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:

[WhispersOfWisdom]

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 Citisen 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-Citisendium 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

Pretty much like the old commercial says: You asked for it, you got it Toyota!

Now you are thinking like a wonderful capitalist. Thank you Google!

You will benefit greatly as will other scholars, by taking back your works and presenting them in a forum that will reward you for your time and brainpower. You will also have a very strong partner.

Let the kids at Wikipedia show their true worth by doing what kids do...get pregnant at age 16.
Now that is real wisdom! Like Britney like sister. Block everybody that disagrees with the cabal.

Promote people like Durova and JzG. Yeah, that's it!