Collection of thoughts on Greed and other Mythical Swine

Gambling is nothing new to any of us I would presume. As a matter of fact if you are old enough to be using the internet, there is a good chance you've already gambled. Maybe not in a Casino, maybe it was a more benign setting, but none the less you are familiar with the feelings, the emotions, that deranged feeling of winning by sheer luck. img src

There might be some evolutionary reasons for this behavior, I can even think of some myself. But, if we identify it, if we can effectively see ourselves surrendering to insanity: Why do we allow it to happen? - I'm serious too, and of course I'm not being specific about you, or me for that matter. I'm referring to most of us, most of society.

What's interesting about this, or at least its extremely interesting to me, is how it's actually a facet of greed. Greed is not necessarily a bad thing, by all means. It was probably necessary at a time of scarce resources. But, uncontrolled greed, that is another subject all together. An overcompensation of a lack that does not exist helping sprout unhealthy behaviors.

I'm thinking about this today because I remembered something somewhat funny. Many months ago I came across a declared Ponzi scam. A website that clearly said, this is a Ponzi, a Pyramid Scheme. Yes, you can make money, but know it's a ponzi and most will lose their funds.

The programmer that had built the website, coded the ERC20 tokens had purposely warned everyone that his Token was more than likely going to rob them of their funds. He wasn't creating the website to fool people, he was letting them know what it was. He made it to prove how ridiculous people can be, how myopic. Guess what? - his suspicions were correct. He had to cancel the whole thing, when it got out of hand.

I remember laughing when I clicked on the white paper link and this is what I found:

There was no way for him to make it clearer, he had "hired" the skills of a toddler to "iron out" the white paper. We were supposed to laugh, share the link maybe, just because it was funny as hell. We were not supposed to buy it up. The implications, that decision being made meant a series of chained events, unable to be disconnected from our first action.

In other words, if someone bought into the Ponzi Coin, as it was called. That person was morally, ethically OK with the idea of scamming other people. Precisely because that's exactly where the money came from. So, to say "Oh, but I had no ill intentions when I gambled on Ponzi Coin" - is to either deny the obvious or to be completely clueless of how it works. Both cases pathetic to say the least.

Sometimes In the moments when the cynic in me is running mental laps, I start to think about the possibility that this whole market is full of people like that. People that would buy into the Ponzi Coin, that would be OK with robbing (that is the word) another person of their wealth if they had a chance to be rich themselves. Grant you this way of thinking, this negative wagon I've hopped on for this second, is not one I like to let dominate me.

I do think most people are good, I do think most people want the best for others. But, it takes just a few greedy idiots and some informed populous for this whole thing to work. In a sense this reminds me of many other economies, does it not? - Greed & Misinformation = Money.

I've woken up to another red day, another day full of FUD and people on twitter being vocal about the boat sinking. Fertile ground for Ponzis if you ask me. All those freaking out right now are willing to gamble, they want the win, they demand the balance.

"I'm a good person... i deserve to make money"

A phrase disconnected from reality. Money has nothing to do with good, not implicitly and the ponzis hurt other people making your "I'm a good person" claim quite ridiculous. And on top of that, nobody owes you a thing. Yes, that's right. Nobody, not a star, not even a deity owes you a thing. You want something, you have to fight for it? - Yes, ask for strength if you want to, but don't sit on your ass and wait for planets to align.

Maybe the word entitlement also has a role to play in this cacophony of ridiculous behavior. And I say maybe, because I've been on these conceptual stretches for a few days and I may be testing them to unwarranted extremes. But, it does not require much effort, at least at this moment it does not for me.

I mean, think about it. If someone believes he is owed success because he or she is extremely talented (subjective opinion to begin with). Then how is that not entitlement? Being the key word here "owed".

But don't worry, I wont let the cynic side of me rule, he has been long tamed, and more grays in my beard wont change that. However, it doesn't meant I don't understand the cynics. I've grown into understanding them more and more. Specially when they see things like greed and tell the idealists who bought in, the predictable "I told you so".