this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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When your mother starts buying this shit and spending big $$$ on stupid scams, you'll want them stopped.
Are you saying his mother is stupid?
She must be, based on some of the things I got her to do.
If I go to someone and offer them a shoe box full of gold for 100$, no I wont open the box, and they agree, then I don't think that is a scam and more that said person is too stupid to be in public.
If that was the case and my mother's mind is so degraded then it is absolutely dangerous and irresponsible for me to let her live alone.
This is exactly the mindset of a scammer, 'well, if they're so stupid that they let me scam them then they deserve it'.
Ok, but what if you slide the scale a little more and you do open the box, but it’s just gold colored stones. Slide a little more and it’s gold plated so even a surface scratch test shows gold. Keep going more and some of the stones are actual gold, but others aren’t.
See the problem? How much due diligence and expertise do you expect people to have before making any purchase?
my point is that if you have absolutely zero due diligence. then it's sort of your fault.
The way I view it is that fraud is a crime, but we also have an ethical obligation not to let ourselves be marks. Same goes for lots of other crimes. Legal penalties are one deterrent. Raising the barrier to entry for a criminal activity by being a hard target is another. Both are good. But there will always be gullible, vulnerable people, and saying that they're fair game is much too close to eugenics. Healthy societies protect the vulnerable, but also train people to be less vulnerable when that's possible.
but when someone is that stupid, we cannot protect them. we usually instututionalise people who aren't able to keep themselves safe.