[ryandrake]

Exactly. This taboo against "victim blaming" is kind of holding society back from properly addressing scams (and other crimes). Yes, the scammers are responsible and yes, they are the only ones who should face consequences.

That being said, it's smart to take precautions, and it's not victim blaming to suggest things people can do to reduce their risk of becoming victims. I teach my kid not to play in busy streets. That's not blaming pedestrian victims for car crashes--it's just sensible, risk-mitigating precaution.

[happytoexplain]

My opinion, based on observation, is the opposite (i.e. you perceive a "taboo" against victim-blaming because victim-blaming is a real problem). Obviously we need both sides of the coin (help targets to help themselves, and hamper attackers). And yes, some people may jump to accusations of victim-blaming too quickly. But, I think it's an exaggeration to imply that there is a significant problem where people are characterizing "suggesting things people can do to reduce their risk of becoming victims" as victim-blaming in the context of money scams.

I think that, by far the greater poison holding us back is the obsession with personal responsibility that many people use as an excuse to not have to expend additional effort on dealing with a problem pragmatically. If you are suggesting educating people or giving them tools to deal with scams, that's great. But a lot of people don't want to do that under the very same rationale that you are using to justify it - that the victims could have avoided it. You are saying, "people can avoid this - we need to help them do so", but there is a significant part of society whose opinion on many topics where there is a victim is, "people can avoid this - they need to take responsibility".

[BobaFloutist]

Teaching your kid not to play in busy streets wouldn't be victim blaming, it would be victim blaming if your kid got hit by a speeding car and people immediately started questioning how well you taught him street safety. The problem with victim blaming isn't that it seeks to teach people to avoid becoming victimized, the problem is that it gets brought up when people have already been harmed, making it insensitive, unhelpful (something something barn door), and, often, deflecting blame from the actual bad actor.

[luckylion]

We should agree on some time frame when it's acceptable to talk about what you could do to avoid being a victim then. It's perfectly fine to say "maybe not now" while the victim is still getting stitches, but having to wait 10 years is also pretty useless because it'll be forgotten.

When something happens is usually the best time to talk to others about that same thing. A bank exploded? Hey, have you heard that there are ways to spread the risk over multiple banks? A hospital got all their files encrypted and needs to pay a ransom? Let's talk about backup strategies and how to secure infrastructure because that could be your organization.

I don't think people discussing strategies seek to deflect blame from a potential bad actor (it doesn't need to be about crime, accidents happen all the time, and there are plenty of things you can do to lower your risk), they just want it not to happen again, or at least less frequently.