[bumby]

I think you are conflating two questions.

1) How do we not make things worse?

2) How do we solve the problem?

My whole point has been regarding #1. There is some probability that the scammers get "a bad shuffle" and get abused. However, if you deliberately waste their time, you have just increased that probability to 100%. I'm claiming that makes things worse.

If your new question is how do we solve the human trafficking problem that undergirds this industry, I'm afraid I don't think there's "this one hack" that can solve that. But at least we don't have to make things worse in the short term.

[tombert]

Ok, but this is the point that I think we disagree; I would think that the "bad shuffle" is what we want? I think you would agree that grandmother spending her entire retirement on Google Play cards is a bad thing. Deliberately wasting their time guarantees that at least that scammer is not extracting money from some random person. I'm having trouble seeing how that's a bad thing; all these scambaiters are doing is kind of forcing the "bad shuffle".

I think I must be misunderstanding because it genuinely seems to be that you're suggesting that the best course of action is to just let people get scammed for hundreds of thousands of dollars until there is a systemic solution. A systemic solution can take years, maybe decades.

[bumby]

>I think I must be misunderstanding

It reads that we are speaking past each other and I think the misunderstanding comes from your consistent reframing as the choice between two bad outcomes. I've already commented that dichotomous thinking isn't helpful. So, again, I don't think there are only two options: a) let someone get scammed and b) let someone get abused. I think that kind of thinking is incompatible with finding good solutions.

But...since you keep framing it that way...I would say, between the two, allowing someone to lose money is a better outcome than making it likely that someone will be beaten while being imprisoned against their will. In a (falsely) dichotomously framed argument, there is a clear hierarchy. Physical safety trumps money. "My kingdom for a horse" and all that.

I think the best option for the person in TFA is to get proactively involved in providing systemic solutions. If they aren't up for that, the next best option is to ignore the calls. I wouldn't even put the "scam the scammers" in the same discussion because, as we'd talked about ad nauseam, it's not really a solution and probably antithetical to a solution because it potentially makes things worse. Again, at the very least, we can not make things worse. You seem to be advocating for the "making things worse" choice because you've constrained yourself to only two options and you already decided that one is unacceptable.

[tombert]

> But...since you keep framing it that way...I would say, between the two, allowing someone to lose money is a better outcome than making it likely that someone will be beaten while being imprisoned against their will.

Ok, so there's actually a word for that, it's called "extortion". It's generally frowned upon.

You have repeated that it's a "false dichotomy" like seven times now, but you haven't actually suggested a third solution to the problem. "Get involved in providing systemic solutions" is absurd; what the hell does that even mean? I vote for politicians that might do something about it? I write a letter to the UN? Ok, so that's great, maybe I make a change.org petition while I'm at it. Maybe in twenty years something will actually get done.

You also have not actually explained how things are "being made worse" by these scambaiters. I would argue that reducing extortion is good, and outweighs the risk of the traffic victims being abused. It's very sad, I don't like them being abused, but what you're suggesting is borderline-ludacris, short-sighted, and doesn't actually make any sense if taken to its logical extreme.

[bumby]

This will be my last reply because I've already responded to all those claims multiple times.

I think the gist is we fundamentally disagree about this point:

>"I would argue that reducing extortion is good, and outweighs the risk of the traffic victims being abused."

So if you were given a choice between handing me over your wallet, or me knocking out all your teeth (literally the example in the link I provided in another comment), you'd choose me knocking out your teeth? Okay, I guess, but I find it hard to believe. As long as you value money over physical safety, we probably will disagree. (I suspect it has more to do with psychological distance than really feeling that way. If, instead of some abstract person in a third world country, it was a loved family member at risk, would it change your response?) So, in that context, along with rehashing the points I've already addressed, your responses come across as either someone who makes sport of arguing for its own sake, or you're just incapable of accepting information when it's provided.

E.g., >but you haven't actually suggested a third solution to the problem.

In the post above this, I literally said ignoring the call is preferential to either "scamming the scammer"

>what the hell does that even mean?

I deliberately left it vague because it's up to you to decide what level of effort is reasonable given your value system. On one end you can simply try to lift the veil of ignorance and recognize the complexities of the issue and on the other extreme, you could go to Cambodia to actively work against it. Even simply marking the call as spam is more reasonable IMO than actively increasing the risk of physical violence on someone being trafficked because it's of no consequence to you. There's plenty of wiggle room for each individual to figure out what works for them. Again, at the very least, I would argue they have a duty to not make things worse. Apparently, you think losing money is worse than being physically harmed. I disagree. There are many situations in life when doing nothing is the better option.

>what you're suggesting is borderline-ludacris, short-sighted

The irony is that my point is that "scamming the scammer" is short-sighted because they do not take into consideration anything past the immediate interaction. In the short-term, it makes them feel good because of our innate bias toward a sense of justice, but once you get past that bubble it's worse overall (my claim, which you obvious disagree with, but haven't really explained why). There is a certain arrogance in it which effectively says, "I am so very very smart, I will outwit this scammer for the lolz" while being oblivious to the larger consequences. My entire point is that people need to be aware of the larger consequences and it's pretty clear the subject of TFA is not.

>if taken to its logical extreme.

This is exactly what people with dichotomous thinking do. By not recognizing any grey, you are constraining yourself to only two extreme choices.

I've explained why it does more harm. I've explained why it confuses what the real problem is. I've offered better options, both at the individual and nation-state level. There are some potentially reasonable philosophical reasons to disagree with those points, but you just bypass them like you never read them to begin with.

[lupusreal]

A scammer comes up to you and says "give me your wallet or my boss will knock out all my teeth." Do you give him your wallet, or tell him to fuck himself? It's your wallet so that's on you, but what you're suggesting throughout this discussion is that other people have a moral responsibility to reduce the harm suffered by the scammers. That's fucked up.

[bumby]

I'm suggesting that's the way grown-ups should act in a society, within limits. The main point that seems to get lost is that, globally, I'm saying the upside of this tactic is far outweighed by the downside. There's a weird abstraction that this discussion displays related to psychological distance that minimizes that downside. And, putting aside moral arguments because they can be debated forever, there is a legal concept related to proximate cause that somebody has a duty to avoid those actions if it is foreseeable that they would cause an injury. So while not legally applicable in a case that crosses borders, it is certainly an acceptable concept.

E.g., if you are on the phone negotiating with a kidnapper and I snatch the phone, tell the kidnapper to go fuck themselves and hangup, I'm probably liable for injuries to the victim.

[tombert]

> So if you were given a choice between handing me over your wallet, or me knocking out all your teeth (literally the example in the link I provided in another comment), you'd choose me knocking out your teeth?

It's not analogous. Of course I'd hand my wallet over. The better analogy is asking if I would hand my wallet over to protect some stranger's teeth from being knocked out, and that's a "it depends" situation. I don't want to be extorted. It's not about the money.

I mean, there's a reason that DHS typically does not negotiate with terrorists; they don't want to create a system that incentivizes people to try and extort money out of them.

> In the post above this, I literally said ignoring the call is preferential to either "scamming the scammer"

That is not a solution. If we "ignore the scammer" like you suggested, they will be beaten in the same way because they are not extracting money. I already explained that and you decided it wasn't a point worth responding to. This is why I said you didn't actually provide a solution. You didn't really "explain" why it was preferential, you just asserted multiple times making vague allusions to the idea that somehow the scambaiters wasting time is going to lead to more violence than people ignoring the call.

> On one end you can simply try to lift the veil of ignorance and recognize the complexities of the issue and on the other extreme, you could go to Cambodia to actively work against it.

That just sounds like even more vigilantism, and puts yourself in serious risk. The only thing that would make any sense is to get the authorities involved.

> The irony is that my point is that "scamming the scammer" is short-sighted because they do not take into consideration anything past the immediate interaction.

The "larger consequences" of what the extortionists do are beyond the scambaiters control.

What you suggested instead is to just lightly fund this extortionist operation, enough to keep them going so that they don't beat the trafficking victims as much, until the "systemic" solution comes out.

> Apparently, you think losing money is worse than being physically harmed. I disagree.

People commit suicide because of these scams. People have their entire lives ruined, and they will continue to have their lives ruined. It's not just money; they have their identities stolen, they're blackmailed, they're made destitute. The scambaiters wasting time isn't going to save the world, but it might prevent just one person from having their life ruined, that's a good thing, and it's better to not fund terrorists just because they threaten to hurt more people.

That is why I said what you were suggesting was ridiculous.

[kcplate]

> I would say, between the two, allowing someone to lose money is a better outcome than making it likely that someone will be beaten while being imprisoned against their will.

That is tactical thinking as opposed to strategic thinking. What if 1000 beatings saved 10000 beatings and saved 100000 little old ladies from being scammed out of thousands of dollars. Making the scam industry unprofitable is more important than making it profitable to avoid some violence. No matter what, someone has to sacrifice, why not sacrifice where the end goal eliminates the problem rather than exacerbates it?

[bumby]

>why not sacrifice where the end goal eliminates the problem rather than exacerbates it?

It doesn't eliminate the problem. Covered by others, but it's a collective action problem. The fact that a few people "scam the scammers" doesn't actually make the industry unprofitable. So unless you can get a tipping point where lots of people are willing to spend inordinate amounts of time "scamming the scammers" (you won't), it doesn't do anything to eliminate the problem, and probably makes things worse.

[kcplate]

I don’t buy this argument…especially any speculation about it making it worse. I certainly don’t accept this notion that we “probably shouldn't scam bait and just let some people get monetarily victimized because some other person half a world away might be beaten by another”.

Someone evil enough to traffic and enslave another to scam grannies is not going to give less beatings if Kitboga stops what he is doing. These content producers are shining a light on these assholes, the more views they get the more the people see and can identify and convey the red flags to their loved ones to shrink the market of potential victims.

[bumby]

I think this is just rationalizing behavior (which humans are really, really good at), and it's exacerbated by the psychological distance from those who bear the actual cost. If you read through some of the discussion above, people are making the case that the consequences of scamming are worse than human trafficking. That's a really, really weird perspective and demonstrably false. There is no cosequence in scamming that doesn't have an correlary in human trafficking that is worse. Even as tragic as it is, a suicide driven by a scam is still less bad than a murder of a trafficked victim. The latter has less agency than the former. I would also argue that the probability is higher for those being trafficked. So if both the severity and the probability are higher, the risk is higher. That means people are trading a lower risk for a higher one. Why? I'd say it's because it's more about the gratifying feelings of self-righteousness of the act than actually improving anything. And that's a feeling deeply rooted in our evolutionary brain, so we will go to great ends to rationalize it. Humans are going to human, and we bring all kinds of weird biases that don't really make much sense upon inspection. Add a sprinkling of tribalism, and people get really weird about their justifications. (e.g., even though scambaiting is done under the guise of protecting a stranger from being scammed, people here still use the justification that protecting a stranger being trafficked is less valuable on account of them being a stranger)

[bumby]

The word “might” is doing most of the heavy lifting in your argument. And I agree, there’s no certainty that someone will get beaten. The problem is you are only applying that to one side of the equation. There’s also no guarantee that someone will get scammed if you hang up. My contention is that when there is uncertainty on both sides, you should defer to the side with higher risk. So if you agree that the consequences of human trafficking carry greater risk than the consequences of scamming, it follows that you should err on the side of the person in bondage.

I would concede that if the probably between the two sides gets highly skewed, that could change. But nobody has made that argument (and I doubt they could given the lack of data)