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scams are the only reason im a homeowner

I mean, I’d totally do some scammy bullshit atp if it meant I could be financially stable, build wealth for retirement, and help my community. It feels like those things are so out of reach; I have a STEM degree and a related job but can’t afford a fucking car to replace the stolen one.

Having ethics and morals really sucks sometimes. But I would rather die in my moral standards than live having none. It is not to say I cannot compromise or that I prefer inaction in my morals, but that I would rather act with measured restraint, even if it hurts me.

Also makes charging a fair price for good work hard because people will assume you're ripping them off. Artists, creatives, you know what I'm talking about.

try being poor for an extended period. it was really surprising how quickly "concern for others" drops on the priority list when it comes to decision-making. Not disagreeing with you at all, just pointing out how rational thinking people can get sucked in.

Yeah wasn’t there a long form article about a University of Miami drop-ship scammer and his classmates were like “good for him, better hustle than going to work for Google and being worked to death for pennies” ?

"magic beans" haven't gotten enough attention lately, might still be an untapped market. Cures measles and ED

When the billionaires are taking so much that most people have to have a side hustle to make rent, it's time to make nature balanced again. Billionaires should not exist.

The evidence points to universal basic income reducing this kind of behavior. bsky.app/profile/scot...

All the markets (stock, housing, education, healthcare) are susceptible to scams and will definitely be hammered when they roll back regulations. All the new funny money and social media scams are what this generation knows and, you're right, they probably think it's all good as long as "I got mine"

That and "Hey, why should I follow the rules when I don't like the rules?" or "Those people who broke the rules became famous, why shouldn't I?"

Does the car turn into a boat, because I heard it might. Or it becomes a fish habitat...

I think it's a fact of late stage capitalism that it becomes nearly impossible to run an honest, fair business because all your competition is dishonest and/or unfair.

It's what capitalism is reduced to when those with the greatest concentrations never earned a cent but succeeded on the scam of hype alone. So now it's all just crash and burn and trying to extract a profit from the chaos or another possible pandemic.

That shit makes people angry, and an angry citizenry doesn't bode well for politics.

I miss when I joked with a friend that we should start a "right-wing" SuperPAC and then just keep the money. Oh, those simple, naive times.

A good chunk of the economy feels like scams and we spend too much time dodging them to dodge them all I’m Mad at Google for deciding to put scam website that pay over the one I searched for. They do it Just waiting for you to have a bad day and be less focused and get caught and it sucks. Fu goog

If you go - right now - to the the CNBC business website, one of the Trending Topics is: "I have 5 income streams and make $1 million from Amazon: My No. 1 advice for starting a side hustle" *side hustle*

I feel this strongly. Kash Patel made millions being a traitor, lying about Americans.

The inevitable toxicity of "work smarter not harder" evolved to "scam everyone, get your bag, before they scam you."

i am

Yep

i think we'll look back on the first quarter* of the 21st century as the Age of Bullshit™ (* that's only if we get it under control)

Yes, don’t have the sports knowledge, I would…and sigh maybe and definitely never. I would rather deal with straight up crackheads than legislators

Why be legitimate when you can create a financial bubble using fraud that not only you don't go to jail for but you get richer while the taxpayers get poorer? Thanks Obama administration for destroying our faith in justice.

I also think the wildly corrupt Trump PPP loans really hammered this home (among many other factors)

It's a lot of the "why not me" mentality, everyone else is doing it ...

This is why it’s hard to explain the concept of “zero-sum” to a population that increasingly has little or no lived experience of the alternative.

They made so much easy money already that they feel entitled to lots more, even easier money, not this decade, not this year, but today, with absolutely no work. Sliding the buy sell button on the app is proof of their brilliance. And if it fails, others are to blame and must compensate.

and the worst part is that most people who push the idea of financial stability are the 'info-marketing' charlatans selling regurgitated mindset/motivation junk with a side of basic sales writing. many of those are either scammers-in-training or believe their own bs from just being lucky.

hustle hustle hustle

My scam is that im a competent employee...dont tell my boss

Look at the Best Picture winner at the Oscars. That's what generations have been taught, post-Reagan, post-"Greed is Good" "Wall Street."

If i could just stop having a conscience id never have to worry about money again. I feel guilty enough about my bar scams. And with those i TELL people im going to scam them.

Oooh I have been thinking about this. Not just Trump but Theranos, Sam Bankman-Fried, Musk even before now, it’s like the American dream has shifted to be the greatest huckster.

if you think the idea that running scams is the best path to basic financial stability is unique to 2025 America, I’ve got a bridge to sell you

uhhhh they're called side hustles

Not to mention that crypto is just the business model of Silicon Valley startup capitalism stripped down to its bare essentials.

That’s not fair, a noteworthy chunk of it is also for buying heroin

Fake it till ya make it

Made doubly preposterous by the fact that they'd get infinitely more stability by like working at a restaurant

Why do fraud when nutritional supplements allow you to lie legally

I thought this so many times. Just make some "magical" product, like a stone that cures cancer or start a cult, where everybody has to give me their worldly possessions. Damn morals ...

Seems like a pretty straightforward throughline from "gig economy" to "scam economy". Get yours where you can.

I leave the laptop unattended for one minute and...

The United States has been a nation of grifters for some time, and the current crop of tech bros has lead that charge.

So I can see why people might be tempted to abandon morals and turn to scamming, even if I obviously don't agree with it. Just like how I can see why the desperate might turn to crime or drug addiction to cope with capitalism.

You already kind of had this with the MLM boom but it is growing, while ironically MLM's themselves aren't.

coupled with the total inundation of sports gambling in American society now, and it feels like capital is stripping the copper wiring from this country

I...*stares at my law school degree*. Yeah that squares.

There are also the smaller scams: extra money for the most basic comforts on airlines, the junk fees, the refusal to allow a real person - without a script - to help us on the phone. It all chips away at our humanity and trust.

We're a nation of Ferengi

What they are describing is everyday life for the middle class in Russia

JD's long con is the faux hillbilly subgenre.

Honestly, this grifting shit is what I always thought being an adult in the '80s must have been like. Everyone on TV was always trying to get rich doing something incredibly fucking stupid and impractical.

Ill have a PhD in ecology soon and most of my job prospects were in govt or academia. My friend is a social worker helping the elderly and homeless but her nonprofit's funding just got slashed and she's burnt out. We joke about starting a side hustle selling sawdust supplements.

I’m a doctor and I’ll never say I make bad money, but I could make incredible money if I didn’t have a conscience

I love my job. I wouldn't trade it for the world. But I still feel like watching senior pediatricians who do amazing work and impactful science .make less than 25 year olds who tell companies to do layoffs has made me feel like I'm being scammed because I care about people.

I have to admit, I thought about opening a MAGA crap store way back in 2016, but the idea of going on Facebook and Xitter to drum up fake engagement was so revolting I could not bring myself to do it.

I mean, everyone I know in the U.S. is incredibly terrified and stressed

I wish I could get in on the right wing grift. It looks so lucrative. 😭

I guess it kind of goes back to Faine's main point: when you grow up working class in the US, especially as a white cis male (and can internalize some sense of entitlement even if you don't mean to), you are bombarded with temptations to take shortcuts. "To get yours". It's hard for some to unlearn.

Never forget, today's "Evangelical Christians" love a good scam when they see one.

It sure didn't work out well for Russia

Not to mention proliferation of influencers, Only Fans, crypto hawking. General societal breakdown.

This reminds me of the Gladwell article about Black Swan hedge fund investors: some of the smartest people in the world and all they do with that brainpower is run simulations for a get rich quick scheme.

It's how Bibi took power in Israel.

I'm missing out on so much money by not being completely shameless. My stupid conscious is holding me back.

Apropos of, uh, yeah, back in the day the overwhelming majority of account theft on eBay to commit fraud was done by people in the economically devestated former Soviet block countries, esp Romania.

Late stage capitalism vibes.

And now those working for the government hate their jobs. You can’t be devalued, be hated by everyone including the boss and still feel good about your jobs when the only thing that kept you going was feeling that it mattered.

Yes hello 20 years as higher ed staff, it me.

They even argue for and justify their obscene wealth by saying that nobody would ever do anything without that motivation... maybe the rest of us are a threat to that by our mere existence?

Exactly. I experienced both first hand. So many people have the expectation that a stranger asking questions must be out to take them for a ride, so they aren't willing to take part in surveys for the federal government.

Yeah. Maybe the handful of people who make a living as independent artists.

There's still military service (for now), but that's obviously not for everyone.

The number of all jobs under attack right now and literally 1/2 of the population seems to be unaware of it is also staggering

The final culmination of failing to hold one single congressional hearing about how much off shoring would damage our economy, our communities and ultimately our functioning society. Good job, oligarchy. Take the next 50 years off.

I mean, that's kind of hustle culture in a nut shell. All those MLMs are just scams with better marketing. Perhaps part of the problem is that scams are so entrenched in our culture and have been for a while, it's eroded our ethical consciousness when it comes to labor

I recall news stories about youths in Greenland having envious breakdowns and existential crises that led to suicide waves when they got MTV and the internet and saw how middle-class Americans and celebrities lived.

I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. You don’t have this moment w/o influencers, but the influencer message doesn’t stick without at least some learned life experience that hard work & honesty doesn’t matter.

if the people can't (or won't) eat the rich then they'll start eating each other instead a grim outlook indeed

I'd like to make a cryptocurrency and call it CrimeCoin.

🎯

I had an opportunity to do an ICO back in the late 2010s but turned it down; I do a bunch of volunteer work for the love of the game. I feel my soul corroding but I can't give up, not right now. Maybe the future will still be better if I work for it.