I once switched my laptop hard drive with a portable one bought at the store, by removing the portable's case and swapping that drive with my laptop's. I then had the new 500gb one in my laptop and an old 120gb in a new portable housing case. I joked to my friend who was with me that I could just return the now 120gb drive back to the store no questions asked. He told me I was an idiot if I didn't; he didn't think of it as stealing as I did. Unfortunately I don't think that mindset is uncommon with our society. What's worse is being moral can be seen as weak and stupid by those who don't see the long term benefits of having a moral population. (Probably aided by the con man often glorified as extremely clever and smart in media, when often he's just taking advantage of people's good will e.g. Catch Me If You Can, Matchstick Men, maybe 21 and Oceans 11. But people love someone smarter than everyone else so they want to emulate that) On the bright side most of the brighter people I know have good ethics.
How I became a con artist (2010)
41–50 of 66 posts
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bad way to look at it, because you're saying, inmplicitly, either sacrifice for the "common good" and be good, or help yourself and be evil. The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest. So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self-interest instead of calling f…
"The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest." Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example. Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because y…
I think that what is in a person's self-interest is to find a sustainable, enjoyable way to live that will last a lifetime. There is a lot more that could be said about that, but it's a high-level summary.
The proof of that is looking at man's nature and what life is. So all I can do is point in the right direction. To write it all down in a comment would be impossible, plus pointless, because it doesn't prove anything to you until you see it yourself, firsthand, by looking at reality.
> I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
I am certain that that's not right. Lying, cheating and manipulating will never be a sustainable mode of living. It keeps you dependent on luck and the whims of others, and eventually you will get caught. It's much better to pick any one of 10,000 honest professions and actually live by your own work. It's better to trade with "all of humanity" and live in harmony with others, than to constantly be at war with others.
> Sociopaths for example.
Being a sociopath would be horrible. (They may not realize that themselves--because they don't know any different and/or would rather not face the facts.) Why? Because you'd have to completely give up on all the values you get from enjoying other people---friendships, cooperation, and all forms of romantic love. (Sociopaths may outwardly seem like they have some of these, but in reality, everyone is not only their victim, but also a potential threat when the victim catches on to the game.) Plus the more general issues I mentioned above.
> Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
A seller on an open market quotes the price they want to sell for. They would rather have that much money, than the item they are selling. So it's not victimizing them to make the trade. But it would be victimizing yourself to not make the trade, and instead tell the other person your inside knowledge. And it's not dishonest, because in a market, there is no implicit assumption that the buyer doesn't know something t…
"If I think a stock is a sell at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or thinks they know) something that the other doesn't" Theoretically, everyone who ever buys or sells could make money. They just have to be trading on different time-frames, different entry/exit strategies, and/or have different risk tolerance. I do agree with your overall point.
Good point, and thanks for letting me know you appreciate my commentary.
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#44I find the fact that the mother who owned the thrift store would just hand donations that were "designer" to her kid immoral enough. When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price. People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the cos…
>> and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price.
In your mind, does that mean it's immoral for someone well off to shop at a thrift store?
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be the good thing to do to inform the seller of their wrong methods, however the lack of doing so isn't unethical: you can't stop people from making bad financial decision in life (it might actually be condescending to make the assumption that they don't know what they are doing). And if you didn't buy the iPod yourself, their bad listing might not even be selling for them.
> And if you didn't buy the iPod yourself, their bad listing might not even be selling for them. i don't follow your leap from the first part of that statement to the last. it's completely at odds with admitting that austenallred could have disseminated what they discovered and improved some peoples financial decisions. instead he was rewarded for exploiting an asymmetry of knowledge. i think the root of this is that…
>i don't follow your leap from the first part of that statement to the last.
To address this one specifically, on average, in the long run, if the sellers' listings could have been found/ bought, then the opportunity to do the arbitrage wouldn't have been there in the first place. To put it another way: the assumption would be that he could do the arbitrage because the deal otherwise would be very hard to find.
>instead he was rewarded for exploiting an asymmetry of knowledge.
We are always rewarded for asymmetry of knowledge - it's called comparative advantage in econ, I think. Everyone of us here has a job because there are not enough people to do whatever we're doing (grossly generalized, but I'm just trying to make a point). If we have 6 billions Donald Knuth alive on earth, I'd say a lot of us would be in trouble from a career prospective.
And I don't think it's a "winner take all" situation, more of a "we care about different stuffs in life" one. Financial decisions, despite its importance, isn't something that most people would strive to the perfect at. We don't always optimize for each and every single financial decisions (or any type of decision) in life.
And as for the part where he could have help the sellers or the buyers. Well, for once, if he didn't care about the profit, he might not have acquired the knowledge. Additionally, the question wasn't whether he could disseminate the knowledge, but whether he ought to do so. Let's say if the first time he saw it, he contact and let the seller know, and then that's about it. Why would he have any incentive (or obligation) to search for the other seller and let them know?
On a side note, there is the famous essay by Singer - "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" which argues that it's immoral if you're not spending every single effort you can to help the less fortunate (paraphrase by me). I certainly deeply admire anyone who strive to do so, but I can't really say I could do so.
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#46I hope he gets caught one day and has to spend a couple weeks in jail. Grifting scumbag.
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#47While it's easy to get shocked at some of the author's behavior, I personally don't think it's out of the ordinary. People lie to save money or avoid blame. Examples:
- I have a friend who works at an LA Wal-Mart doing returns. You'd be blown away at the things people will bring back. My favorite is a raw turkey post-Christmas that someone didn't cook all the way.
- People lie to tech support all the time. "Oh I don't know what happened. I never logged in yesterday!" ... actually, the log file says you did.
- My sister-in-law works at a bank. The stories people will tell to fight overdraft fees are hilarious.
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest." Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example. Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because y…
I think that what is in a person's self-interest is to find a sustainable, enjoyable way to live that will last a lifetime. There is a lot more that could be said about that, but it's a high-level summary. The proof of that is looking at man's nature and what life is . So all I can do is point in the right direction. To write it all down in a comment would be impossible, plus pointless, because it doesn't prove anyth…
In general I agree with your argument, I just think there are a small percentage of actual sociopaths in the world (I've met one).
> I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#49I find the fact that the mother who owned the thrift store would just hand donations that were "designer" to her kid immoral enough. When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price. People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the cos…
A consignment shop is not a thrift store.
Re: How I became a con artist (2010)
#50I had a really hard time reading this, mostly because it's difficult for me to separate out in my mind when arbitrage becomes theft. For example, in my teens I found a hack in the eBay search algorithm. The algorithm was very simple; it simply scanned the titles. So if I input '32GB Apple iPod Black' it would return everything with those keywords. If, however, I typed in 'iPod' it would return millions of results and…
It is quite puzzling about how you are equating buying & selling on e-bay without ANY misrepresentation (Product is as described & Payment is legimatelty delivered) to a Confidence scam where the author very clearly cheated the stores by misrepresentation/lying. Similarly why is ticket buying and selling a Con? Long-hold Time frames and upfront-risk are a very legitimate way to add value. Is it possible that there is…
> It is quite puzzling about how you are equating buying & selling on e-bay without ANY misrepresentation (Product is as described & Payment is legimatelty delivered) to a Confidence scam where the author very clearly cheated the stores by misrepresentation/lying.
I read the parent as being pretty aware that those are distinct activities and that a confidence scam is solidly across an ethical dividing line most people would agree on -- but also aware that ethics can be seen on a continuum and that there are other dimensions to it beyond whether or not deception is involved.
And that taking advantage of ignorance/misunderstanding has something in common with cultivating it.
> Is it possible that there is some cultural/educational/somethingelse deep-seated mooring that does not see this as "hard-work" and instead as profiteering?
Is it more or less likely that the parent is in such a grip, or that more of us are in the grip of a market-oriented mythos where all profit received is simply profit due from hard work?
Which belief is more convenient, and more likely to be compromised by an opportunity to benefit from it?