I’m not saying Miss Cleo is providing a public service but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her so-called victims. I know here real crime is overcharging but I consider that to be only a degree worse than charging people the correct price for psychic services and tarot readings. Taking a broader social view she is taking money that could be spent on the state tax on people bad at math.
Reminds me of a an old Robotman comic:
Panel 1: Gary and Robotman argue over the validity of telephone psychics.
Panel 2: Gary calls psychic.
Panel 3: Psychic: “I see you’re easily misled and bad with money.”
Gary: “Spooky.”
I’ll be the first to lob filthy names at Cleo and Sylvia and John Edwards . . .
But some of the people misled by predators like them are not stupid. And that frustrates the hell out of me. The most common response to challenging the sheep is “you don’t know for sure it’s fake.”
The depressing truth is that citical thinking is not ubiquitous . . . and never will be.
She’s not even Jamacian!
It turns out that she’s a Valley Gurl from El Lay. You go, girl!
Like, Oh my God! Totally! That’s grodey to the max! Can you just picture me in a leather Turban? Bag your face, i’m sure!
Psychic hotlines may be a privately-collected stupidity tax, but Miss Cleo deserves jail for a long line of previous offenses. The woman also spent a little while here in Seattle defrauding the local theater scene. Apparently she’s been a con artist for a good long time.
Stupid people may well deserve getting ripped off, but does Miss Cleo deserve stupid people’s money? That’s the problem. That money is supposed to go to the Home Shopping Network and Publisher’s Clearing House.
I don’t know. Maybe stupid people need some protection from scammers. Then you have people who may have some diminished faculties due to illness, age or medication. Or a combo.
I just had a brilliant idea. Set up an Ignorance Protection Agency (staffed of course by Dopers). We get stupid people to pay us to protect them from their own idiocy. As an added bonus we give them a handy cheat sheet on urban legends and the like so they can make it look like they’re less ignorant than their friends. The money could even be used to help the SDMB server and other such useful things to continue the fight against ignorance.
reminds me of what my Dad says about the lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Your dad’s kind, chekamte. Most of the time I’ve heard it called a tax on the stupid.
No really, I can type. Really.
Sorry 'bout that, Chek.
I forgive you… This time.
Problem is, as andros has implied, there are good people who are also gullible people, and wind up getting hurt by these kinds of scams.
There was a multi-page thread on this some time ago (our incomplete search engine can’t find it) - something like “DavidB fighting for the shallow end of the gene pool?” It was started due to an offhand comment DavidB had made about the illegality of confidence scams, and the thread-starter’s (sorry, can’t remember) reaction, which was similar to Padeye’s here.
While it’s a gut reaction of many of us to scorn those among us who are not sharp enough to pick up on these scams, it’s another debate entirely as to whether we should actually do anything about it. Such as making it illegal and prosecuting the cons for their scams, as opposed to indulging in the all-too-easy schadenfreude of “Good, you deserved it, ya moron!”
Every time I feel my lip curling into a sneer when I’m hearing about how stupid someone is, I try to remember that they can’t help being stupid anymore than I can help being smart.
I don’t know, though, it still seems to me like they should KNOW better - it boggles my mind that there are people out there who actually get on planes to go claim their Publisher’s Clearinghouse money because they can’t seem to tell the difference between “You may already be a winner!” and “Here, we have a check made out for you, and here is where you can pick it up!”
So I’m constantly torn between thinking we must pass laws to protect the stupid from themselves and thinking hell, if they’re that stupid, they deserve it.
We should educate people so evil parasites like those mentioned above either starve or find a legitimate line of work. That’s one reason I do what I do: try to get people to think critically (and not just about astronomy).
and please, keep in mind, that people’s abilities change over time as well. So, for example, some one who’s legally an adult but hasn’t had a whole lot of experience dealing w/praciticalities in the world may fall for something, as may a person who is now on medication due to illness, accident, age or an infirmity.
The “let the sleazeballs run rampant” tone of this thread rereminds me of the Why are pyramid schems illegal? thread a few months ago.
I am against all cons, small and large.
You have to draw the line somewhere. What if that can of beans you bought turned out to be 2oz less in product than claimed on the label? You can’t just say “Sorry, you’re just a stupid sucker who deserves to lose your money.” to all such situations.
Contract law forms a major basis of our civil law system. We are reasonable in assuming that contracts, be they psychic claims, make big money or amount of beans should be valid and failure to uphold one ends of contracts, especially if that was the intent to defraud from the start, should have legal repercusions.
Arguing that suckers deserve to be ripped off is another way of stating you are pro-anarchy.
That sums up my feelings. We shouldn’t go so far as to promote and accept stupidity as a way of life, constant lowering the bar to the lowest common denominator. At some point a line must be drawn and we, as a soceity, say “If you are unwilling to reach this level of common sense, I can’t help you”. But even then you start getting exception after exception; people, who through no fault of their own, are unable to protect themselves.
Where do you draw the line saying “You lost your money because you are hopelessly stupid and gullible; next time use your brain” and “You lost your money because you were legitimately unable to see the con”?
First, anyone can be taken in by a con.
ANYone.
I read books on cons, I’m a subscriber to Skeptical Enquirer and I read Cecil. And yet, last time I was in London, I found myself in a street auction (I can’t think of the technical term). Someone’s got a stack of crap (“A Solid Gold Watch for a Pound!”, “A complete home stereo system with a starting bid of only 3 Pounds!”). and proceeds to hold an “auction”. I know exactly how this scam works (the really good items are unique (as opposed to having a stack of 20 of them) and shills “jes’ happen” to win the good stuff), I even spotted some of the shills in the audience. Nonetheless, it took about 20 minutes before I figured out what was going on, and I still found myself having to work to not participate.
A conman’s favorite mark is the person who says “I can’t be conned!”
Second, what about older people who tend to be major victims of many scams? Many people get less mentally sharp as they age (not always, but enough of them that they’re prime targets). Do the elderly “deserve” to be burned by sweepstakes scams, phone scams, and such?
Sorry, I think the OP’s attitude is fairly obnoxious BS. People should be treated with dignity, even if…especially if they’re “stupid”. “Stupid” people do not deserve to be robbed and humiliated.
Fenris