Religion
I am an atheist and I believe the world would be much better without religions. Having said that, I don't conisder it as a scam in itslef. Instead they must have been something evolved over the time due to our ignorance, fear and helplessness. The very same factors that still keep them going.
But hell yeah, people are exploited in the name of religion. I'm from India, one of the largest so called democracies, currently under the governance of a fascist hindutva party that thrives on polarizing people in the name of religion.
BTW I was actually looking for specific instances of scams carefully plotted by known people, companies or even countries instead of broad answers like religion.
Having said that, I don’t conisder it as a scam in itslef
I think the more correct thing to say is that Organized Religion is a scam. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being religious (provided you don't force those views on others), but organized religion always winds up rotten at the top - and it's not surprising. Organized religion is one of the most powerful tools for controlling people, even if it wasn't (though it might have been) intended to be that way at the beginning. A king/president/dictator can threaten the lives of their subjects, but only a holy man can threaten their immortal soul (from the perspective of the devotee anyways).
Religion was needed, but at some point logic and critical thinking should have been enough.
The issue is the wealthiest benefit when the masses don't have the tools to use that. They want people who won't question rules and blindly follow them.
Humans are just animals, we're not born with those abilities, we need to be taught.
So we see education outright cut or forced to focus on rote memorization rather than the process to understand and figure shit out on our own.
We should be past religion as a species, but it's not automatic, we have to continually teach the next generation to think for themselves
Homeopathy, acupuncture, ozone therapy... all "alternative medicines" basically.
Like the old joke, "What do you call alternative medicine that works?" "Medicine!"
If some herb, plant or extract has a proven effect it will be adopted by real medicine, and all that is left in alternative medicine is the scams that do not work.
Once I made a joke online about paying for homeopathy by dipping a dollar in a jar of water and giving them the jar, and like five people I know unfollowed me lol
I have a pinched nerve. I went to many doctors, done many tests, went to months of PT and was still in pain. I went to my acupuncturist and she is able to release the muscles around the pinch enough that my right arm doesn’t feel constantly numb. I a man of science. I don’t believe in he Chi traveling my body etc but the physical result of the acuponcture cannot be denied.
And there are physical therapists who do acupuncture strictly for muscle release without all of the chi stuff.
Ponzi schemes, especially the insurance companies. They really are a Ponzi scheme.
Think about it, they promise you things asking for money, then when you need their services they decide where you go, how much they will pay (leaving the rest for you to pay as a deductible), then they turn around and increase your costs for their services, that they fight tooth and nail not to pay anything.
I argue insurance in and of itself is no ponzi scheme. Working together is the basis of all civilisation. Trying to make a business out of a social service however ... that's rife for abuse, yes.
I work in the insurance industry and I 100% agree with this.
The only time it's wise to take out an insurance policy is when
A) It's legally required (though this is sometimes due to lobbying by the insurance companies themselves)
B) When you absolutely will not be able to actually pay for a potential, but necessary expense by yourself (cancer treatments and stuff like that)
So Health Insurance, Auto Insurance (even if your car is cheap and self-insurable, the car you hit may not be), Home-owners insurance and stuff like that are necessary and generally a good financial bet, even if they are crooked af.
Any "micro-insurances" though? All total scams. Travel insurance, phone insurance (or "Extended Warranties"), Apple Care, all that kind of shit is 100% going to cost you more money to have than it'll save you - unless you get really really lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it). You'd be better off spending what you'd pay on those insurance premiums on a hand of blackjack, I'll bet the odds would be slightly more in your favor that way
A large portion of art/artifacts are forgeries. Everyone is alright with it because galleries and collectors want to brag about having some unique old art piece and forgers are very good at making pieces that would fool anyone who is just looking at it.
My personal conspiracy theory is that almost all art the public is exposed to is a forgery. Why show the plebs the real thing? We wouldn’t notice a difference anyway.
Toothpaste.
You only need to squeeze out an amount the size of a pea on to the bristles of your toothbrush.
The image of squeezing along the entire length of the brush bristles was concocted by an ad agency, a la Mad Men, to make consumers use their toothpaste faster, hence buy more product.
Homeopathy. It's literally based on the idea that diluting stuff turns it into a remedy.
joke's on you, i've been drinking 100000x distilled dinosaur piss and i'm growing stronger by the day
printer ink, it costs them like 3 cents to make each cartridge and they sell it for so god damn much.
they also go out of their way to have chips in the cartridges and in the printers that make the printer not function if any ink is even running low, doesn't matter if you want to print something in black and white you had better fucking buy more cyan ink
Cryptocurrency in general. Even on the surface, as presented, the main appeal to buy in is "to get rich from it" and the main way you're supposed to get rich is "other people buying in, get in early while you can."
Ponzi. Schemes. All of them.
Credit scores are a scam to sell credit cards.
You take small loans each month via a credit card that you have to pay back. This increases an imaginary number that lets you take out bigger loans in the furure.
This is all tracked by private companies that you trust with your personal data. That, or you'll not be able to take out a loan if you want to buy a house or start a business.
If you have a good credit score it means that you don't overspend or forget to pay, which you can also achieve with a regular debit card by default. This doesn't serve people, only the banks who expect that a number of people will overspend or not be able to pay their loans back.
Credit cards alone aren't the problem. Forcing them on people with the credit score system is.
Restaurants being rated with “Michelin stars” was created as a ploy to encourage people to buy cars and drive more to go on road trips to these restaurants so they’d wear through more tires and have to buy more
*Edited because I was a bit off base
Old Egypt was full of pyramid schemes way back then
Luxury handbags that cost $60k. Not just a handbag, but to diversify your investment and launder money.
Interest and Rent.
Passiv income in general ,as it obviously constituts itself from other Peoples Active Income , its per definition a scam...
*"Because you once where in need and i lended you some coin , you now have to pay me back a expotentially rising amount of Coin ! its rate of rising is not messured on your harvest or the amount of offspring of your Herd but on Time going forward ! Because it surely will ! , If you Cant you will fall in Debt-Slavery to me. I am a Risktaker . you take the Risk . I Take . Always ." *
they sold you for absolute Fools , Folks !
(PS: Muslims not included)
ESG and carbon offsets as an effective way of combating climate change
That 90% of the people who don't watch sports on Cable TV subsidize it to the tune of 10% of their bill for the 10% of people who watch it
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