There has been lots of stories over the last few years about "Pig Butchering" scams, a confidence scam where people are convinced over a period of time to send increasing amounts of money to a contact. They appear in many forms, where there are those concerning investments, employment, or love - but they all have one thing in common.
The target wants something.
While I think we can agree that scammers are wankers, as hard as it is to swallow, when there is incentive to scam, there will be scammers. As long as there is value on the table, people will look to put it in their pocket, Which means there is a DYOR component to this also. And as said, the target always wants something out of the relationship, it isn't one-sided.
And, while the name comes from fattening pigs for the slaughter, what is pertinent to recognize, is that the pigs are happy to eat along the way. They are not "innocent victims" like those of normal theft, they are willing participants in the scam, which means that they are complicit, and the scam fails without them opting into the process.
They are greedy.
Because they are starved.
The reason that these scams work is because of a cluster of conditions that we have built into society. We have isolated ourselves, disconnected from social groups and society, chosen to be alone, use online dating tools for company, and supported an economy that fails us. We have become people who need a lot, but think that we can do it "by ourselves". And it is this that the confidence scam prays on, our greed, and our desire to go it alone, so we don't consult friends or family, we don't even check online for whether there are similar experiences from others.
Are we idiots?
Yes.
We aren't just idiots for falling for scams, we are idiots for not recognizing that the society and culture we have built doesn't actually satisfy our human needs. While we keep telling ourselves and whoever will listen how happy we are, the spread and success of these scams tell a different story. In the quest for individualism, we have ended up isolating ourselves, and isolation for a social animal isn't a strength, it is a weakness. We have diluted the very thing that has made us strong to the point our skill is now a risk, a weak link in our abilities, an attack vector.
We can lay blame on the scammer and it is a shame that there are scammers at all, but they are a symptom of much larger problems, not the cause of it. They usually use crypto and exchanges to launder their money, and many blame crypto for providing the opportunity, but crypto itself is a symptom of a much, much larger problem - a fundamentally broken and unbalanced economy.
Nothing lives in a vacuum.
However, it is much easier and gets far more clicks to look at the visible problems at the end of the chain, then to look at all the complexity that led to the outcome upstream. This is what the media, governments and corporations do, because it provides mechanisms for control and profitmaking.
The best defense against scams like Pig Butchering, is to understand personal desires, and have a healthy dose of skepticism in regards to people willing to fulfill our needs. But more than this, we need to have built mechanisms to protect us from misaligned incentives, and in this case, a quality network of people around us that we can consult when we need, and who will look out for us when we might be blinded by something that if it looks too good to be true.
It probably is.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]