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MAKE MONEY TELLING NAIVE ELDERLY PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR, SRSLY.

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, February 11, 2010, 05:21:30 PM

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LMNO

So:  There you go.

Three previous souces, cited repeatedly for the past few years, and yet none of them generated this kind of furor.

Quite the opposite, they mostly got heaps of praise, mittens, and shouts of "W1n".


What's going on here?

hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Doktor Howl

Personally, I see this subject as no different than Robert Tilton's asshattery.

On one hand, I am kind of bothered by poor people being fleeced (you don't see many oil magnates going to a psychic).

On the other hand, as long as it is presented for what it is, the caveat emptor applies.
Molon Lube

Lies

Quote from: Triple Zero on February 12, 2010, 12:52:25 PM
Quote from: Lysergic on February 12, 2010, 01:17:22 AM
I'm sorry nigel, while I do *hear* and *understand* what you're saying here, I think you've still got me and what I'm trying to say all wrong.

Lys, save your breath, all she wants to see is the "take money from stupid people" line, and pick a fight over it. Everything else is going to get ignored.

Yeah, that's the general vibe I was getting from this.
- So the New World Order does not actually exist?
- Oh it exists, and how!
Ask the slaves whose labour built the White House;
Ask the slaves of today tied down to sweatshops and brothels to escape hunger;
Ask most women, second class citizens, in a pervasive rape culture;
Ask the non-human creatures who inhabit the planet:
whales, bears, frogs, tuna, bees, slaughtered farm animals;
Ask the natives of the Americas and Australia on whose land
you live today, on whose graves your factories, farms and neighbourhoods stand;
ask any of them this, ask them if the New World Order is true;
they'll tell you plainly: the New World Order... is you!

Cain

Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 12, 2010, 02:17:36 PMOn one hand, I am kind of bothered by poor people being fleeced (you don't see many oil magnates going to a psychic).

You might be surprised how many do consult psychics and astrologists though.  Naturally, they're not going to make up the majority of the market, but even so, quite a few are into all this New Age stuff and all that entails. Cornering that market could be amusing.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cain on February 12, 2010, 03:09:30 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 12, 2010, 02:17:36 PMOn one hand, I am kind of bothered by poor people being fleeced (you don't see many oil magnates going to a psychic).

You might be surprised how many do consult psychics and astrologists though.  Naturally, they're not going to make up the majority of the market, but even so, quite a few are into all this New Age stuff and all that entails. Cornering that market could be amusing.

Okay, I will go on record as saying this:  If the board members of AIG or G/S go to a psychic, etc, I am perfectly okay with the psychic extracting their last dimes from their arses with the infamous "pink glove".
Molon Lube

Cain

Although in the case of AIG, its not so much "making money" as reclaiming it from its current stewards and returning it to its rightful owners.

Captain Utopia

Quote from: LMNO on February 12, 2010, 01:57:49 PM
How come no one ever starts epic battles when someone mentions classic subgenius lines like "They may be Pink, but their money's Green," I wonder?

It's exactly the same thing: Fleece the gullible.  Same with the Parable of the Golden Bull.

Quote from: Enrico"Most peoples, they are not completely right in the head. Most peoples accept your information like a baby goat accepts your root. If you give them bullshit, though, the person will later find out about it, become angry, but then they will need to go look up the information themselves. They will need to use their own head gravy, instead of relying on other peoples to do their thinking for them . . . in this way bullshit is very very important. So spread bullshit everywhere, my fine friendly frotteur."

Enrico was about to leave when the man called out to him "But what if they never find out that the information is bullshit?"

Enrico turned back to the man. He shrugged. "Fuck em. If they are that stupid, they deserve to stay that way."

So why all the static, folks?
In practical terms - we need a way to make money for food and shelter, and I can't think of a single occupation which would look entirely ethical through a subjectively applied lens.  On a daily basis we take advantage of the resources available to us, unavailable to those less fortunate, in order to continue in our careers.  Often these resources are information itself which, if freely shared, would likely result in the customer walking away from the sale - do you tell them about the better deal available from your competitor, or do you smile and thank them for their custom?

Unless you are dealing with someone at least capable of being a competitor, then you are trading on the basis of their gullibility/inferior knowledge.

And that's fine, in the sense that I can't think of another way to survive.  But there isn't a hard and fast rule which you can apply to determine whether someone is taking advantage too much, like playing on the weaknesses of the elderly, or targeting the desperation of the poor.  One choice is to take something like the Parable of the Golden Bull, or a belief in the holy-power of the free-market, and say everything do-able is all righteous and ultimately fair.  The other choice is to say that there are grey areas, but that involves wading through a lot of static.

hooplala

I would like to make it clear that the parable of the Sacred Bull was written through the mind of Enrico Salazar, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Hoopla.  Some days it does, and other days... not so much.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: LMNO on February 12, 2010, 01:57:49 PM
How come no one ever starts epic battles when someone mentions classic subgenius lines like "They may be Pink, but their money's Green," I wonder?

It's exactly the same thing: Fleece the gullible.  Same with the Parable of the Golden Bull.

Quote from: Enrico"Most peoples, they are not completely right in the head. Most peoples accept your information like a baby goat accepts your root. If you give them bullshit, though, the person will later find out about it, become angry, but then they will need to go look up the information themselves. They will need to use their own head gravy, instead of relying on other peoples to do their thinking for them . . . in this way bullshit is very very important. So spread bullshit everywhere, my fine friendly frotteur."

Enrico was about to leave when the man called out to him "But what if they never find out that the information is bullshit?"

Enrico turned back to the man. He shrugged. "Fuck em. If they are that stupid, they deserve to stay that way."

So why all the static, folks?

A. My loathing of Subgenii is on par with my loathing of Venganza and philosophy majors, so I skip all such threads

B. Never heard of the Parable of the Golden Bull.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Doktor Howl

Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Triple Zero on February 12, 2010, 12:52:25 PM
Quote from: Lysergic on February 12, 2010, 01:17:22 AM
I'm sorry nigel, while I do *hear* and *understand* what you're saying here, I think you've still got me and what I'm trying to say all wrong.

Lys, save your breath, all she wants to see is the "take money from stupid people" line, and pick a fight over it. Everything else is going to get ignored.

000, I understand your suspicion about where I'm coming from, but in this case I'm simply expressing my distaste for the contempt with which Lys appears to be viewing his clientele, which I am basing on his repeated descriptions of them.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman