[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)

[kcplate]

> people are making the case that the consequences of scamming are worse than human trafficking

I’m not making that case, but I am sure a trafficking component doesn’t apply as much as being suggested here to the Kitboga, Pierogi, and Jim Browning videos considering where those scammers originate and the types of scams they are pulling. If you watch their videos, scammers are far too proud and smug about what they are doing even when called out. Even if they are forced, their joy and lack of concern for their victims make them complicit.

Also, I can certainly feel sorry for someone forced by another into that situation under threat, but that does not mean we shouldn’t protect those getting scammed under some altruistic assumption that the scammer on the other end of the line might be being forced to do this against their will, and might have violence perpetrated against them because their scam was thwarted. In other words, I think it’s better to stop the evil you know is happening as opposed to ignoring and hoping your inaction somehow prevents an evil that you don’t know for sure is happening.

[bumby]

Sure, I get that. The major distinction in our views is my rating of severity. Because I weigh the human trafficking aspect as much more severe, that probability can be much less certain and still have a higher risk in my eyes. Again, risk = severity * probability. And I think it’s important to differentiate between the probability of someone trying to scam, and the probability of it working. It’s definitely a big problem, but not a commensurate risk IMO.

[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)