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Felix's avatar

The first version I head of was picking some random stock and sending out 512 emails predicting it would drop and 512 predicting it would rise. Next week, pick some other random stock and send out 256 similar up/down emails to whichever half had gotten the "correct" prediction. Repeat until there's just one left, who now thinks you've been right so often that this one must be right too, and you make money off him buying to raise the price so you can dump it.

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Max More's avatar

Last year, I received one of those threatening emails that said they had recorded me masturbating to appalling, embarrassing, and reputation-destroying sites. I was terrified! They were right! I had indeed viewed socially unacceptable libertarian writing and I probably showed signs of excitement. My god, what was I to do?

Seriously, even if I had been looking at something embarrassing, there is no way I have a camera pointed at me and there is no way -- as you note -- that the evil-doer could have a video of me watching a video -- or worse, reading an essay attacking the current deeply statist consensus.

When I did not respond to the demand, the nasty parasites sent another threatening message. I was strongly tempted to respond by telling them exactly how evil and stupid they were and where they could stick their threat... but I refrained. Silence is the best response.

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