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As for the desperation / sadness of the situation in some parts of Africa (as mentioned by tynan) yes it is terrible but is it my problem? No. Anyone anywhere has choices and although this may sound like Nazi middle-England speaking I don't believe unless you've lived in those circumstances you have much of a better idea than I do of what those choices might be. And scamming seems to be a fairly shit choice.
It's also true that some parts of Africa increasingly look to the west for handouts because we're mug enough to weave musli and have the spare cash and middle-class sensibilities to 'care'. What's this doing to those parts of Africa apart from turning them into bigger victims than they already are? And isn't scamming just a crafty way of milking a little more from the 'affluent' west? I doubt these phishing scams are being sent to Mexico or Uganda.
No it's not nice but neither is some twat coming up to you on the interwebz and saying 'oh hello, I'm the Pope and my dad is God but he's dead now in heaven and wants to give you $100 mirrion dorra in Q-tip bonds, please help or my beautiful daughter's head will fall off'.
The thing that personally offends me about it the most is the insult to my intelligence and the thing that amuses me about it the most is how some idiots can be stupid enough to get drawn in by it.
What's the answer? I don't know, but a lobotomy for all westerners who fall foul of it probably wouldn't hurt. And continued contempt and ridicule for the scammers who try it on won't hurt either. Learn to be a bloody carpenter (insert realistic vocation / trade of choice) or something instead of trying to get all the cash for a BMW in one hit so you can impress the laydeez.** If carpentry was good enough for Jesus it's good enough for you.** Good grief.
The bits in bold are daily mail bits.
Unfortunalty, due to a colonial past Africa is everyones problem. And being from western europe, we sit on the top step socially amd economically, which is why we understand we still need to do much more than we're doing.
It sounds a little trite comapring the problems of an African country to the time consuming task of clicking 'report spam' on gmail.
I think the real problem to be addressed isn't stupid westerners (apart from this case maybe) but the problems in Africa?
Jesus disn't exist. There is no god. Good grief indeed.
Did you vote Tory? Big Society?
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You've drawn yourself in already by commenting, you just haven't backed your comment up. I find marzipan quite disgusting - so what.
I don't think we should waste our time debating things and trying to change each other's minds. Perhaps in person, but not on a forum. I just wanted you and others to know that there are people who think your views are ignorant and abhorrent.
And I also refuse to be drawn into an argument about whether or not I should be drawn into an argument. So this is my last post on the matter.
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+1
VanUden your Daily Mails were delivered to my house by accident, when do you want to pick them up?
Apart from anything else, you're completely ignoring the fact that the reason Africa is like it is today is because of its historical situation - i.e. because of us in the West, who invaded their countries, raped them for resources and let despots into power.
But no, it's not got anything to do with you has it?
So what's the answer then? And would African people left to their own devices genuinely be better off today? How do you deal with a culture in Nigeria (for example, but the same is true in other African countries) where ripping people off is seen as commendable, in fact it's seen as good business.
Are the people of Zimbabwe seriously better off now Mugabe has kicked out all the white farmers to reclaim the land for the original African people? How well is that land being farmed now and or being used otherwise as a valuable resource? With Mugabe and Zimbabwe now in dire straights and only recently Mugabe saying 'the west must come to us' how long will it be before western yoghurt weavers go 'oh, he has been a naughty boy but I suppose we can forgive him, sigh'?
What has the epidemic spread of AIDS in many African countries, despite free condoms and many efforts to educate, got to do with historical history? How does the burden of the repercussions of such a dreadful illness not dramatically effect a country's economy? Knowing all this why won't more African men wear condoms beyond cultural reasons and are cultural reasons really good enough considering the damage the epidemic is doing?
Yes the west screwed many parts of Africa but don't try telling me that it would now be a global beacon of civil rights, equality, and civilisation, had the west not screwed them over in the first place. It's like the old slavery argument, too many people forget that historically slavery was going on in Africa long before England, France, Portugal and Holland turned it into a global business. And it goes without saying that this was a terrible, terrible, thing. However, don't forget that there were many indigenous African people who also became extremely rich from slavery. It cuts both ways.
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Scam baiting is brilliant fun. Some of my mates got really into it and had these idiots doing all sorts of things
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I don't think we should waste our time debating things and trying to change each other's minds. Perhaps in person, but not on a forum. I just wanted you and others to know that there are people who think your views are ignorant and abhorrent.
And I also refuse to be drawn into an argument about whether or not I should be drawn into an argument. So this is my last post on the matter.
Cool, and I'd like you to know that bleeding hearts, wringing hands, and filling the coffers of corrupt African officials while the people who really need help go without isn't the answer either.
I understand that some people like you, Fox, or Nelson for example will find the provocative way I've put the fact that perhaps some African countries should start taking more responsibility for their own mess (Zimbabwe for example) too challenging to take on-board and discuss without backing off entirely or resorting to childish comments about the Daily Mail or voting Tory. But then some forum members are easier to wind up than others.
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I am very easy to wind up.
Evidently. OK I'll drop the bombastic approach. However, I do genuinely believe that sometimes the west is doing more harm than good in 'trying to do good' and largely coming from a place of guilt that is sometimes, ironically, no better than the victim mentality that is used to great effect by 'some' corrupt African officials.
If the current way of trying to help were working why have so many African countries been in such a mess for so long?
Although I despise the Daily Mail I also find that there are sometimes far too many yoghurt weavers on here for my liking. Who are just as bloody bad as Daily Fail readers but simply on the other end of the spectrum.
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I think that in increadibly rare situations developed nations do more harm than good. Such as the christian church in Africa. I think that we are all right to feel guilty. Maybe in a hundred years, lets see what it looks like then, maybe then the guilt can stop.
Just because a problem isn't fixed quickly doesn't mean the solution isn't working, just slowly. -
Cool, and I'd like you to know that bleeding hearts, wringing hands, and filling the coffers of corrupt African officials while the people who really need help go without isn't the answer either.
I understand that some people like you, Fox, or Nelson for example will find the provocative way I've put the fact that perhaps some African countries should start taking more responsibility for their own mess (Zimbabwe for example) too challenging to take on-board and discuss without backing off entirely or resorting to childish comments about the Daily Mail or voting Tory. But then some forum members are easier to wind up than others.
Ugh. I'm not into bleeding hearts or wringing hands either, which is why for the last five summers I've spent at least a month working for NGOs in South Africa and Lesotho, so don't call me a hypocrite. Scams most certainly do feed into corruption but that's not what I took issue with in the first place. I don't find your views challenging in the slightest, I just don't want to have yet another internet slanging match which inevitably ends up in us both posting that picture of Picard facepalming and both of us coming away thinking that we've won. I haven't backed off or called you silly names, I just think an internet forum is useless for this kind of, ahem, 'discussion'. This really is my last post!
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To be honest, we all have our opinions. If we are decent upstanding people, we will more than likely stick to them.
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Ugh. I'm not into bleeding hearts or wringing hands either, which is why for the last five summers I've spent at least a month working for NGOs in South Africa and Lesotho, so don't call me a hypocrite. Scams most certainly do feed into corruption but that's not what I took issue with in the first place. I don't find your views challenging in the slightest, I just don't want to have yet another internet slanging match which inevitably ends up in us both posting that picture of Picard facepalming and both of us coming away thinking that we've won. I haven't backed off or called you silly names, I just think an internet forum is useless for this kind of, ahem, 'discussion'. This really is my last post!
I haven't called you a hypocrite, that's just what you feel because of what I wrote but show me where I've called you a hypocrite because it's simply not true. I wouldn't judge you without having met you and spoken with you face to face. You're not only missing the point of my posts but also now using this discussion that you're apparently not involved in as a platform to tell people about the great work you've done for charidy. Hmmm, I sense yoghurt about to be woven.
However, I do agree that the interwebz isn't the best of places for discussing such things. After all just look at all you've read into my posts because you wanted to.
I'd never post the Picard picture and I'm not remotely interested in 'winning' here, because there's nothing to win. I would have thought that was fairly obvious.
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Fucking fine, I am participating, but only because you're successfully trying to wind me up.
Firstly you said that I'm a 'bleeding heart that let the people who really need help go without'. Basically you've said that I've made myself out to be a morally good character without having done anything. Considering what I've done, if that's not hypocrisy, I don't know what is. It's also a personal fucking insult, don't you think? And then when I show that I'm not the hypocrite you've made me out to be, you ridicule the charity work that I've done! Fuck me that's low!
Here's what I originally had issues with anyway, since I'm apparently missing the point:
You said of any problems in Africa, "is it my problem? No". Here's a question for you - do you eschew the western lifestyle then? Because if you don't, it most definitely it your problem. Learn history, in general. Even if it's somehow not your problem, do you just not care?You also said that " Anyone anywhere has choices". You think it's that easy? Lets just let these people 'choose' not to be in poverty any more? If it's a choice between working incredibly hard in a completely corrupt state just to see your money getting taken off of you, or scamming a few easy dollars off of someone so that you can pay for your kids to go to school, I know which one I'd choose.
"I don't believe unless you've lived in those circumstances you have much of a better idea than I do of what those choices might be. And scamming seems to be a fairly shit choice"
I haven't lived but I have seen the kind of places where scamming is notorious. You're right in saying that it's a shit choice, but surely doesn't that tell you that the people have no alternative? They aren't stupid or particularly greedy, it's just how their culture works and how desperate they are. It's not good vs evil for fuck's sake, it's systemic! If you live in a corrupt society, you act corrupt yourself. Anyone would. I'm not saying it's commendable or even tolerable, but to say that someone simply has a choice not to act the way that they do is really bloody simplistic.
"It's also true that some parts of Africa increasingly look to the west for handouts because we're mug enough to weave musli and have the spare cash and middle-class sensibilities to 'care'. What's this doing to those parts of Africa apart from turning them into bigger victims than they already are? And isn't scamming just a crafty way of milking a little more from the 'affluent' west?"
I don't think people scam with that in mind! We're lucky in that we've got the education and the free time to think about the morality of scamming and whether it'll help the continent as a whole in the long term. It's a different story if you're unemployed in a corrupt state thinking about how you're gonna repay your massive debts.
"No it's not nice but neither is some twat coming up to you on the interwebz"
I think one is very much preferable to the other. Once again, do you just not care?"The thing that personally offends me about it the most is the insult to my intelligence"
Do you think anybody cares about that?"How do you deal with a culture in Nigeria (for example, but the same is true in other African countries) where ripping people off is seen as commendable, in fact it's seen as good business."
On a personal level you can help through NGOs, which will increase education and living standards. If you want to help on a governmental scale, I guess you'd have to do a politics or philosophy degree or something similar, then go into it from there. Or, yno, you can just say 'fuck 'em it's no skin off my nose'."
What has the epidemic spread of AIDS in many African countries, despite free condoms and many efforts to educate, got to do with historical history? How does the burden of the repercussions of such a dreadful illness not dramatically effect a country's economy? Knowing all this why won't more African men wear condoms beyond cultural reasons and are cultural reasons really good enough considering the damage the epidemic is doing?"Errrrr. It's very much the opposite. There is massive opposition to condoms in Africa. Famously so. Why else do you think AIDs is such a problem there?
"Yes the west screwed many parts of Africa but don't try telling me that it would now be a global beacon of civil rights, equality, and civilisation"
Whatever it would be, it would certainly be better than being the beacon of poverty, injustice and intolerance than it is today. Besides, that doesn't change the fact that it's pretty shit there now, and we should try to do something about it, however small."It's like the old slavery argument, too many people forget that historically slavery was going on in Africa long before England, France, Portugal and Holland turned it into a global business. And it goes without saying that this was a terrible, terrible, thing. However, don't forget that there were many indigenous African people who also became extremely rich from slavery. It cuts both ways."
It cuts so massively in the favour of the west that it's barely worth considering the very few black men who profited from it."If the current way of trying to help were working why have so many African countries been in such a mess for so long?"
Close to facepalming you here, but the West screwing over Africa isn't just history, it's very much the current system. We're the fucking scammers! -
no one here will read that...
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Read and agree with frinkmakesyouthink.
One thing i don't think has been raised is that i would be prepared to bet the people hand writing the harry potter book weren't those arranging the scam but people even poorer than the scammer who would have been brought in as a one off.
And not paid when the scammer didn't get their money.
just a thought... -
Fucking fine, I am participating, but only because you're successfully trying to wind me up.
Firstly you said that I'm a 'bleeding heart that let the people who really need help go without'. Basically you've said that I've made myself out to be a morally good character without having done anything. Considering what I've done, if that's not hypocrisy, I don't know what is. It's also a personal fucking insult, don't you think? And then when I show that I'm not the hypocrite you've made me out to be, you ridicule the charity work that I've done! Fuck me that's low!
Here's what I originally had issues with anyway, since I'm apparently missing the point:
You said of any problems in Africa, "is it my problem? No". Here's a question for you - do you eschew the western lifestyle then? Because if you don't, it most definitely it your problem. Learn history, in general. Even if it's somehow not your problem, do you just not care?You also said that " Anyone anywhere has choices". You think it's that easy? Lets just let these people 'choose' not to be in poverty any more? If it's a choice between working incredibly hard in a completely corrupt state just to see your money getting taken off of you, or scamming a few easy dollars off of someone so that you can pay for your kids to go to school, I know which one I'd choose.
"I don't believe unless you've lived in those circumstances you have much of a better idea than I do of what those choices might be. And scamming seems to be a fairly shit choice"
I haven't lived but I have seen the kind of places where scamming is notorious. You're right in saying that it's a shit choice, but surely doesn't that tell you that the people have no alternative? They aren't stupid or particularly greedy, it's just how their culture works and how desperate they are. It's not good vs evil for fuck's sake, it's systemic! If you live in a corrupt society, you act corrupt yourself. Anyone would. I'm not saying it's commendable or even tolerable, but to say that someone simply has a choice not to act the way that they do is really bloody simplistic.
"It's also true that some parts of Africa increasingly look to the west for handouts because we're mug enough to weave musli and have the spare cash and middle-class sensibilities to 'care'. What's this doing to those parts of Africa apart from turning them into bigger victims than they already are? And isn't scamming just a crafty way of milking a little more from the 'affluent' west?"
I don't think people scam with that in mind! We're lucky in that we've got the education and the free time to think about the morality of scamming and whether it'll help the continent as a whole in the long term. It's a different story if you're unemployed in a corrupt state thinking about how you're gonna repay your massive debts.
"No it's not nice but neither is some twat coming up to you on the interwebz"
I think one is very much preferable to the other. Once again, do you just not care?"The thing that personally offends me about it the most is the insult to my intelligence"
Do you think anybody cares about that?"How do you deal with a culture in Nigeria (for example, but the same is true in other African countries) where ripping people off is seen as commendable, in fact it's seen as good business."
On a personal level you can help through NGOs, which will increase education and living standards. If you want to help on a governmental scale, I guess you'd have to do a politics or philosophy degree or something similar, then go into it from there. Or, yno, you can just say 'fuck 'em it's no skin off my nose'."
What has the epidemic spread of AIDS in many African countries, despite free condoms and many efforts to educate, got to do with historical history? How does the burden of the repercussions of such a dreadful illness not dramatically effect a country's economy? Knowing all this why won't more African men wear condoms beyond cultural reasons and are cultural reasons really good enough considering the damage the epidemic is doing?"Errrrr. It's very much the opposite. There is massive opposition to condoms in Africa. Famously so. Why else do you think AIDs is such a problem there?
"Yes the west screwed many parts of Africa but don't try telling me that it would now be a global beacon of civil rights, equality, and civilisation"
Whatever it would be, it would certainly be better than being the beacon of poverty, injustice and intolerance than it is today. Besides, that doesn't change the fact that it's pretty shit there now, and we should try to do something about it, however small."It's like the old slavery argument, too many people forget that historically slavery was going on in Africa long before England, France, Portugal and Holland turned it into a global business. And it goes without saying that this was a terrible, terrible, thing. However, don't forget that there were many indigenous African people who also became extremely rich from slavery. It cuts both ways."
It cuts so massively in the favour of the west that it's barely worth considering the very few black men who profited from it."If the current way of trying to help were working why have so many African countries been in such a mess for so long?"
Close to facepalming you here, but the West screwing over Africa isn't just history, it's very much the current system. We're the fucking scammers!Good grief, you're a touchy soul aren't you. If you actually looked at what I wrote objectively you will have seen that I haven't directly accused you of being a bleeding heart. What I have said is I think that sometimes the bleeding heart approach to the problem can do more harm than good. Once again as you're so steamed up, as I wrote earlier, nowhere have I called you a hypocrite.
Is what's happening in Africa generally my personal problem? No. Am I to be held accountable for history due to my place of birth. No I don't think so. As someone with Jewish heritage I don't believe that people I know in Germany or Austria are accountable for the holocaust. That would be nuts.
'If you live in a corrupt society, you act corrupt yourself' is also a bloody simplistic generalisation and great fuel for the 'victim' mentality. I also don't believe this is true of everyone within that society. Hence those that are corrupt have made a decision to be so based on a choice and those that are not have also made a decision not to be corrupt based on a choice.
Slightly at a tangent but still an example of living by the choices we make. Over 20 years ago I lived in a squat next door to another squat that was full of smack-heads in one of the poorest and most crime-ridden parts of London. They stole from shops and robbed people to get enough money to pay for their heroin. They came from very poor backgrounds and had little to no real education. Did I feel sorry for them because they were victims of their environment and background? No. I didn't feel sorry for them in the slightest, a little pity maybe. Because I knew that there were plenty of others like them who weren't rich, or educated, who struggled to get by but just about managed to, and who didn't rob or steal to supplement their meagre income. This was a choice they had made.
Of course nobody cares about me being offended at the insult to intelligence, hence the use of the word 'personally'.
The point I was making was that there is massive opposition to condoms in Africa, and from what I understand it's due to culture and that cultural reasons aren't good enough considering the implications of such an epidemic. You're just getting the wrong end of the stick here (no pun intended).
As to your last point I disagree to a point, a big part of the real problem is black Africans screwing over black Africans. It's people like Mugabe and his henchmen that are Zimbabwe's real problem for example. And unfortunately African history is littered with similar cases of bigotry, racism, greed, corruption and violence of blacks against blacks. Mainly to do with tribal allegiance and culture. To me, in a way, this isn't massively different from the slavery that was going on in Africa long before western ships ever landed on African shores.
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So when you aggressively respond specifically to something that I've said, I'm meant to take it objectively? Pft alright. And yeah I'm still pretty steamed up about you taking the piss out of charity work.
What I said about it being your personal problem still stands - it's not solely to do with heritage because exploitation by the West is going on.
And whilst I would say that yes, people can and do work themselves out of poverty, by and large it's massively difficult and incredibly unlikely. Ultimately people do have a choice, but you can't just ignore their situation. Besides, the morality argument doesn't work if you're talking about a different culture with different morals. And with that in mind I still don't see how you can be personally offended.
Opposition to condoms in Africa is pretty much entirely down to the Christian church. Same with opposition to condoms in South America. I doubt that it's somehow endemic.
And yes, it is true that there's a lot of black Africans screwing over other black Africans. I don't see how that changes the fact that the West is also screwing over Africa. If anything it makes me feel more obliged to help.
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I have some sympathy for African internet fraudsters. When people who have very little, living in a fucked-over country like Nigeria, manage to use their wits to reach out across the ocean and pull in a bit of Western wealth, I can't help but feel a twinge of admiration. Yes, it's wrong and all and the victims tend to be vulnerable people, but compared to the real crimes that go on every day - for example, the murderous destruction that Shell have been getting away with in Nigeria - blagging some cash by email seems fairly far down the scale to me.
I only wish they'd sort out their prose a bit. I had a really good one back in Gulf War II, purporting to be sent by a US Marine from his laptop while sat in a recently captured palace with huge bales of dollars in the cellar and no way to get them out. It had real urgency and excitement in it - I actually wrote back to say that although I would not be contributing any actual money, I did want to express my appreciation of their writing abilities. But since then, nothing's come through that's offered any real literary merit or advancement of the medium.
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F*cking stupid scammers, why do they bother?
Posted by
@VanUden
You've drawn yourself in already by commenting, you just haven't backed your comment up. I find marzipan quite disgusting - so what.