I was 14 or so, my dad and I stopped to watch a 3 card monte game being played on the street. I thought I knew where the card was, impulsively bet $20, and lost my money (obviously). My dad watched this happen, told me why betting on it was stupid and made me buy lunch afterwards.
> If some street hustler challenges you to a game of three card monte you don't need to bother to play, just hand him the money, not because you're going to lose but because you owe him for the insight: he selected you. Whatever he saw in you everyone sees in you.
I attribute my not getting caught in any crypto schemes to having been caught in Runescape's equivalent of the same a decade or more ago.
"Everyone buy Leather Chaps, we're going to control the supply and all be rich! Spend all your money on Leather Chaps, you're sure to make it back when they go even higher! Make sure you don't sell until it's 1000x higher than when you bought, diamond hands until then!"
"Want to get in early on the next drop? Simply go all around the world telling people to join our private channel where it will be announced, if you get enough people to join we'll let you into the even privater channel where we announce it even earlier!"
Meanwhile last week some dude bought a billion Leather Chaps at 2gp each and is now laughing all the way to the Grand Exchange.
The ease at which I could corner thorium on Shadowsong made me realize that “digital assets” are quite open to manipulation, especially if you have your hand in the toll, too.
It's an Eternal September of people needing to develop antibodies to scams, one generation at a time.
Unfortunately immunity doesn't get passed down intergenerationally, or at least not enough that a few members of the herd won't be receptive to the infection the next time around. Every time "this time is different" with a sizeable group.
It’s a bit easier now as you can search and find out what the scam behind “stuff envelopes for money” for example. Being able to see everything beforehand and “for free” helps immunize against lots of them.
If only there was a way to learn about bad things that happened in the past over and over again without simply repeating the bad thing. Like some way to record descriptions of past events.
I got off easy.