[FRIAM] Message to the non-posting 95%

[Jochen Fromm]

In the last week I got about 4 Microsoft tech support scam phone calls in English from someone who had an Indian accent apparently calling from a call center in India or elsewhere. It is a well known scamhttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/protect-yourself-from-tech-support-scams-2ebf91bd-f94c-2a8a-e541-f5c800d18435And I got 5 packages from online shops where someone entered my name and my address and ordered something - among the products are a large screen TV and a $500 jacket. If the scammer is successful the package is delivered to a neighbor where he can again pretend to be the victim in order to get the product for free, while the victim gets the invoice. The deceived shop gets no money. Of course it is criminal to do that. I used to think whenever something is happening in nature it is either supper or pairing time. Now I tend to think whenever something is happening it is something selfish. Or evil. There is so much evil in this world, isn't it?-J.
-------- Original message --------From: uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <gepropella at gmail.com> Date: 1/28/21  19:04  (GMT+01:00) To: friam at redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Message to the non-posting 95% This all reminds me of a point I *thought* Jon made about the death of the DJ. But now I can't find that post. A friend of mine insists he hates the radio. On the surface, it sounds like a typical complaint about being "constantly interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper". But I think it goes deeper ... into QAnon territory. Being *part* of the game, as opposed to a mere consumer of it, is an important part of social reality. Some of us spend more time in a state of transcendent calm, content to watch or ignore some process. Others tend to get in and stir things up, send out rhizomes. Some of us feel helpless when the dancing rabbits come on, our individualism shattered. Some of us revel in the absurdity of it. And some of us sing along because the jingle is an ear worm.Scammers robocall me at least once per day. Inspired by the many scambaiters on youtube, I almost always press 1 to get my credit card rate lowered or to get that refund for the MacBook I didn't buy and have a long-ish conversation with them. After several attempts to get me to tell them my CC number [⛧], the "manager" yesterday finally told me to "fvck off". I'm like "You called me!?!" And he hung up. Ha! My time is even less precious than theirs. I can't help but wonder what his "employees" lives are like. Was the 1st guy on the call just as much a victim of his boss as I am? More? Or do they all live like Kings from the thousands of dollars they steal from the elderly?[⛧] We have this terrible noise problem on our landline that's not due to unfiltered DSL. Renee' wants me to get rid of it. I'm not motivated to because it helps me tease the scammers. "Is that noise on your end? Hang on, let me try something ... [set the phone down and reduce some sim output] ... Is that better? Oh well, now what were you asking?"On 1/28/21 9:29 AM, Steve Smith wrote:> I don't let my spam filter automatically file my spam...  I visually> scan the subjects and senders and depend on my peripheral vision to> notice spam markers... if something is suspected spam but *isn't* I> notice pretty close to real-time which means that there isn't a lot of> negative reinforcement for false-positives.   I also try to be> thoughtful about what I mark as spam... I don't for example, call things> I simply am not interested in as spam.  Before I do a "delete spam" or> "move marked to spam folder" I scan again, just on principle... I *very*> rarely catch anything in that scan but you know "belt and suspenders"....> > I try to limit who I "subscribe" to and then whack-a-mole the allies> that seem to spill over.  ActBlue and/or ButtigeigForPrez and/or> BernieIsSoCoolItHurts seem to have gleefully given my e-mail address to> another half-dozen or so other campaigns (DitchMitch, MakeGeorgiaBlue,> OMGtheRedStatesAreComing, etc.) who then flooded me.   For a while they> were a hydra it seemed... and I WAS tempted to overtrain my spam filter> and send it direct to a folder or trash but got through it without doing> that.  > > Finally, after November I started unsubscribing from the campaigns I> knew I'd opted into (even if by sly accident) and included an admonition> that if THEY were the source of all the side-spam, they should rethink,> because it ended up *inhibiting* my support for their cause(s)... though> I am not sure that was very significant.On 1/28/21 9:18 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:> Some readers want novelty -- they are channel flippers -- and others are looking for an activity or even a process.    And then there is a range in between.    I'd guess Roger and Nick on opposite ends of that spectrum.   I'm a channel flipper until I see something that looks like an itch to scratch or something to puzzle over -- a good distraction.-- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservZoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriamun/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.comFRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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