Morals are not set in stone. Everybody has different morals. One might argue that people who fall for this kind of crap are very, very stupid. Being weak means that the predators eat you for lunch. In this case they just mooch off you. Humans are the apex predators and people like to forget that just because we slaughter the prey in an industrial complex and stab it with a fork.
There are other considerations both specific to this case, and in general, and I don't say I condone 100% of his actions, but don't be so quick to think that he is just rotten and you are superior.
I don't think he's 'rotten' and I don't think I'm 'superior', and I only claimed that he has more 'flexible' morals, and that having 'flexible' morals makes paying one's mortgage easier, which it does.
> Morals are not set in stone. Everybody has different morals.
Indeed. Some people make the personal choice to "evolve" above the dog-eat-dog-world mentality, for example. As another example, while some people stab their prey with their forks, others choose to be vegan.
> One might argue that people who fall for this kind of crap are very, very stupid. Being weak means...
I'm not going to argue with you because we clearly have different morals, as you've pointed out. I don't think ripping people off is okay just because they are "stupid". Would it be even more okay if they were diagnosably mentally challenged?
But if you actually believe that the only people who fall this stuff are "stupid" people, and by that you mean that they are exceptional or abnormal, then you haven't spent very long in the affiliate marketing industry.
Pretty much everyone falls for 'scams'. My sister signed up to a cell phone rebill, her friend bought a diet pill rebill, my grandmother pays her 'financial manager' an obscene amount, and I just bought a book off amazon that claimed to be a "Thai translation" but was actually sold by a seller who has translated everything in the public domain into every language using Google translate and then prints them on-demand (Get your shit together, Bezos).
I know a lot of people like Jesse Wilms, and perhaps the saddest part of it to me is that they are extremely human and very normal. The potential for his moral flexibility exists in all of us, given the right circumstances and surroundings.
You say you don't think you are superior but you show the opposite. There is no moral "flexibility". You still imply that there is a moral code set in stone and those people deviated from it.
>Some people make the personal choice to "evolve" above the dog-eat-dog-world mentality, for example. As another example, while some people stab their prey with their forks, others choose to be vegan.
One might argue that those people simply don't want to face the reality so they pretend.
You and your sister got tricked, but your sister's friend is definitely stupid for believing magic pills will make her fit. Your grandmother can be either way, but if you did a good job explaining to her why a financial manager isn't a good proposition for somebody who is not a multi-millionaire, she is most probably stupid too. And I don't mean that they are abnormal. Plenty of people are stupid. Most even, one might say.
You can choose to pretend, just like the vegans, if that gives you solace.
On another note, do you have any books or readings you'd recommend on moral relativism (?) or whatever your worldview is called? I imagine you came to this conclusion after a lot of thought and life experience, but is there anyone or anything you read or listened to that you'd recommend?
There are other considerations both specific to this case, and in general, and I don't say I condone 100% of his actions, but don't be so quick to think that he is just rotten and you are superior.