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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

>they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they are willing to break //

Isn't this true of almost everyone in society - whether it's jaywalking, or [minor] speeding, or not declaring income, or under-age drinking, or taking a sick day, or 'borrowing' a ream of paper from the office, or ...

My point I guess is that scamming people online doesn't seem to be a gateway to violent crime or anything like that??

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Well, I suppose you could argue that the extra risk is the knowledge they have gathered as part of being a scammer. Knowledge being power and all that. A jaywalker doesn't know your phone number, where you live, and where your wife works.

Hopefully the scammer doesn't either, but hopefully this still conveys the point.

Edit: There's a difference too; jaywalking et al do not implicitly harm other people. I don't know all the legal intricacies, but theft (scams) is different.

You listed a series of victimless crimes to prove that two crimes that do have victims are unrelated?

Yup. And besides, it's an easy buck from some chumps, not a 1000$/day job you can get by buying my book and following my internet unlock steps!

Your Parent is insane to think that simply breaking rules means people have no ethics or morals themselves. Everyone is a dynamic person, and IMO someone who screws people within the confines of the law can be just as bad if not worse.

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