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The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

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Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? A lot of the investigative reporting I've seen covers women targets. Maybe they just think women make better stories, but women do spend more time on dating apps than men. Women participate differently, but they definitely participate, and women are extremely vulnerable to emotional exploitation.

Women absolutely make better stories. I saw a crypto scam article with a fairly attractive girl who *could* of probably meet someone in real life. Instead she let a crypto scammer take her for like 300k. Her dad was scammed too and invested another 200k. The entire story was shaped to make her look like a victim who could have never just said, wait you want me to put $50,000 into a random account and I've never met y…

> Although, what I'll never understand about these higher end scams is that at a point you can literally just book a flight to Berlin and pay a professional for services

Just gonna shine a light on this statement and say that for a HUGE % of men that I know in the USA paying for sex is the the same as failure. This is especially true for the least experienced men.

As someone who frequents gentlemen’s clubs, I don’t really get it. But I sure do SEE IT. It makes me wonder where this idea originated and what keeps it propped up? Is this idea what is preventing the loneliness epidemic from resolving itself?

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#72
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? A lot of the investigative reporting I've seen covers women targets. Maybe they just think women make better stories, but women do spend more time on dating apps than men. Women participate differently, but they definitely participate, and women are extremely vulnerable to emotional exploitation.

I work on this problem at one of the world’s largest social media companies. I deal with it 7 days a week for several years now. This is my life and it’s extremely sad as to how people are being exploited in these scams.

Why do you work 7 days a week?

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#73

Recently I joined Tinder and Bumble and got more matches with scammers than with real people. I was not aware of pig butchering scams until I got curious about a young crypto-loving woman who helpfully taught me how buying and trading crypto works. Being inexperienced with crypto I just wanted to learn about the basics how to get started. Long story short: After some time the woman suggested to try out some shady cry…

> young crypto-loving woman Your alarm bells didn’t ring here?

I know right. On dating app, of all places. Alarms should be screaming.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#74
post #25

More and more I feel like online spaces are far more insidiously dangerous than anticipated. We have bots or malicious actors among the userbase explicitly to sow dissent and spin the quality of discussion downwards. We have algorithms that push content based on engagement, which isn't actually connection or anything resembling engaging with community. We then have online cultures that encourage lowering empathy for…

I don't get how or why it seems to have gotten worse in the last 20-25 years. I was a very online teenager at the end of the 90s and I have formed friendships that last to this day. Or at least staying in touch. And it's not just me, it's the same for a lot of people I got to know offline who have different such circles. Maybe because it was just a smaller circle of people? Maybe because it was so not normal that peo…

paypal brought us freedom.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women absolutely make better stories. I saw a crypto scam article with a fairly attractive girl who *could* of probably meet someone in real life. Instead she let a crypto scammer take her for like 300k. Her dad was scammed too and invested another 200k. The entire story was shaped to make her look like a victim who could have never just said, wait you want me to put $50,000 into a random account and I've never met y…

> Although, what I'll never understand about these higher end scams is that at a point you can literally just book a flight to Berlin and pay a professional for services Just gonna shine a light on this statement and say that for a HUGE % of men that I know in the USA paying for sex is the the same as failure . This is especially true for the least experienced men. As someone who frequents gentlemen’s clubs, I don’t…

What’s not to get? People don’t (mainly) want physical pleasure, they (mainly) want love and validation. When a woman has sex with a man without being paid for it, the subtext (even if protection is used) is “You’re worthy of reproducing.” It’s a costly signal to that effect.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#77

Recently I joined Tinder and Bumble and got more matches with scammers than with real people. I was not aware of pig butchering scams until I got curious about a young crypto-loving woman who helpfully taught me how buying and trading crypto works. Being inexperienced with crypto I just wanted to learn about the basics how to get started. Long story short: After some time the woman suggested to try out some shady cry…

> young crypto-loving woman Your alarm bells didn’t ring here?

That's the point. You can't catch that immediately if you don't know what to look for. First the crypto part was mentioned much later. The profile was convincing. The woman said she is working as an illustrator and just mentioned that she does crypto in her free time. Also I know some friends who are also in the crypto space so it was for me not that unusual.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#78
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating! Well if y'all haven't already, it would be great if you could publish a study of your findings; what you're describing is basically the exact opposite of what I expected based on other reporting.

Gentle reminder that news reporting is not a representative sample of, well, just about anything. It's highly selected and filtered through several layers. The same is true of a survey of internet posts, or online surveys btw. It's very hard to get representative samples.

Likewise, a random comment by someone who claims they work on this problem isn't a very representative sample.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit doubtful. You're seeing my words... do you have data on the transitive trust path between you and I? In the world I'm describing your browser wouldn't render this text unless it had confirmed that path decided that it was acceptable.

I'm exaggerating a bit, but the broad outline is essentially there already I think. The move to walled gardens everywhere (if we call this site a walled garden) is the first move almost everyone has made in terms of where they allocate attention. I think people will just move to smaller and smaller circles of interactions they trust (discord/group chats) especially if you don't need to query the open web for informat…

I don't trust LLMs with the truth. I think they are an amazing tool for !!!generating!!! text; but they're wholly untethered from any sort of ground truth. Unfortunately what will happen, and I hate being right about, is that LLMs on everyone's phones will give dumbasses their own personal conspiracy/radicalization machine. You can generate all the text and images you'd ever want to give yourself the thrill of hate without any tether to reality.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep my mom got caught on one of these - paying to "save a vulnerable puppy" only for the dog to "have a medical crises during transport", etc. If you have a loved one who is vulnerable: + Make it clear there is no shame in falling victim or seeking help + Teach them to "hang up and call back" anytime someone calls them and asks for money or passwords, personal data, etc. (This just saved her from a bank card scam) Cu…

Hang up and call back may not save you on some landline systems, where scammers are able to keep a connection open when the other party hangs up.

Can you elaborate? How can caller influence my landline connection?
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