Miss Betsy Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 My theory is that the money is made in the buying and selling of lists and also in selling spam packages to people who also answer newspaper ads for stuffing envelopes at home to make big money - at least for the spam that sells a product, not phishes or scams. The phishes and scams, IMHO, will always be with us because the one in 12 million that they get mean big money. The 419 and lottery scams operated (and still do) via snail mail and fax long before the internet. There might also be money to be made in developing spam that will get by filters to sell to those who do think that money can be made via spam. As Farelf says, the whole spam industry, at this time, is based on 'perceived promise' and there is a constant supply of people who believe in something for nothing to sell to. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 My theory is that the money is made in the buying and selling of lists and also in selling spam packages to people who also answer newspaper ads for stuffing envelopes at home to make big money - at least for the spam that sells a product, not phishes or scams. The phishes and scams, IMHO, will always be with us because the one in 12 million that they get mean big money. <snip> ...And I would take your first paragraph to expand your second paragraph a step farther and say that spam will always be with us because even if the spams themselves resulted in no takers, there will always be some segment of the population that will buy lists and spam packages. So spammers have two separate and independent sources of income! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 ...The phishes and scams, IMHO, will always be with us because the one in 12 million that they get mean big money. The 419 and lottery scams operated (and still do) via snail mail and fax long before the internet. ...Sure, the victims are addicted/gullible enough to stay on the (fishing) line - they tend to resent/circumvent anyone trying to stop them even which probably has to be seen to be believed. Casinos are full of a related breed. Govenments rely on gambling addiction through the lotteries to support welfare infrastructure that we've already paid taxes for. We're a sorry old lot - I'd resign from the human race in a flash but for the concern anything else willing to take me would be worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Isn't the median IQ only 100? It takes 115 to graduate from High School; 125 to graduate from College. Or something like that. Sometimes it is hard to realize that not everyone really has the capacity to understand certain concepts. One can be kind and generous and hardworking, but some things are beyond one's understanding. Also, intelligence doesn't predict what belief systems one has. I know several people who are intelligent enough to graduate from college and really are intelligent people who have some very peculiar beliefs - at least, by my standards - and I am not sure that I really could beat them on an IQ test. The whole world is really dumb except thee and me, and sometimes I wonder about thee. (a paraphrase of an old Quaker saying that my father used to quote). Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lking Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Isn't the median IQ only 100? Like Keeler always says '... where everyone is above average.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Isn't the median IQ only 100? It takes 115 to graduate from High School; 125 to graduate from College. Or something like that. ...Self-defining on the traditional formulation of 100*(mental age)/(physical age) - hard to give a straight answer outside of that except to add it is generally 'standardized', so mean=median=100 and standard deviation is generally 13, 14, 15 or 16 or (if we're looking at 125 for college grads) even higher. But yeah, I suspect IQ has little to do with susceptibility to scamming except to the extent it correlates with education and experience (and 'scammability' correlates negatively with those) and even then risk-taking behavior is a big independent factor and (make no mistake) 'gambling' in all its guises (with a common theme of 'winning', specifically but perhaps not exclusively - IANAΨ - 'winning something for nothing') is an addiction, though it might be considered to be part of or contributory to risk-taking. And the better class of swindlers prefer intelligent people both directly and indirectly - because those tend to be richer and because swindlers are risk-takers too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rconner Posted November 25, 2008 Author Share Posted November 25, 2008 Isn't the median IQ only 100? It takes 115 to graduate from High School; 125 to graduate from College. Or something like that. Speaking as a card-carrying Mensan, I can tell you that what IQ measures is simply the ability to perform well on tests that measure IQ. You can be as smart as Einstein (or Goethe, whom I'm told may have had one of the highest IQs among historical figures), but you can still get fleeced if you lack horse sense, self-restraint, experience, or the ability to read people (and their motives). I've run into many a fellow Mensan whom I would not trust to get me a cup of coffee, let alone advise me on scams. I think IQ100 is the "canonical" mean, though I would not necessarily expect to see it as the actual mean in any given test. Mensa supposedly accepts people at or above the 98th percentile of IQ, but I'm told that this point varies hugely among tests (e.g., anywhere from 130 to 150). I think most people who join take Mensa's own test. Me, I used my old SAT scores (dug up from under a landfill somewhere) to qualify. I'll put a plug here for the "Mensa workout," a free 30-question quiz that you can take to see whether you might pass the full qualifying test. http://www.mensa.org/index0.php?page=12 -- rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Casinos are full of a related breed. A number of years back, I had a cousin that made the road trip for a visit. She had never been to a casino as it was "against her religion" ... My response was to take her to one of the local (U.S.) Indian owned/run casinos to enjoy the buffet. Having seen many television ads showing allthe happy people enjoying the heck out of themselves, I had her take a close look at the 'real' people playing the machines, asking her to clap her hands if she actually saw someone smiling. Zero clapping followed. Speaking as a card-carrying Mensan, I can tell you that what IQ measures is simply the ability to perform well on tests that measure IQ. Zillions of years ago, I took a (bit of a combination of an) aptutide/intelligence test as part of the military entrance procedures. The rest of tha day, I kept hearig phases like "so you're the one" ...??? Someone finally explained to me that as the last person that had scored 100% on that test was something like 40 years prior, there were only two boxes to fill in the score on their forms. People were going nuts on trying to figure out how to put '100' in only two boxes. I've run into many a fellow Mensan whom I would not trust to get me a cup of coffee, let alone advise me on scams. The above got me jerked into an outfit that allegedly went after the top 10% ... to which I'll second the above situation. It's true that I met more than my share of those alflicted with being genius in certain fields, but a lot of those folks had major issues dealing with 'real life' amongst the mere mortals. <g> A couple of guys come to mind that actually didn't display much apparent realization of 'real life' at all ... one guy that had a eureka moment, jumped out of his car, went running towards the guard-shack to enter the building, not noticing that he hadn't put his car in Park, not turned off the engine, etc., so the car was actually following him towards that same guard-shack (and yes, the security fences and shack did their job <g>) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 ......I've run into many a fellow Mensan whom I would not trust to get me a cup of coffee, let alone advise me on scams.... to which I'll second the above situation. It's true that I met more than my share of those alflicted with being genius in certain fields, but a lot of those folks had major issues dealing with 'real life' amongst the mere mortals. <g> A couple of guys come to mind that actually didn't display much apparent realization of 'real life' at all ... Sounds almost like the 'idiot savant' part of the population - self-absorbed low-empathy folk, maybe Asperger's syndrome, but there are brilliant-'normal' people too (Rick and Wazoo just for starters ). The brilliant-but-limited characterization loops back again to ... I can tell you that what IQ measures is simply the ability to perform well on tests that measure IQ.Unsuprisingly, the tests deal best with the central 50% of the the population -/+ 0.675 standard deviations. Getting back to Miss Betsy's query/comment, What Does "IQ" Stand For? makes a brave attempt at answering - and points out the relative reliability of results and predictions for the area around the mean. In terms of my earlier answer to Miss B, the SD of the scale illustrated in the linked page would be around 15.5 points. If the lower end of the range most likely to include college graduates (or above) was 125 (instead of 111) then the SD of that test would be about 37 whatever the test scale, there is a non-zero probability of people with lesser IQs successfully completing a degree ... which is important to stress and it is certainly a significant probability at the (adult) IQ 100 point and a little below. Other factors are more important in that region. Not meaning to lecture but not wanting to possibly dishearten anyone either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Speaking as a card-carrying Mensan, I can tell you that what IQ measures is simply the ability to perform well on tests that measure IQ. <snip> ...Or, to put it another way, the best predictor of performance on an IQ test is the similarity of background between the test writer and the test taker. Ignorance of which explains how Hernnstein and Murray (The Bell Curve) got things wrong, much to the chagrin of a younger and stupider (and therefore racial chauvinist) me (I'm still a racist, being a European-American over the age of 40, but now I know that's a bad thing). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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