British dude pays over $700 for a XBox One on eBay... Receives a picture.

[thehobbster]

Life is complicated, how you react to it is not.

You get to choose every thing you do. You might have bad information, you might have to make some shitty decisions, but realty is you get to choose, and only you are responsible for those choices.

I take it as confirmation that no religion, which are design to elicit dependence, agrees with my position. Also, Freud and Jung are hardly the complete picture of the psychological realm of theory.

A religion that taught pure personal responsibility would hardly be popular, no one wants to be responsible for themselves. Christians want to be saved by someone else's death, for example.

From Freud TO Jung, not just Freud and Jung. And yes, that's the whole spectrum. From Psychoanalysis to Transpersonalism.

And yeah, it's easy to dismiss the entirety of "religion" by using that one label. It's also another way of reducing it something stupidly simple so you can sweep it away. And yeah, I'll agree with you about religion, which is compartmentalized spirituality that definitely is about creating a social hierarchy. But the fundamental spiritual principals of all belief systems, the Perennial Philosophy, teaches that while you are definitely independent and responsible to a large degree (Your stance, to some degree), everything is connected through a great chain of being, or a set of nested holons. Life is a Holarchy, and every piece of research humans have ever done have only proved that further. Nothing is an island, and therefore, while reductionism is good for understanding things in a mechanical sense, it has no place in anything really beyond a biology or chemistry level. Once you get into sociology and psychology, you either drop reductionism or you make philosophical mistakes. Dat ole reductionism trap is quite a snare.

That being said, I'm not going to argue any more about it. If you are in a mindstate where you side with scammers over victims of scamming... we just aren't on the same tier of thinking. We'll never agree... or do business together.

 

[SkyFire]

That being said, I'm not going to argue any more about it. If you are in a mindstate where you side with scammers over victims of scamming... we just aren't on the same tier of thinking. We'll never agree... or do business together.

This is how I know you aren't paying attention, I said nothing suggesting this.

 

[Johnathan]

Every Western and Eastern approach to psychology, from Freudian to Jungian (the whole spectrum), and from Christianity (original sin), Buddhism (ignorance and shunyata), Hinduism (karma and samskaras)... hell, even Shamanism... pretty much nobody agrees with you. Because it's overly simplistic reductionist nonsense. It's not reality. Your mind and brain are not islands. There's never one point in your existence where what you are saying is true. It's a cutesy tough love thing we all tell each other because it helps us take control a little better, but in the end, it's simply not true. And it's definitely not true that ONLY through that line of thought can you truly understand your impact and influence in the world.

But from your perspective, yeah... it's true.

Psychology, lol.

 

[Johnathan]

Life is complicated, how you react to it is not.

You get to choose every thing you do. You might have bad information, you might have to make some shitty decisions, but realty is you get to choose, and only you are responsible for those choices.

I take it as confirmation that no religion, which are design to elicit dependence, agrees with my position. Also, Freud and Jung are hardly the complete picture of the psychological realm of theory.

A religion that taught pure personal responsibility would hardly be popular, no one wants to be responsible for themselves. Christians want to be saved by someone else's death, for example.

Christian's being taught to ignore self-responsibility for themselves? That's a personal issue, not one of Christianity.

Since you decided to bring up the topic of Christianity I will point to proverbs. Not one time does God say sit on your ass and do nothing. A man must work to eat sounds pretty damn clear to me.

The teaching of Christianity is to take action knowing the end result will be positive. The death of Christ is irrelevant to what I do. It's how I think about what it is that I do.

 

[mGrunin]

Came here to say that the buyer deserved until I noticed that the seller gave him a low quality image. Fuck, selling pictures for $700 a piece and you still can't change your ink & printer?

 

[o hai guyz]

Some people just genetically don't have a high IQ. They aren't as perceptive or aware of this type of shit. They put trust and faith into systems and people, which is not unrealistic, but maybe optimistic. At this point in the human evolution, it's not a prey and predator situation. We don't have to take advantage of people like this. At least deliver what you are selling. And despite what was said in the description, the guy was SELLING an Xbox. We all know this, and that's why we are calling it a scam.

You guys with your literalist and reductionist crap. Stop degenerating everything into constituents and try integrating a little bit and seeing big pictures instead of pieces, and you'll start to figure out why this behavior is intolerable and it's NOT the low-IQ, low-awareness person's fault. It's the delinquent, malintented, criminal asshole's fault, no matter how you try to chop it up.

Let me hop in here and ask you a question. This is not sarcasm, and I actually want to hear your thoughts.

We always hear cases about stupid people being outsmarted. And it's always the smart guy's fault for taking advantage of them. Their/your reasoning is the stupid guy has a genetically low IQ and it's not his fault he's stupid, therefore shouldn't be responsible for making stupid decisions. The suggested recourse in this situation is that the stupid person is compensated for his lack of intelligence by requiring the smarter person to dumb down to perform on a level closer to that of the stupid person's.

My question is this: why are (1) intelligence, and (2) ambition, the only 2 traits that people choose to use this standard for? ie. should attractive girls be required to have sex with ugly guys occasionally, because it isn't their fault they're ugly? You could argue that height and facial features are genetic and therefore ugly people should be compensated for their lack of attractiveness, in much the same way that stupid people expect to be compensated for their stupidity. And of course this can apply to anything: should people who are genetically prone to be better athletes be forced to play at a lower skill level in order to be "fair" with people who are not genetically gifted but who also enjoy playing sports?

My answer is no. Fuck that shit. Fuck stupid people. Everyone has some good traits and some bad traits - maybe the guy who won the genetic lottery and came out looking like a Hollister model got to date all the cute girls in high school while the smart guys didn't, but after high school that guy is making minimum wage while the smart guys are banking hard. Why should the smart guys be required to essentially distribute intelligence and wealth to this guy now, when he didn't distribute any of his good looks to them? and so on.

 

[thehobbster]

Let me hop in here and ask you a question. This is not sarcasm, and I actually want to hear your thoughts.

We always hear cases about stupid people being outsmarted. And it's always the smart guy's fault for taking advantage of them. Their/your reasoning is the stupid guy has a genetically low IQ and it's not his fault he's stupid, therefore shouldn't be responsible for making stupid decisions. The suggested recourse in this situation is that the stupid person is compensated for his lack of intelligence by requiring the smarter person to dumb down to perform on a level closer to that of the stupid person's.

My question is this: why are (1) intelligence, and (2) ambition, the only 2 traits that people choose to use this standard for? ie. should attractive girls be required to have sex with ugly guys occasionally, because it isn't their fault they're ugly? You could argue that height and facial features are genetic and therefore ugly people should be compensated for their lack of attractiveness, in much the same way that stupid people expect to be compensated for their stupidity. And of course this can apply to anything: should people who are genetically prone to be better athletes be forced to play at a lower skill level in order to be "fair" with people who are not genetically gifted but who also enjoy playing sports?

My answer is no. Fuck that shit. Fuck stupid people. Everyone has some good traits and some bad traits - maybe the guy who won the genetic lottery and came out looking like a Hollister model got to date all the cute girls in high school while the smart guys didn't, but after high school that guy is making minimum wage while the smart guys are banking hard. Why should the smart guys be required to essentially distribute intelligence and wealth to this guy now, when he didn't distribute any of his good looks to them? and so on.

I don't have any problem with the ideas you're talking about at all. Being outsmarted, outlooked, outstrengthed, etc. That's fine. I'm just talking about deception and evil intentions. Setting OUT to take advantage, versus setting out to compete.

 

[CCarter]

 

[andymurray]

just proves at least 50% of the world are retards

 

[quintana]

Skyfire, I can understand your frustration because it is typical for people to get scammed and then blame the scammer, especially when the signs are so obvious to us. Then they move on with their lives without learning anything.

You get to choose every thing you do. You might have bad information, you might have to make some shitty decisions, but realty is you get to choose, and only you are responsible for those choices.

And I agree with this. I think I first heard it from Alan Watts talking about Ego, and his interpretation of some far-eastern philosophical concepts; Where we are in our life is the direct result of past actions and decisions, and even things that happen, external factors, that are beyond our control, we are still the ones that choose how we react to it.

However, you seem to focus on the guy that was scammed more than the scammer, implying that the guy that was scammed should welcome this outcome with open arms and learn from it, because he is to blame for buying it. But you skim over the fact that the scammer is to blame for selling it.

The scammer is also responsible for his actions, as he willingly deceived someone. I know you said you don't condone it, but I think the point of contention is that you frame the situation with only the ignorant party needing to learn a lesson.

This is not a blame game, even if we follow your rationale, because both parties made decisions to get to this point and they're both responsible for them.
What this really is is a question of morals or ethics.

One person acted out of ignorance, whilst the other acted out of deception.
The ignorant guy would have been much worse off if he didn't get the refund, but whether he learns from this experience or not does not hinge on that outcome.

 

[davidlee]

niggas gonna nig

 

[quintana]

From reading through everything again I'm leaning towards thehobbster using the term "responsibility" and "blame" synonymously in some respects, and I think this is at the core of the misunderstanding between him and Skyfire. I read his usage of 'responsibility' being more like 'accountability', which is not the same as being at fault.

Taking thehobbster's example:

"The Knockout Game? That old lady shouldn't have walked down the street at the same time as that crowd of black kids. It's her fault for getting hit. Why didn't she have karate training?"

The old lady is responsible for leaving the house that day and walking down the street. After she's been hit, she is responsible for the actions she takes following that. She could file a police report, or pull out a gun and shoot them. Obviously she's not to blame for getting hit in the face as it's an unprovoked attack, but she is responsible for ending up in that position, so far as arriving at that place, at that time, and how she reacted to it afterwards.


I think theHobbster is wrong when he says the guy didn't make a mistake, because as far as I can see he clearly did by ignoring his better judgement and bidding on the listing. That doesn't mean I think the guy deserves the outcome, as Skyfire said. I also don't agree with thehobbster's rebuttal that taking complete responsibility for your own actions (actions that have led you to where you are in your life right now) is at odds with every religion. It may well be at odds with the majority view of Western "blame" culture though.

The buyer is still responsible (not 'to blame') for his actions and I would only agree with thehobbster that a person's responsibility for their actions is somewhat diminished if they're actually retarded. This guy is not retarded.

Yes, the guy got scammed and could have been more careful? Should he have to? No

I disagree. You should be careful. And I would think, because of this (and to his benefit), he may well be in future.


As for SkyFire's quote:

But in this case, specifically, if this guy actually lost his money, it'd be a lesson for him, and every ones else who heard about it. As it is now, all it does is reinforce the behavior that ones is not responsible for ones own actions, regardless of what others do.

You can look at it like that, or you can look at it as re-enforcing the notion that it is not right, legal or acceptable to dupe people out of money.
And I mentioned in a previous post, but I'll reiterate, that the lesson you want him to learn so earnestly is there for him whether he got the money back or not. It's only the severity of the outcome that changed.

And Skyfire, you don't do yourself any favours in a discussion when you begin your argument by implying the person you're talking to is stupid, slow, or as you put it "obtuse"; even if you do include the qualifier: "you're not usually...".
You gotta take responsibility if you're not able to communicate your thoughts effectively

 

[christopherim]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtGWz_E8n0"]The Real Hustle - Small Ads Scam - YouTube[/ame]

chick from the show

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Buyer beware