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419 Emails From A Cultural Perspective
dasboy writes "The LA Times has an article entitled I Will Eat Your Dollars about Nigerian 419 scammers that presents some of the cultural basis for the crime. They follow some young men in Lagos who toil over computers all-day and long into the night to snag a new victim. They even have a fight song entitled 'I Go Chop Your Dollars.'" From the article: "Scammers, he said, 'have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy. They say the American guy has a good life. There's this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way.' What makes the scams so tempting for the targets is that they promise a tantalizing escape from the mundane disappointments of life. The scams offer fabulous riches or the love of your life, but first the magha has to send a series of escalating fees and payments. In a dating scam, for instance, the fraudsters send pictures taken from modeling websites."
I would have to agree that the anonymous American is a greedy fool.
Where else do you see people react to being in an accident like they won the lottery? Be it medical, car, workplace. Get hurt and bingo, how can I get paid.
Tough to admit, but deep down everyone has some greed. Greed is a survival trait. Greed doesn't apply only to money, but to status, acceptance, and a miriad other indicators be them material or immaterial.
Most scams rely heavily on the scamee forgoing rational thought to bite the lure. Nothing clouds judgement like a big payday or a supermodel.
American's are in for a rough ride when China becomes the next superpower and greed is a major reason why.
--signed "A greedy American"
Only greedy people fall for the "I have $18346205826.54 US, and I need someone to help me get it out of the country." So, how can you feel truly sorry for someone who is attempting to commit a crime and gets scammed out of his money?
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Foo: They say the American guy has a good life.
Bar: Walk a mile in my shoes, buddy. You'll find out it ain't all peachs 'n cream.
Yeah. You've got it bad, here in America (I assume) with "the run-down, teeming streets, the grimy buildings, the broken refrigerators stacked outside, the strings of wet washing. It's the kind of place where plainclothes police prowl the streets extorting bribes, where mobs burn thieves to death for stealing a cellphone, and where some people paint "This House Is Not For Sale" in big letters on their homes, in case someone posing as the owner tries to put it on the market."
Oh, my bad. That's the description (from the FA) of the conditions of the folks who you're asking to "walk in your shoes". There's no way anyone from the US, Canada, or Europe (including myself) could even concieve of what it's like to live in such conditions with no way out.
Wrong is wrong, and the young man profiled in the article has more guts than most to see that and turn his back on it. But to completely ignore the factors behind the bad behavior is counterproductive at best. "Root causes" (of crime, poverty, terrorism, etc) may be overrated, but it's hard to defeat an enemy if you don't know his motivation.
Or maybe Slashdot dropped the [sarcasm] tag from your post...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
You can only lean on cultural relativism so much.
What I mean is, regardless of the culture you were raised in and the social climate of your environment, at some point, wrong is wrong is wrong.
In this category, I would put anything that infringes on the rights of other human beings, including murder, assault, and, yes, simple theft.
Justify it all you want. Yes, the people who fall for it are often greedy and stupid, but that doesn't make the act of the perpitrators any less wrong.
Aren't these scams just what "social justice" is supposed to be -- stealing from people because INSERT JUSTIFICATION HERE ?
Justifications:
- It's their fair share.
- They did XYZ THING in the past
- Their ancestors did XYZ THING in the distant past
- They have a different skin color than me
- They have a different religion than me
- They can afford it
- Etc.
The justifications aren't really relevant, BTW. They're just flavor. People steal/tax/defraud/embezzle/con because they want the money and because they can.
Walk a mile in my shoes, buddy. You'll find out it ain't all peachs 'n cream.
Doubtful. You most likely have a personal computer that you can call your own, or perhaps your family's. You probably eat well, have a closet full of clothes to choose from, get a free education (high school), or pay(have payed for) for a good quality education if you're in college. Chances are that you own your own car, or can use on of your families cars. Given the current US unemployment percentage (5.1%) you most likely have a job. You spend your free time on niche news websites such as slashdot. I could go on, but the point is, you (and I also fit into all of those above claims), that we have a good life compared to most the rest of the world, regardless of where we fit in on the American class system.
Now, that all being said, it is in no way an excuse for these immoral scams. Stealing is wrong no matter what and these people prey on the old and poor who are ticked into this scam. What they do is unexcusable, and their reasoning offered in the article is just that, excuses for behavoir they know is wrong.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
scammers are criminals, and deserve to be locked up and/or shot. Not looked at as some kind of cultural escapism that is the necessary end result of a boring life.
Exactly. This whole article seems to be nothing more than sociopathic guilt transference - they know what they're doing hurts other people, so they come up with excuses about their victims in an attempt to mask their guilt.
I'm surprised they didn't use the phrase "everybody does it".
I can't tell you how many times I hear about welfare fraud where someone might net a few hundred dollars a month, but these same people never once mention the corporate people who steal millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. Or corporate bosses who steal the pension plans from people who have worked hard all their careers and are left with nothing. Thank god for social security so they won't starve.
So right now we're worried about some Nigerians stealling tens of millions a year when we've got tens of billions in medical fraud going on in this country.
Get some perspective.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Sounds like a lot of arguments we hear about the legitamacy of pirating. "They make so much money anyway," "Yeah but they screw over the artists," "It's all crap that I wouldn't have bought anyway," etc.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
I don't think anyone (except them) would claim that their excuses are a fair justification for stealing from gullible, often not-so wealthy americans, but that doesn't mean we should ignore them.
Understanding the social and economic context that this sort of crime takes place in is important, especially if we want to combat it. Poverty and lack of education, while certainly not justifications for crime, are often part of the cause.
Much like muslim terrorists, I think it's always better to have an understanding of what's going on with the people who try to screw us over so hard, instead of just imagining them as mustachio twirling villains who are out to get us because, well, they're the bad guys.
Much like muslim terrorists, I think it's always better to have an understanding of what's going on with the people who try to screw us over so hard, instead of just imagining them as mustachio twirling villains who are out to get us because, well, they're the bad guys.
That is the most insightful thing I have seen in a while and totally agree...
Like the UK Transit bombings when someone says "Maybe they bombed us because we have troops in Iraq?" they get shouted down as providing excuses for the Terrorists, but the fact of the matter is that people just don't wake up one morning and say "Well I am going to blow myself up today for no good reason!"
Whatever reason they may have is actually important to the situation, but I stress it is not excusable to go and murder, steal, and scam people, but if you want to defeat the enemy you must know their motives.
It is how the detective and intelligence catches these criminal... To psychologically understand who this person maybe and also recognize signs of another possible criminal.
And it irks me to no end when I see police or soldiers refer to the enemy as "the bad guys" with no respect to understanding why they do the things they do. Sure it is there job to kill or apprehend the criminal/enemy, but these people are doing it for reasons that may seem justified in their own eyes.
If you sit back and recognize these justification you might have a better chance of avoiding and preventing being scammed, assaulted, or surviving the attach when it happens.
As Sun Tzu said "Know thyself, know thy enemy and win the battle every time.". (paraphrased)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)