I don't see why something like this would work even in theory. They're scamming to make money, it doesn't sound like recruiting them to help with open-source projects aligns with that at all, there's no hook.
1. I assumed I could align scammers by communicating the principles and beliefs that align me to open source, and linking them to the financial benefits this has brought me.
Open source skills have given me good revenue, the ability to recognize value, and the ability to build and run businesses. I've assumed this aligns with the scammer's ultimate desire to generate revenue.
2. I assumed that scammers would prefer a legitimate way of creating revenue, if it were offered
Scamming is hard, carries risks, and has low payoffs. In my view, coding is easy given good learning materials and mentorship, has low risks since you can easily find work under a boss, and has high payoff because you can easily eliminate the boss and start a company.
My assumptions are not realistic:
1. Scammers are motivated by the idea of victimizing others. It's not just a need to create revenue - it's a need to do it by hurting others.
2. Scammers see coding as the "harder alternative". I discount how difficult it is to learn to code, even with mentorship.
In the end, the only thing I succeed at is stringing them along. And this is ultimately because my rationale is so naive that they see me as a gullible target.
It has been very disheartening to realize that scammers interact with me only because my principles and theories make me seem like an easily exploited target.
But that's where I'm at, lol.
It might be best to quit while I'm ahead, so to speak. I'm probably lucky that I haven't run into someone skilled enough to find leverage that can extort me.
You have a seriously incorrect conception of how these scams operate. Most scam calls nowadays originate from large-scale call centers, often using slave labor reading from scripts. Attempting to appeal to the morality of the individual operators is futile; they have no control over the scam, and they may not be free to leave it either.
There is a wide world of scams outside of call scams. These scammers are not call center scammers - they're lurking in Facebook AI groups and asking for mentorship. After they show some signs of progress, they ask you to buy them computer equipment for their studies, or try to get you to invest in get rich schemes. If you tell them no, they'll give you another unit of progress, then make another request. Their approach is so amateurish and their odds of success are so long you get the feeling you're not dealing with anyone who has a real scam boss above them. Usually it's college age kids claiming to want to get into compsci or security, sometimes it's educated middle aged men pretending to want a change of career.
The news coverage nowadays mainly covers call centers and focuses a lot on the operations that use captives. But I think there's a much greater variety of operations, and I would estimate at least 2/3rds of scammers are free agents. These are motivated by money, a sense of exploiting others, and identifying as a scammer, rather than direct threats, blackmail, or violence.
But I also doubt that a human captive would do coding homework, video chat, pair programming, and send PRs, all of which I demand in order to keep the mentorship going.
I am also aware of the spectrum of strategies that scam bosses use to extort performance from their victims, and feel professional mentorship could help people escape some forms of extortion. Scammer boss extortion is often partly or even heavily psychological, based on establishing that the victim's identity is now that of a low level criminal. In many cases, just blackmailing people is enough to secure their compliance, and bosses will tend to use the minimal control mechanism possible.
So not only do I think it would be unlikely that a captive could invest the learning effort that I demand from my students. If they did, it's possible that the positive experiences of learning could help them escape the control of their bosses.
If this person is in a coercive work situation with low respect, low learning opportunities, and high coercive control, let me provide them a simulated work experience that affords them high respect, rewarding learning opportunities, and a glimpse of life where they are proud of their work and have nobody devaluing and intimidating them. It might be a psychological lever that helps them challenge and defeat the assumptions of their extortion.
I have no problem copping to being autistic and struggling to understand people's motivations
But I reject your use of "autistic" as an insult or dismissal of my attempt reform scammers into contributors towards humanity through the beauty of open source
I think it's an interesting take around the scheme I've seen IRL: we have various religious missionaries around and some people figured out that they can be coaxed into performing free manual labour (i. e. gardening work) because they can write it off as a 'good deed' and with the hopes you'll listen to their spiel afterwards.
I could see it as a burnable source of labour, not as a means of pushing a values system though.
1. I assumed I could align scammers by communicating the principles and beliefs that align me to open source, and linking them to the financial benefits this has brought me.
Open source skills have given me good revenue, the ability to recognize value, and the ability to build and run businesses. I've assumed this aligns with the scammer's ultimate desire to generate revenue.
2. I assumed that scammers would prefer a legitimate way of creating revenue, if it were offered
Scamming is hard, carries risks, and has low payoffs. In my view, coding is easy given good learning materials and mentorship, has low risks since you can easily find work under a boss, and has high payoff because you can easily eliminate the boss and start a company.
My assumptions are not realistic:
1. Scammers are motivated by the idea of victimizing others. It's not just a need to create revenue - it's a need to do it by hurting others.
2. Scammers see coding as the "harder alternative". I discount how difficult it is to learn to code, even with mentorship.
In the end, the only thing I succeed at is stringing them along. And this is ultimately because my rationale is so naive that they see me as a gullible target.
It has been very disheartening to realize that scammers interact with me only because my principles and theories make me seem like an easily exploited target.
But that's where I'm at, lol.
It might be best to quit while I'm ahead, so to speak. I'm probably lucky that I haven't run into someone skilled enough to find leverage that can extort me.