OK. I can't tell if you're dissembling or actually don't grok my point. When you ask "neither of us would think that was a good argument... right?", you're not pulling in the context I set regarding slippery slope arguments. When *is* a slippery slope argument a good argument? You just made one re: scams are OK sometimes. Then you rejected one re: riding with killers doesn't make you a killer.
You made a slippery slope argument, presumably thinking it's a good one. Then you rejected a slippery slope argument claiming it's a bad one. When is it good? When is it bad? My answer is "When the conclusion suits you." In your defense of the MLM slippery slope, it suits you to focus on individualist decision making. In your rejection of the transitive relation over riding with killers, your individualism argues that an individual can just shunt, give up on, the complex calculus of complicity. And in the anonymity case, you take that further and say *sometimes* you simply must shunt, give up ... almost like a Kierkegaardian Knight of Faith. Now, I'm not trying to be a hypocrite, here. My advocacy for pluralism and a multiplicity of logics, chosen for their natural fit to a given context should, I'm hoping, show that I'm OK with choosing the logic that best suits your biases. But you can't fault *others* for choosing their logics appropriately either. Your logic isn't *the* logic. On 6/1/22 08:04, Eric Charles wrote:
The MLM is only a problem if a) they make you put in a big investment of capital or b) you actually think you will get rich off of it. If you don't have to outlay cash, and you think you'll get some tupperware (or whatever) and make a few $100 out of it, and then you actually get some tupperware and make a few $100 out of it, then everything about it is fine. If, in contrast, they make you get an initial purchase of $10,000 worth of product, with promises you'll flip it for $50,000 in no time, and that you'll recruit people under you for passive income that is more than that annually, and then none of that happens and you are stuck with $10K worth of junk you couldn't afford in your garage... then you have a problem. So, I agree with what you said regarding being "complicit", so long as we agree that you only "complicit" in the activity you are part of - that is, I don't think it is fair to label someone as complitic with anything that vaguely resembles the thing they are part of. For example, if someone is in an innocuous local riding club, they are not thereby complicit in the existence of biker gangs. If someone claimed, "You are in a group that rides together, and some groups that ride together also kill people, so you are complicit in those deaths" neither of us would think that was a good argument... right? Even the technical savvy doesn't distinguish a Web3 scam from a non-web3 scam as much as you would think. Pretty much every real life scam is based on information asymmetry, and much of leans on a lack of technical sophistication in the buyer. It's different technical skills, to be sure, but the inability to trace out what's included in a credit-default swap is technical in the same way the inability to read smart-contract code is technical. Scams exist in real life, all over the place. Even A+++ rated securities can turn out to be garbage, and the rating companies are still in business and somehow still trusted. It is baffling all over. If there is something that Web3 adds to the general problem of scams, it is that often you can't know who the agents are. Not just that you don't know, but it could be undeterminable, due to the additional anonymity that is not possible with a live MLM or investment scam. That was leaned on heavily in the article Roger and Frank shared. Someone can claim to be a member of a certain race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orinetation, etc., but if you never see them, how would you know? Answer: You wouldn't. So if that is *THE* reason you are getting into a project, don't do it unless the founders are completely doxxed. Easy day. <mailto:echar...@american.edu> On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 10:14 AM glen <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote: Interesting take. It reminds me of Stockholm Syndrome and abusive relationships. I've made disruptive runs at ad hominem, hume's guillotine, appeal to authority, and petitio principii. I have yet to make a run at the slippery slope. I had 2 recent opportunities to do so, 1) regarding consent and 2) re: populism. My bougie post is a bit of a start and your defense of MLM propogation is similar. Peter Singer gives us a foundation by arguing that bestiality doesn't *necessarily* represent the abuse of animals. Maybe the sheep likes it when the farmer has their way? Maybe we should take Alison Mack's explicit *consent* to becoming a branded slave and slave recruiter seriously? Maybe the wife enjoys being beaten? These slopes are obviously slippery. But one that's not so obvious is the asymmetric relationship between the actually powerful and the bougie. E.g. when *I* buy crypto, given that I not only know what they are, what distributed ledgers are, how to do some cryptography, a bit of math, a lot of programming, a lot of systems engineering and supply chain analysis, I really am giving my consent. Like you say, the person selling the Amway products just because they enjoy it and like some of the products isn't necessarily being scammed or scamming others. The problem is analogous to the redefinition of racism. Racism used to be widely used to *cover* individual prejudice. But as the language evolves, racism is coming to target less visible, systemic infrastructure. The small-minded right doesn't see that. The intellectual right does see it, but purposefully obfuscates. Buying Amway products makes you complicit, whether you understand that or not. ... similar to the insanity defense. I actually don't care if you murdered 17 children because you're insane or radicalized by Fox News or whatever. You still need to die, humanely, regardless of your motivations. Ideas don't matter. Actions do. Maybe that's why I can't bring myself to make a full-throated defense of slippery sloped conclusions like bestiality or "radical democracy". On 5/31/22 21:29, Eric Charles wrote: > Alternate take: Web3 is doing just fine. > > Identity politics is bad in all contexts, including when it's used to get people to buy things they otherwise wouldn't buy (which is the main focus of the Molly White article). Also, Pyramid schemes are bad anywhere you find them, not just on the web, and certainly not just in web3. Oh, and also you can manipulate people by giving them a false sense of security... well... no shit. > > But also, if people are getting a thing they want, then that isn't a scam. If you go to a tupperware party put on a friend, because you need tupperware, and might as well buy it there, and then you buy it there, and later the tupperware that you wanted arrives, that simply isn't a bad thing. The tupperware sales scheme might even be an MLM, but that doesn't mean you got scammed when you bought a container, it just means your friend probably isn't going to get rich off the whole thing. > > Here is a link to an NFT that looks to be a pure pyramid scheme, you shouldn't buy it.... but hey... if you get in early maybe you will get lucky and the scheme will work: https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xa8089bf595f2b2ada60b24224fcdc411cf0a40da/300 <https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xa8089bf595f2b2ada60b24224fcdc411cf0a40da/300> <https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xa8089bf595f2b2ada60b24224fcdc411cf0a40da/300 <https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xa8089bf595f2b2ada60b24224fcdc411cf0a40da/300>> > > Here is a link to an NFT minting that is being put on by PokerGo, which is a known, real world company, that runs tons of tournaments, has a production studio, and has its own streaming service for poker (including the biggest back list anywhere), and if you get the NFT it comes with free membership to their streaming service. So, if you figure you are going to pay for their streaming service for a year or two, you probably want to buy this NFT. PokerGO Genesis NFT Collection - Collection | OpenSea <https://opensea.io/collection/pokergo-genesis-nft-collection <https://opensea.io/collection/pokergo-genesis-nft-collection>> > > If eth goes to zero tomorrow (which it won't), as long as PokerGo honors the streaming membership, it will be a fine purchase. If eth goes up and/or there is a run on PokerGo NFTs, and I can sell at a profit in a year or two, that would be even better, but it isn't necessary for the purchase to make sense. > > (Technically the PokerGo NFT is still in mint, so you actually want to "mint" not "buy", but let's not complicate things....) > > Best, > Eric > > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Senior Workforce Analyst > Human Capital Management Office > Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) > American University - Adjunct Instructor > <mailto:echar...@american.edu <mailto:echar...@american.edu>> > > > On Mon, May 30, 2022 at 7:47 AM Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com> <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > I have too many subscriptions but there's this from the source > > https://blog.mollywhite.net/predatory-community/ <https://blog.mollywhite.net/predatory-community/> <https://blog.mollywhite.net/predatory-community/ <https://blog.mollywhite.net/predatory-community/>> > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Mon, May 30, 2022, 4:53 AM Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org <mailto:r...@elf.org> <mailto:r...@elf.org <mailto:r...@elf.org>>> wrote: > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/ <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/ <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/>> > > -- rec -- > > On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 8:17 PM glen <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > Ha! No, I won't be buying any NFTs. I do still hold out some hope for distributed computation, however naïve. My Ada is staked. And I'm sporadically re-piqued by FileCoin and AR. But the anti-crypto rants are fantastic. Perfect examples of healthy criticism. This one was a lot of fun: > > Web3.0: A Libertarian Dystopia > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-sNSjS8cq0 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-sNSjS8cq0> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-sNSjS8cq0 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-sNSjS8cq0>> > > On 5/27/22 17:02, Roger Critchlow wrote: > > The longer-form, less sarcastic thoughts on web3 are also good reading, https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/ <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/> <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/ <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/>> <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/ <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/> <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/ <https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/>>>, though the rate at which things are going great is pretty hilarious. Who knew the future would bring us serial rug-pullers? > > -- rec -- > > > > > > -- rec -- > > > > > > On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 6:31 PM Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com> <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com> <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>>>> wrote: > > > > So you won’t be buying commemorative NFTs of the Heard/Depp verdict? > > > > > On May 27, 2022, at 1:51 PM, glen <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>>> wrote: > > > > > > ...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already-smoldering planet. > > > > > > https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/> <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/>> <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/> <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ <https://web3isgoinggreat.com/>>> > > > > > > -- > > > Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙
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