Mafia Wars CEO Brags About Scamming Users 251
jamie writes with a follow-up to our recent discussion of social gaming scams:
"Mark Pincus, CEO of the company that brought us Mafia Wars, says: 'I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues right away. I mean, we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar, which was like, I don't know... I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it.'"
TechCrunch also ran a interesting tell-all from the CEO of a company specializing in Facebook advertisements, who provided some details on similarly shady operations at the popular social networking site.
And he likes that he did this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that exposes additional personal information on us to the web is bad IMO. All personal info, should be OFF by default anything less is unacceptable. If I choose to click a box and expose personal info, it should only be by my choice, not to agree to a TOS.
The guy even admits that the polls were BS, just collecting a user's personal information for selling to advertisers to generate revenue.
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Is everyone getting inspired by Agassi now? Sheesh.
Re:And he likes that he did this... (Score:4, Funny)
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I don't place mafia wars and my facebook isn't hidden from any facebook user. Why? Because aside from my first name, no other info on there is real .. oh, except that I'm single.
So Facebook forces you to violate their terms of service in order to protect your privacy and personal information. I consider this a huge FAIL!
You understand of course that they could cancel you in a heartbeat if they found out and decided to enforce their terms of service which stipulates only real names can be used.
BTW, I think that is very smart of you, not to put real information in your profile, but it would suck to get a decent following and friends list and have it all ripped away when they can
Re:And he likes that he did this... (Score:5, Funny)
But not as bad as getting the Zwinky toolbar. Some years ago I got one of those horrible persistent-ware things and it was like the monkey's paw. I finally had to run my computer over with my car repeatedly to finally get rid of it.
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I tried that to -- but Bonzai Buddy was too tough. Stupid purple monkey kept rising from the grave.
Re:And he likes that he did this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless "Mobsters" is one of the VERY few apps on Facebook that agrees to restricted access rights, you've given it access to all the data you have on Facebook, and anything that you can see of your friends' data. Without installing anything but the app.
Now, since Mobsters is continually trying to get you to buy into scams, what do you suppose they've done with your e-mail address? All the e-mail addresses of your friends? Any phone numbers? Etc?
You may not be the sucker who signs up for a credit card so you can get some points in a game, but you have given an acknowledged scammer a bunch of personal information on yourself and your friends, which has undoubtedly been sold to several someones you would prefer didn't have that information.
Re:And he likes that he did this... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>"Dominic should be banned from Facebook..... We call him the Sperminator as he just goes around getting girls pregnant and doesn't ever think about the consequences"
He'd just move over to the local bar.
Men have been impregnating girls for millions of years.
It's what they do, and why anyone is shocked by this is a mystery.
As for "not thinking about consequences" isn't that what the women did as well? It seems they are just as guilty, else they'd not be pregnant
Re:And he likes that he did this... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for "not thinking about consequences" isn't that what the women did as well? It seems they are just as guilty, else they'd not be pregnant
Yes, but that doesn't make for good sensationalistic journalism. Recognizing that there are also plenty of women (or at least 12 apparently) using facebook to get laid makes it less about the "predator" and more about the fact that people want/need sex and will do whatever it takes to get it...both men and women. Either the women were stupid (and not paying attention to the things he said/did) or they were looking for the same thing he was and now feel stupid because they're pregnant. Big deal.
There's nothing wrong with women or men wanting sex and using facebook to get it. Lying about things in order to get sex is fairly standard practice, as despicable as it is, in real life and on the the internet... this isn't news, or at least it shouldn't be.
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Re:And he likes that he did this... (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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As for "not thinking about consequences" isn't that what the women did as well? It seems they are just as guilty, else they'd not be pregnant
He probably told them he was on the pill and they believed him.
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A British man has been tagged "The Sperminator" for getting 12 girls pregnant after wooing them on social networking site Facebook. Five women are now raising his kids, five were talked into abortions and two are expecting. For years, love rat Dominic Baronet secretly preyed on women with his smooth Internet patter.
Don't you love it how these retarded bitches are suddenly victims? I'm sorry, but unless it was rape, he didn't "prey" on anyone. Didn't their mom tell them not to fuck guys they barely know without at least some protection?
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Does this surprise anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
... anyone using Facebook, that is. It's a pit of shady applications. Not even the nice applications are not annoying in some aspect. You can't even take a quiz there without having it try force itself onto others. Sometimes trying to fool you into thinking that the only way to see the results is to publish it to your friends.
There was a time when we couldn't dream of malicious quizzes, and infesting horoscopes, but Facebook brings the necessary application intelligence to us. In a bad way. Their application API must be like a spammer's wet dream.
Absurd application rights are to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
My biggest problem with FB applications is the absurd policy about what rights do the applications have. Either you give them no rights at all (and can't use it) or you give them full access to all your and your friends' info. You can then go to settings and stop the application from posting to your wall, etc... But it has access to all the information you have access to.
There are occasionally rather interesting looking small games, quizes, etc. that I would want to try out... But I don't want to give them full access to all my information! Those quizes don't need it at all, the application doesn't use any of it. Perhaps a list of friend names so it can show "Your friends got these results" but that's it.
If there only was a way to use some checkbox list "Let these access list of my friends but not their (or my) relationshipstatus, their (or my) photos, the groups they (or I) belong to..." or anything like that, I would use a lot more applications. But it is either "Tell them everything or don't use them".
Re:Absurd application rights are to blame (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to play the games so bad and don't want to give out your information, then the solution for now is to just have an account with no friends (a.k.a. the Saturday Night Slashdot Special.)
Re:Absurd application rights are to blame (Score:4, Informative)
But most of the games require you to have a certain number of "crew" to unlock certain parts of the game.....so you just need to friend other "Saturday Night Slashdot Special" accounts (at least 501 so you can max your Mafia) and go from there.
Re:Absurd application rights are to blame (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe we should form something like that? Facebook accounts with friends set up that have no other reason than to create a fake "social" network, with people nothing having in common but the common disinterest to let applications snoop their personal information?
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Trouble is some bright spark from the FBI might get confused, kick your door down and confiscate your stuff
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the Saturday Night Slashdot Special
a.k.a. the Drive-By Trolling Account
Re:Absurd application rights are to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's assume that they're not doing anything illegal with your data. Let's even assume they're not doing anything shady like trying to install software that you won't be able to get rid of later. Is anybody else even a little bit sympathetic to the argument that this is how Facebook makes money? They don't charge their users. The only "product" they have to sell is their users' freely-given information. The Slashdot crowd tends to be more security conscious than others but I've actually thought about this one. Am I willing to trade some of my anonymity for the use of an interesting, free service? Yeah, a little bit, I am. Cue the zealots shouting about how I deserve to have my identity stolen and my credit trampled into the ground for my heresy.
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I think most people are that way. Most people tolerate TV ads, for example, or use those discount cards at the grocery store.
I was willing to let Facebook know some things for their service, but not now. I got tired of every few months having to play the most played (and least popular) game on Facebook, "Oh Jesus, What's Changed Now, And How Can I Make It Go Away?". The News/Live feed thing did it for me. Yeah, I really want some Facebook programmer's script to determine what's "interesting" or "not inter
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On Facebook the user is the product.
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Are you sure it gives the application access to all your friends info? I'm on Facebook but I'll admit I didn't realise this, so effectively although I never install these shitty apps, if what you say is true they could be leeching my information anyway? As I've refused giving these applications access to my personal information that would certainly seem to be a breach of the data protection act in the UK as I explicitly denied them access to my information when I recieved requests and of course, friends can
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But it has access to all the information you have access to.
Actually, there's also settings to prevent all applications from accessing *anything* about you. I hunted it down when a friend's applications started posting things directed to/about me personally. I got frustrated because I never gave any app permission to read my information.
Its at Settings > Privacy Settings > Applications > Settings
So just ignore the apps on Facebook (Score:2)
Business men (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Business men (Score:4, Insightful)
This is more like a bank robber that once he have all the money he need he open its night club and live from his hard earned money and never rob again. Shady business is shady business, successful and converted to a legitimate business or not sucessful.
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If you RTFA, you'll notice a major target was kids. They would target the kids then charge the parents cell phone bills.
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then the parents got what they deserved for getting cellphones for their kids.
kids don't need cellphones, and if they really feel that they do, they can get a job and pay for it themselves.
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I don't have a kid but if I did I'm put them on the $5/month. (i.e. The same one I have.) You get 5 dollars each month credited to your phone, and if you run-out, too bad. You should have learned to budget your money more wisely.
And if a child does charge a credit card or cellphone, per consumer protection law, that charge is illegal and can be charged-back by your credit card company.
Re:Business men (Score:5, Interesting)
I really, really wish "Kids don't need cell phones" was true. And it may be that it is some places. Unfortunately, it also seems that it is a real need in some places: Lacking a cell phone will totally cut the kid off from their social circle, because very large parts of communication goes by SMS.
It's the same with net access; I personally believe that kids would mature better if they were all without cell phones and unmonitored net access until they're well into their teens. Alas, when almost all kids get cellphones and net access, denying to just one kid makes that kid an outcast :-(
Eivind.
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So because the other parents are fools that spend ~$50/month and $600/year to support their kids' texting addiction, we should do the same?
I vote "no" on that subject. Kids can find no-cost ways to talk to another, like email or local phone calls, like we did when we were kids. They don't need to be wasting my money on trivial bullshit (aka gossip).
Re:Business men (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot to yell at everyone to get off your lawn.
My older (now adult) kids paid for their own airtime (pay-as-you-go phones). Once they're socially self-propelled, it's good to be able to track them down if you need them.
And even if they're skint and out of airtime, the phone will work for 911 in an emergency, so I feel ok about that.
Now, the younger kids... they're preschoolers, so the only cells they get are the little plastic ones with the push buttons that make "boop-boop" noises and blinky lights. Kinda like a cheap AT&T phone except with better coverage.
Back on topic, social networking sites... I always warned the younguns to very carefully read and consider the terms of the software before installing it on their Myface or whatever page. Read those licenses in the most paranoid light possible ("What are these guys trying to put over on me"), because at least once, it'll be justified.
It's worked so far.
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I vote "no" on that subject. Kids can find no-cost ways to talk to another, like email or local phone calls, like we did when we were kids. They don't need to be wasting my money on trivial bullshit (aka gossip).
Personally, I used cheap walkie-talkies. If you live in a city you've got an excellent chance of reaching your friends with an FRS/GMRS radio from Wal-Mart. (I even got a HAM license, but none of my friends did...)
Re:Business men (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only a minority that do asshat things like supporting their kids-text addiction to the tune of thousands of bucks.
My girl (12 years old) gets 300 pesos load a month ($6 US) for her phone. That's good for 300 texts, or 10 a day. If she finishes them in a week, that's up to her, but's she's not getting any more till the next month.
But as a parent, the ability to at least call her wherever she is, if she's late home from school etc, and save myself the worry / stress / potential coronary, it's a small price to pay.
Kid's DO need cells, in the same way as kids in our day needed the latest Nikes, or a skateboard, or whatever the trend of the week was. Not just so they don't become social pariahs, but so the parents can have some peace of mind that they can be contacted in an emergency.
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Then give your kid a cell and a limited supply of messages (i.e. a money limit, telcos (at least here) offer such plans). If he wants to get more out of his money, he should get creative. There are free/cheap ways to communicate. One of the things to do when growing up is to find out how to maximize the bang for your buck, nothing wrong with them learning it early. It will help them keep their money together when they're adults.
IMO one of the reasons why so many young people are way over their ears in debt
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What's that got to do with anything? No high-schooler had a cell phone 17 years ago. You all (actually we all, since I'm in that age bracket too) had land-line phones, probably, and you'd arrange get-togethers at school or right when you got home. Or maybe after dinner. Now, though, all
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If I don't steal all your money at gunpoint, I'm just decreasing my own wealth, right?
Seen the likes before (Score:5, Interesting)
When I spoke to his boss about this and other stuff he had on their rippoff of the hotornot site he just shrugged and said it's in a gray area and not illegal yet so I don't care.
People like this will always be out there and they don't care how they make money or who gets hurt as long as they have a nice income.
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Installing specifically after a user says "no" is definitely not in a gray area... it's clearly "hacking" a system for your own use, which is definitely against the law, at least here in the USA.
Re:Seen the likes before (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had plenty of friends who are now not currently my friends. I wouldn't tolerate a friendship with someone who behaved in such a manner, and yes I would likely go to their manager if they were doing something like this.
My friends understand that I hold this position.
I watch the backs of people who are worth it.
Ugly things happen ... (Score:3, Interesting)
... when people feel they need to get rich. This guy phrases it as 'controlling his destiny' to get profits as soon as possible, which IMHO reeks of addiction to money. And lets face it, some of the really rich people who control or own more or less reputable companies now have probably done some pretty shady things in the beginning of their career just to get to that point. Some probably just get there by chance, because they happen to have a talent that more or less by coincidence generates money, but some start with a real _need_ for money and power, which is a good incentive to not be too picky about morals and ethics. Thinks about real estate e.g., where lots of people are speculating hoping to get rich and ruthlessness can give you a real advantage.
I read about a research a while ago (years, sorry no source) that states that acquiring large sums of money creates the same kind of euphoria as for instance using cocaine as it causes the same neurotransmitters to be produced in the brain. Irrational need for more and more money is a real addiction I think and should be treated as such.
The only remarkable thing this guys is doing is being open and forward about it.
Re:Ugly things happen ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I read about a research a while ago (years, sorry no source) that states that acquiring large sums of money creates the same kind of euphoria as for instance using cocaine as it causes the same neurotransmitters to be produced in the brain. Irrational need for more and more money is a real addiction I think and should be treated as such.
Did you mean something like this? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111579154 [npr.org] though it's more related to love according to this article.
Researcher Xinyue Zhou, of the department of psychology at Sun Yat-Sen University in China, puts it in very human terms. "We think money works as a substitute for another pain buffer -- love."
And they link to this pdf http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/127771.pdf [umn.edu]
Seems like if you handle money you can endure certain amounts of pain a bit more if the study is correct and you feel more strength.
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Saying this won't be popular around here, but we already have a perfectly good treatment for wealth addition.
It's called a highly progressive income tax, which includes capital gains.
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No, that just punishes the honest ones and makes the rest wealthy tax cheats.
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It's called a highly progressive income tax, which includes capital gains.
I don't think that will cure money "addiction" any more than the high price of drugs cures drug addiction. No matter how much you tax cigarettes people are going to continue to smoke them.
A highly progressive income tax makes sense because you should tax people who can afford it (taxing the poor is downright evil), and the fact that the rich benefit from government and its taxation far more than a poor person does.
As to the capital ga
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And why a capital gains tax at all? If I put money in the bank it earns interest - isn't investing similar?
If you earn interest in a bank it is taxed, you loon.
That's what everyone's talking about...the middle class put money in banks, at 2% interest, and pay income taxes on the interest.
In fact, the tax hurts so much we invented all sorts of tax-deferment stuff like 401K accounts and stuff for the middle class to use.
These were entirely invented to us pay the income taxes, and interest taxes, on that
The joys of capitalism (Score:2)
"I love the smell of commerce in the morning."
The problem is that if he went to wall street or venture capitalists to get funding they would have just done everything they could to shaft him, so he tried to shaft as many other people as possible so he could avoid contact with them until he was a little bit stronger. Google did the same or though they did it in a more responsible manner as they had a better (more profitable) idea.
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> Didn't Google's first plan to make money, selling search engines, fail rather badly?
No, it was about advertising almost from the beginning.
Re:The joys of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually he is right according "The Google Story" by David A Vise. Their original plan was to licence the underlying search technology to other search companies. It was only after they were stonewalled by every other search company who wanted to be able to skew results in favour of their best customers that they released their own search engine to the masses and started moving to an advertising based model.
Even now they are very ambivalent with regard to advertising. The have the most high value piece of internet real estate in existence (http://www.google.co.uk/) and it does not contain a single advert.
I know many people here may have bought into the current MS and AT&T sponsored "Google is Evil" campaign, but lets not forget they were shunned by every other search engine of the time as they were to interested in giving their users the most relevant results, not the results that made them the most money. Until this changes it will always be my home page as I wonder whether Bing and Yahoo would go to revenue based results at the drop if a hat if Google were out of the picture.
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You're totally wrong, there are tons of ads on the Google search engine, just not on the landing page. That's because untargeted ads aren't worth much. Why clutter up the page (which turns off users) and waste impressions (which turns off advertisers) by showing irrelevant ads (which also turns off users), b
They run the world. (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad thieves and scammers steal and scam, and get squashed.
Meh thieves and scammers steal and scam, and brag about it.
Great thieves and scammers steal and scam, and get public funding as well as election votes.
Why getting mad at this guy, while great scammers run the world?
The full Scamville series on TechCrunch (Score:2)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming-ecosystem-of-hell/ [techcrunch.com]
Very depressing.
Getting rid of toolbars (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar, which was like, I don't know... I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it.
Hijackthis would usually get rid of most toolbars. Firefox toolbars are easier to get rid of.
The first words in "The Godfather" novel were.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Behind every great fortune is a crime." -- Honoré de Balzac
Blaming "greed" accomplishes what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whenever corporate mismanagement causes some calamity, people invariably decry the people responsible as "greedy bastards", "short-sighted morons", and so on. Although these statements are true, stating them is useless: greed, as a part of human nature, is here to stay. And organizations invariably elevate their most greedy and ambitious members because these are people are the ones who will exploit the rules to their advantage. Thus, given that greedy people will inevitably be in positions of power, we need to construct rules which ensure that this greed doesn't harm society. These rules need to make it the greedy party's interest to be a good participant in society.
We seem to ignore this principle. Over and over again, we fume and demand that companies and individuals be more responsible and respectful. Yet hardly anyone talks about implementing rules that would actually limit the damage.
A huge number of people believe that if society were just free of constraints, it'd organize itself into an efficient, elegant system and solve all our problems. That's wishful thinking. Greedy people will take advantage of inside connections, of special knowledge, and of outright dishonesty to screw over everyone else. And as much as we'd like to believe that the screwed will respond by researching their own information and leveling the playing field, doesn't actually happen, and won't.
First of all, even if everyone were equally capable, the screwing party has more time to research a particular type of transaction than the screwed party, so the asymmetry is really built-in. Second, not everyone is equally capable. As Larry Summers famously wrote, "There are idiots. Look around." Sometimes people can't help being idiots. Does that mean they deserve to be exploited? How far does that extend? Do people deserve to be exploited because they haven't studied browser security, or because they're not privy to office gossip, or because they don't have the social skills to network their way out of sticky situations?
We're going to keep seeing "X screwed over by powerful greedy person Y" stories until we use political channels to create new regulations that makes it in the best interests of the greedy to play nice with society. We can talk about the form these regulations should take. (IMHO, I think it's pretty clear we need far stronger privacy laws in the US.) What won't work is complaining that corporations are greedy. What won't work is trying to make laws while under the delusion that everyone is a rational actor with full access to relevant information. What might work is a determined effort to restore a sense of fair play and balance to our laws and institutions.
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tl;dr: greed is a fact of life, and crying about it won't do any good. We need effective and strong regulation to prevent the greed that invariably appears from hurting the rest of us.
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We're going to keep seeing "X screwed over by powerful greedy person Y" stories until we use political channels to create new regulations that makes it in the best interests of the greedy to play nice with society. We can talk about the form these regulations should take. (IMHO, I think it's pretty clear we need far stronger privacy laws in the US.) What won't work is complaining that corporations are greedy. What won't work is trying to make laws while under the delusion that everyone is a rational actor with full access to relevant information. What might work is a determined effort to restore a sense of fair play and balance to our laws and institutions.
It's already happened. We've had such rules in place for many decades. You started out so well, then it appears to me that you fell into the mental trap you were warning us about. You can't regulate away greed. You can't make a market "fair" when some people know a lot more and are smarter than others. Idiots don't deserve to be exploited. But idiots who go out of their way to lose their money? Yes, they deserve to be exploited.
My view is that the real world is chock full of danger. Greedy, ruthless peop
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so... if we could just find some un-greedy (thus by your definition, necessarily not-human) to make and enforce all the rules... then we would all be fine, right?
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The market is the playground where everybody can be as ruthless as it wants using abstract construct like companies. The theory is that, with the proper legislation and government safeguards the market should work in the best interest of the society in general.
The reality is that the power acquired in the playground gives you direct power over government and legislation, defeating the purpose.
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Outstanding post.
I love that you raised the relevant issues and provided solid rational support, then invited readers to think about the matter, rather than prescribing some simplistic panacea. These are complicated issues that we need to start by thinking deeply about. The first issue is that we do not yet broadly accept and understand the problem itself. While I may think I have some of the answers, the first critical step is to get people seriously considering and discussing the difference between labora
Re:Blaming "greed" accomplishes what? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, maturity is realizing that not everyone who disagrees with you is a "fuckhead".
As a matter of fact, we have an extensive vocabulary to describe all these things. Try "strolling", "breathing" and "being amicable". In fact, that a concept has a simple name in all languages shows by sort of a reverse Sapir-Whorf route the universality of that concept.
Greed isn't deviant. In fact, it's rather common, and to some degree, universal. What we call "greed" is just the manifestation of game theory [wikipedia.org]. Every organism acts in its own interest, or more precisely, in the interest of its genes. Organisms do this because they inherited the trait from their ancestors, who were the organisms who spread their genes best. Humans are not above mathematics. It's only natural that we act in our best interests too. But for the most part, we do so by cooperating, because they makes us all better off.
When all is well, we all get along in a state of enlightened self-interest where our self-interest and collective interest balance. But aggressive players can disrupt the game and at least temporarily benefit. Sometimes the gain really is short-term, and the society (system) settles back into a stable state [wikipedia.org]. Other times, a new equilibrium is achieved. In human terms, that new equilibrium usually isn't desirable, and even the aggressors end up worse off. (To pick an example: who did the Trojan War benefit, exactly?)
If we want a stable society in which we can all accrue the maximum personal benefit, we need to push back against those who would destabilize it using short-sighted aggressive behavior. To do that, we need to institute rules that make this behavior less attractive, and we need to institute rules that make society more tolerant to the damage caused by this aggressive behavior.
"Good" and "bad" are inflammatory and irrelevant on this level. Instead, we should be talking about how to prevent society from being damaged by its most aggressive members.
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First, maturity is realizing that not everyone who disagrees with you is a "fuckhead".
No, it's realization that some people are in fact fuckheads.
Greed isn't deviant. In fact, it's rather common, and to some degree, universal.
Most of deviant behavior is rather common and universal, just significantly less common than mainstream and recognized as such.
Most people do not exhibit a compulsion to rip off their fellow humans without having their life and health threatened, or being placed in other equally dire circumstances. People like the above mentioned businessmen, do, and their lackeys (a.k.a. fuckheads) spread propaganda trying to convince others (sane people) that suc
Re:Blaming "greed" accomplishes what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you two are talking at two completely different levels. Quotemstr is saying that greed is an integral part of our make up, indeed is an integral part of any organism's make up. We all strive to have more resources. Society has been set up in such a way that everyone gets more than they would have on their own. The disruptions come from people who disrupt normal societal rules in order to gain more resources, and naturally, our outrage comes from the fact that we were playing by the rules and they weren't, yet they were rewarded for it. He is absolutely correct.
To you, however, greed is almost a "sin" instead of a natural compulsion. It seems you'd like to focus on changing one of humanity's basic impulse, which is ironic given your signature. Abstinence doesn't work either, btw. Our laws should take in to account greed, endorse a more healthy form of greed. And by that I mean greed that serves the whole ( perhaps most importantly, me ).
Before you respond, think on this; What's the difference between greed and ambition?
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What's the difference between greed and ambition?
I just kind of wanted to hazard a partially thought out response to this:
Lack of valuation of the self over valuation of the 'better'
In other words, greed, by definition, is inherently self-serving. I would not postulate that ambition is inherently self-serving. I can be ambitious in wanting to invent a new launch system that makes space access cheap and affordable for mankind. While this does benefit me, it also benefits my peers as well as the pursuit of exploration and science in general. Thus, amb
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Then, by your definition, murder isn't deviant behavior. Civilization works because people recognize there are other people than themselves, and wish to assist society as a whole. While they recognize they have self interest, they avoid putting a burden on others or society
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Then how come, he protests against society performing its function of resisting such behavior by opposing and oppressing people who perpetrate it?
The whole "greed is natural" argument has no other purpose but to defend unusually greedy people from backlash caused by their actions. Oh, and occasionally as a stepping stone to "greed is good" that glorifies such people and paves their way to political power and ideological leadership.
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"greed is natural" also has the purpose, that you of course ignore, of being used as a justification for systems that don't fall apart in the presence of greed.
Economic systems are one example. And US style "capitalism" is a specific example of such a system that does not function in the presence of greed and hence is unworkable in reality.
If you create a multiplayer game without taking into consideration that some people will try and cheat and don't make you game not fall apart in their presence then said
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I suppose you would say greed is naturally more common.
Greed is common when society lets psychopaths run amok with no controls, and society encourages and teaches psychopathic behavior. It also helps to make up fantasy worlds for these people to live in, such as you will get $some_great_reward after you die if you do what we say. ...or group of people $x are evil, so blame everything which goes wrong on them. & etc.
Altruism is common when society lets honor run amok, and socety encourages and teache
Re:Blaming "greed" accomplishes what? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an old adage that advises, "never try to apply a technical solution to a social problem." It's true here: there were no attacks that an encrypted connection to Facebook would have mitigated; toolbar installation was the user's choice, not some drive-by download; finally, product offers and hidden $10-per-month charges didn't even have anything to do with computing, except incidentally.
While improving technical security is worthwhile, it's not something that would have helped here. You can't solve the dancing bunny [codinghorror.com] problem without preventing users from choosing what to do with their own machines. You'd have to implement draconian and pervasive DRM, and effective give people appliances when before they had general-purpose computers. That's a cure worse than the disease.
This problem is social, and needs a social solution. Legislation is how we collectively solve social problems. There's nothing inherently scary or sinister about law. It makes us civilized. Reading about the exploits of this CEO and the thousands like him, I can't help but think we need a lot more civilization right now.
Mafia Wars is FREE (Score:4, Insightful)
Mafia Wars is free. You never have to install anything, spend any money, or visit any other sites. If you want some of the special tokens, you can do those things... But the tokens will only get you things that you could get anyway if you simply had some patience.
All of this is completely in the users' hands. The sponsors page even says things like 'don't sign up for this if you don't really want information on the product' and things like that. If you don't really -want- the Zwinkie toolbar, you shouldn't install it.
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Yeah, and the parents who let their kids have admin accounts before they know how to avoid them. My 18yo just got admin rights on her laptop we got her for graduation. But even then I also created a normal account for her and taught her to use the normal account as her primary account and only use the admin account to install stuff. My middle daughter has tried (not on purpose, of course) multiple times to install virus crap but couldn't because she wasn't an admin -- after I've had to help several frien
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Wow, and I had "admin" rights on a computer before I was 10.
You have the exact opposite remembering of "back in the day" than I do.
I remember being allowed to walk the street at nights with friends, now I see parents driving their kids everywhere because of the evil pedophiles.
I remember going camping for a week with three friends when we were 13 - packing our own stuff (food, etc), catching the train for four hours, walking an hour or so to the camp site, and staying there for a week. No cell phones and wi
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I remember going camping for a week with three friends when we were 13 - packing our own stuff (food, etc), catching the train for four hours, walking an hour or so to the camp site, and staying there for a week. No cell phones and with no way to be contacted at all. I suspect the parents would be thrown in jail today...
Oh thank god, I was starting to think that I was the only one who did stuff like this as a child. So I'm not the only opponent of super-micro-management parenting...
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I remember being allowed to walk the street at nights with friends, now I see parents driving their kids everywhere because of the evil pedophiles.
I remember going camping for a week with three friends when we were 13 - packing our own stuff (food, etc), catching the train for four hours, walking an hour or so to the camp site, and staying there for a week. No cell phones and with no way to be contacted at all. I suspect the parents would be thrown in jail today...
I had to reply. I went camping with 6 other boys when I was 12; we lived in a Winnebago for a week in a trailer park. We also roamed around and played at other kid's houses after dark in our neighbourhood, without constant parental surveillance. You're right: I'm afraid about letting my 10 year old daughter do the same things, not because she'll get into trouble, but because other adults will report me to child services.
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Mafia Wars is free. You never have to install anything, spend any money, or visit any other sites.
Execpt that the USP of these games is that they are competetive.
If I take advantage of one of these offers, does it post a note to my Friends (tm) saying:
itsdapead is movin' on up the greasy pole, and has reached the rank of "Backstabbing Yuppie Oik" - rather than beating you the hard-but-honest way he's whipped out the Gold Card and bought a wad of Dollars.
To get a bonus from itsdapead, wait until hell freezes over.
Click here to remove itsdapead from your friends list.
These games are not just "fre
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All you have to do is give it access to all the information you have on Facebook, and all the information of your friends on Facebook.
Yes, that's definitely free. Free as in money, perhaps.
Not Surprising (Score:2, Interesting)
Considering Zynga shamelessly rips off the games of others (go look at FarmTown, released ~6 months before FarmVille), that he'd be ok with scamming people is not shocking.
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WoW is just a rip-off of Ultima Online by that same standard. FarmTown looks rinky-dink in comparison to FarmVille.
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You could guess it from the people at the helm, too, since many of them are veterans of Pincus's previous startup, SupportSoft, who "voluntarily" left amidst the settlement of a shareholder lawsuit [goingconcern.com]. Ah, serial entrepreneurs [twitter.com].
I for one... (Score:2)
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More technologically advanced scams. (Score:2)
I am sure, supporters of this fine example of business will also defend this [healthnews6.com] scam.
It's a true masterpiece -- from dynamically generated "comments", to a disclaimer that everything on the page is a lie disguised as a "Terms and Conditions" fine print.
Aka "The Facebook Monetization Problem" (Score:2)
Class action lawsuit ? (Score:2)
What makes this different is the intention of this, as opposed to some bug.
Gimmee More! Gimmee Now! (Score:2)
The games are free, at least on the surface, but facebook games also factor in elapsed time... so they are only free, if you consider your time to be free.
They are designed to take years to play, each day you log in and click a button here or there, and then leave it. By providing pay-for-stuff-now content, games like those provided by Zynga are allowing users to skip the need to wait for months in order to have features in the game immediately. Essentially it allows players to 'go munchkin' (power up even
+1 LARPing (Score:2)
Seriously, it's called Mafia Wars. The dev team was just getting into character.
Mobsters (Score:2)
They do equally shady stuff for "favor points" on Mobsters which I play. No big deal though - I keep a tiny virtual machine on my system that I boot up and RDP into if I ever need to install stuff for points. It's confined to the VM and can do no harm there.
Facebook Purity FTW (Score:3, Informative)
If you are using Firefox, Safari, Opera or Chrome, get Greasemonkey and install the Facebook Purity script (http://steeev.freehostia.com/wp/2009/03/19/facebook_purity_cleans_up_the_facebook_homepage/).
It blocks Mafia Wars, Farmville, quizzes and more. Basically you just see stuff your friends actually write.
Selective ad-blocking for Facebook? (Score:3, Interesting)
So most of these scam networks block Northern California, to prevent Facebook HQ from seeing them? So that's why I don't see them. I'm a few miles from Facebook HQ. I've completely missed this phenomenon.
I'd applied SiteTruth [sitetruth.com] to Google ads, trying to warn users about the "bottom feeders" [sitetruth.com] with no identifiable legitimate business behind the ad. Myspace is mostly Google ads, so that's covered. Google ads in general are about 35% "bottom feeders" (we track this), but on Myspace, the percentage is much higher. From the article, Facebook has a similar problem, but it's mostly in the form of Facebook-specific ads, games, etc. We're not catching those.
Maybe it's time to do that.
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Get out.
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Scammers don't care about that. If their operation is shut down they'll just open up again with another name. They could even up several operations at once so that if one went down the others would continue.
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