ks2048 2 days ago

There seems to be an analogous concept of the Second Law of Thermodynamics - everything in society will tend towards scams if not actively opposed.

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jsheard 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is like a fractal scam, you've got gambling against the house (already a scam) with crypto (so there's no regulators to stop them rigging the games) and then instead of waiting for statistics to take their course they just run away with everyone's money.

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Nextgrid 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Don't forget the final dimension of the scam where they also scam the affiliates by doing a rug-pull. Scam-ception.

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bombcar 2 days ago | parent [-]

Once you realize that many scams are scams against those looking to scam others it all becomes clear.

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ronsor 2 days ago | parent [-]

Then is it ethical to create a scam to scam people who are trying to scam others?

	▲	bombcar 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's what the scammers tell themselves; but those trying to scam are often not the smartest of the bunch, so you are taking advantage of them in some way.
	▲	quantummagic 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Enroll in my online course, to get the answer to that any many other questions.

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noduerme 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Gambling against the house is not in itself a scam as long as the games aren't rigged and the odds and payouts are as advertised. A game with negative EV is not a scam if it's entered into knowingly by a player.

For my money, games where people pay to win worthless digital goods are far more scammy than a fair game of Blackjack in Vegas where you actually might come out up.

The other aspects you mentioned are the scam.

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beeflet 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ironic that crypto gives people the tools for provably fair gambling

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burnte 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Without regulation and enforcement many people will give the buyer less and less until they give the buyer nothing and it winds up a scam.

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elliotto 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The optimal strategy in a resource acquisition game with no rules is usually just to kill all the other players. This results in really bad nash equilibria where everyone is dead.

I think about this as entropic decay - the lowest energy state of a social system (Hobbes' state of nature).

Lucky it is possible to create social and economic systems that use cooperation to produce better individual and group utility (dissipative structures). But there is a particular arm of politics that is currently dismantling these to feast on their cores.

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fennecbutt 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because on average individuals trust each other and a scam usually presents itself as a bit cheaper or a bit better enough that it acts as an attractor.

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N_Lens 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Scams definitely seem to be more entropic than honest enterprise.

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BobbyJo 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Seems like a recent thing IMO. Social media has caused some people's perception of reality to get so far out of whack that they think being denied Ferrari and a beach house is an act of persecution, and they are willing to go to any lengths go right that wrong.