Confidence Games & Pyramid Schemes, There's One Born Every Nanosecond Options Rating

[Jonny Cache]

I'm Re-view-ing the Sit-u-a-tion …

'Cause there's something fishy goin' on here — my nose tells me that much — and just because I don't know what it is yet — especially because I don't know what it is yet — it is necessary to speculate on the various sorts of games that might be in the mix.

So I want to extract a generic theme that arose in another line of inquiry, and abstract it from the specifics of that particular case, because I think there's a bigger picture, however dimly lit, to keep in sight here.

I started thinking along these lines a few weeks back when I saw yet another story on the local news about some Senior Citizen of the Griftedest Generation who sent $20,000 in cold hard cash by Featheral Xpress to some address in Phoenix because some guy on the phone said she had won $10 million from Publishers' Shearinghouse, and, like she said, "But he sounded so convincing on the phone". I was right in the middle of exclaiming — Wow !!! Just how gullible can some folks be !? — when I reflected for a moment on how much of my time and effort I had been conned into x-spending on Wikipedia, all for the sake of a really good line.

Since that time I've been contemplating the ways that the Wikipedia-Citizendium game seems very much like some kind of Intellectual Pyramid Scheme. A couple of distinguishing marks — if you'll excuse the expression — of a long-lasting pyramid scheme are these: (1) a steady influx of newbies who have yet to tumble to the game, and (2) a mechanism to efflux from the system and to render harmless the marks who have started to ask too many questions.

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

A Very Shiny Glossary — Terms of Artful Dodgery

• "Confidence Game", Everything_2
• Maurer, D.W. (1940), "The Argot of Confidence Men", American Speech, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Apr 1940), pp. 113-123

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

[Somey]

Interesting...

I mean, if all this is in preparation for some sort of manifesto or something on The Inherent Problems of Wikipedia, then I'd certainly agree that it's an intellectual con game, and that the leader has, indeed, successfully convinced himself that he's doing something good for society (note: he isn't), along with the self-delusion that he isn't really in charge of it (he is, though admittedly less so than he used to be). But the most important aspect of a pyramid scheme is the promise of a payoff, and the fact that said promise usually goes unfulfilled. So... what's the payoff? Barnstars up the ying-yang? Becoming an administrator eventually? Or just having someone to talk to about subjects that interest you? All of those seem to be realistic goals for people who are willing to sublimate, or else put aside completely, whatever strongly-held beliefs or opinions they may have (if any) in the pursuit of those things.

Again, that's not to say people aren't being conned... WP is telling n00bz that they're contributing to the "ultimate storehouse of human knowledge," and that they should be proud of themselves for this. Most people in academia, publishing, and the media don't think of it that way at all, but the n00bz often don't seem to realize just how embattled the project is until they're already drawn in. So if they become addicted to it, they soon become insularized against that outside criticism, by necessity, along with all the other kool-aid drinkers - we've seen this time and time again. But that doesn't mean they haven't obtained (or can't eventually obtain) what they originally wanted...

Personally, I think Wikipedia is closer to a rigged poker game than a pyramid scheme, but since I haven't participated in it myself, I'm probably not the best person to judge. I haven't even played poker in years!