation to make it very difficult to escape from. That bar is much higher than what I see with crypto.

Preyed upon can use a multitude of psychological biases as tools for the deception. Crypto does that, it masquerades as this new exciting thing that's making a lot of people a lot of money. As any gold rush would tell you, greed will push people to their psyche's limits, they will fall more easily for scams given that the return might be enormous, friends will betray friends to invite them over to their scam being run in the midst of this chaos of greed.

It's a layered preying system it's taxi drivers suddenly making bank from crypto and telling other taxi drivers to join in (as I've seen happening in Brazil). It's a lucky hippie artist stumbling upon a pump-and-dump group when researching stuff for a residency, making bank and explaining to their family how they can also do it. The hippie then starting a community in some tropical paradise and funding it with the schemes they barely understand while helping his friends to join on the pump-and-dump.

People are more willing to join if they can see someone they know recommending them some strategy to make money. A lot of people will think it's iffy and miss out, and feel pretty down when they see others that weren't so smart joining in the hype and making bank. So they might join as well.

If you go to any poor country with internet access right now you'll hear about crypto. In ads, from taxi drivers, from tourism workers, etc., a lot of vulnerable people to be preyed upon and sustain the scam for a little bit longer.

The scammers don't really need to run the scheme anymore, it's self-perpetuating, a meme.

A stochastic system of preying upon financially illiterate, desperate and/or greedy people.

Casinos absolutely do. There's a litany of stories about casinos enabling gambling addicts by offering them free rooms, drinks, food, flights, whatever it takes, to keep them coming back because they know these people have a psychological condition which they can profit off of. It's exploitation.

Active vs passive is where I draw the line. Passively being enticing is not the same as actively coercing someone to do something. If passively enticing is considered preying, then the number of things in the world that "prey upon" people goes up by orders of magnitude. Fast food restaurants are now preying upon people by posting delicious advertising. It becomes a meaningless term.

> I believe people have agency and they should be held accountable for their decisions.

Sure, are you in favor of prosecuting the innumerable influencers who convinced them in the first place? Surely they had agency in deciding whether to illegally shill scams or not.

You said they deserve it, most people think it's good when people get what they deserve. You see my confusion.

You can believe that someone deserves negative outcomes that are the direct consequences of their bad decisions, but also think that neither their decisions nor the consequences are good.

> I feel absolutely no sympathy

Is there a question in there?

I feel for the poor, or middleclass, person who is losing on crypto.

I do not feel for the wealthy boys whom have been taking advantage of essentially free money (ridiculously low interest rates for way to long) that speculated on crypto for basically bragging rights.

I always felt crypto platforms should have put limits on accounts. A few grand at most.

If they crash--I will bet it's due to wealthy boys gambling with crypto.

Basically the only members of society that could get those 0 few point loans were the wealthy.

It seems like they didn't even believe in the movment? All they wanted was a quick buck, and bragging rights at the hootenannies they frequent.

It's the poor people, and middleclass, whom were tired of .0025% on their cd that were enticed.

Sure they should have gone with a Vanguard----but didn't really have enough to invest to make it really worthwhile.

Crypto seemed like the better option besides Lottery tickets.

The poor/middle will be able to collect a bit of interest on CD's with rates rising. I would love to get 5% on a CD.

I have no clue to whether crypto will live, or die. I still regret not buying the three graphic cards I had in my Amazon Cart a few years ago though.

I was so close to building my rig, but thought you guys were right, and crypto was a bad bet.

I have found you guys wrong on pretty much every prediction, but believe you on crypto.

Irregardless of who wins, crypto wasen't a crazy idea. I just have a feeling the wealthy boys ruined it for everyone, as usual, by being greedy with their huge leveraged transactions.

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