Market Discussions

~MD cultural victory~

By virtue of me having read "Thinking Fast and Slow" during a long railway voyage last week, you all are entitled to a free lecture on psychology by someone who has absolutely no clue about that subject (i.e. me). Isn't that great?

This scam provides us with a great example of attribute substitution:

"Is this offering a good investment choice?" is a very complex question.

It requires you to assess the trustworthiness of the business manager, the viability of the business plan, evaluate the information provided through the API key Boss has provided, weigh various risks (incentives for scam, business failure, LSE getting evicted from their wh or disbanding, future market conditions for T3 inputs, ...) and take mitigating factors into account (contradicting statements about collateral, the value of some unconfirmed condition in Boss' will, ...).

Arriving at a qualified answer to this question could take a lot of time and even if you were going to invest based on that answer you would most likely be left feeling unsatisfied because you are too consciously aware of all the things that could go wrong.

"Is Lorkin Desal a good poster?" (or a similar question) is by contrast a very easy question and an asnwer will come readily to the mind of many FHC readers.

In such situations the question with the more accessible answer tends to be (unconsciously) substituted for the "hard" question. People ask themselves "Should I invest?" and receive the answer for "Is Lorkin a good poster?" instead.


Why the huge difference between reactions on MD and FHC?

some thoughts:

(1) MD has a tradition of splitting the cost associated with collecting the information necessary to form a qualified answer to the "Is this offering a good investment choice?" question. Many different people contribute bits & pieces of the analysis that would be relevant and while adding these up into a holistic answer is still complex work it is easier than having to do it all on your own.

(2) MD has a long history of scams.
(2a) MD readers are more likely to be aware of this history and as a result be more risk-averse.
The cost of analysis for offerings that are successful is usually justified and the cost of analysis for offerings that they end up passing on is kept low by only checking claims until the first dealbreaker (no collateral, too big, ...). As perceived "dealbreakers" are highly idiosyncratic and analytical approaches differ this contributes to (a).
(2b) Veteran MD readers had the opportunity to develop a strong intuition for recognizing scams. When something "smells fishy" they tend to be vocal about it and the lemmings tend to follow their judgement even if they don't fully understand how it came to be.

(3) "Boss" was unknown to most MD readers. There were no positive facts about him that were easily accessible and could have been substituted for an answer to the "real" question.
If anything the effect of attribute substitution would have gone in the opposite direction and prevented people from making an investment into an unknown character.

[ (4) (I don't think this matters but if I don't bring this up myself some fhc dude will)
MD readers are more likely to actually care about ISK than FHC readers.
(we are talking about the same MD community that invested 10b into a miner bumping scheme)]

Confirming I am a moron! First time getting scammed this way, feels good!

Been there, done that....

that new fonds manager guy (Vanguard Investments) did

now he claims he didn't really make that decision and it was all the choice of his customer but his "I don't want to be the first one to invest" / "waiting for some known faces to invest first" posts tell a different story.

Every investment is a possible scam. Every single one , so to the investor the allmost impossible task comes to narrow this down as best as possible.THAT was what i pointed out , i strongly get the impression your sole investor has not done that.

But prove me wrong and show me the private conversations you had because on the forum there was none communication between you two .

And vera i think i made clear how high i think of that vanguard investment by now , and as said i don't see him mentioning it in this thread , or do i really need new glasses?Could be , i too age

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1929952#post1929952

the only upside is that if Mr. Bonaparte stays afloat with his current investment approach then Setrak has been wrong all along

Ooooow i do need glasses , might as well go for a full wheelchair option if the aging is kicking in this fast.

And in regards of setrak even if proven wrong he'd still claim right , so i'm not too worried there