@jk I'm convinced that 1) commodifying everything and 2) making the philosophy of pricing "whatever you can get" has created a society of gamblers and charlatans with predictable results
@nasser@jk I think it's even weirder than this—I have a theory that (in the US at least) appearing to be a charlatan now actually makes a person seem *more trustworthy*, since it's a strong cultural indicator of that person's opposition to the values of the political left (sort of a "schismogenesis" situation a la Dawn of Everything). being on the take is a marker of social status for this group and people see being grifted as prosocial behavior (hence the popularity of MLMs in red states)
Gregory's Server
@nasser @jk I think it's even weirder than this—I have a theory that (in the US at least) appearing to be a charlatan now actually makes a person seem *more trustworthy*, since it's a strong cultural indicator of that person's opposition to the values of the political left (sort of a "schismogenesis" situation a la Dawn of Everything). being on the take is a marker of social status for this group and people see being grifted as prosocial behavior (hence the popularity of MLMs in red states)