I no longer care about scalpers at all

[Real_Smoky]

11 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

What makes essential things different that precludes them from being justifiably scalped under free market capitalism? And don't say "because they're essential", put a bit more thought into your argument, please. If your argument against Nesté buying up water sources and jacking up the price has anything to do with water being necessary for life but GPUs and concert tickets not, then you don't have very strong principles. That, or you've pivoted into scalping something yourself and this thread is just a way to appease your guilty conscience.

Not considering water and GPUs to be equal means my principles aren't strong? Wow, that's a new one for me, I gotta tell ya. Yeah, applying different standards to entirely different things with an entirely different function in totally different economic situations makes me the bad guy LMAO! 

 

 

11 hours ago, wasab said:

Inherent contradiction of the free market is that its ultimate goal is a drive towards anti competitiveness.

This can be said about any sport. The goal is to get so strong and so fast the other guy can't possibly beat you or outrace you. Yet people still enjoy sports. 

 

3 hours ago, Neroon said:

Fuck scalpers. Why? Because they contribute nothing to society.

 

 

This is the perspective of someone who can not afford scalper prices. Someone who is stupid rich and can afford paying, for example, 4K for a 4090 might find it unfair that they can not buy it because it gets sold for much cheaper then what they are willing to pay. They would either have to resort to botting themselves or spend their valuable time waiting in a line. To them, scalpers provide a service - they get them the card they want for the money they are willing to pay. Maybe companies and stores should start selling high-demand items in an auction-style sale. Want a 4090? Offer what you are willing to pay. 

[Brooksie359]

42 minutes ago, Real_Smoky said:

This can be said about any sport. The goal is to get so strong and so fast the other guy can't possibly beat you or outrace you. Yet people still enjoy sports. 

I think you miss the point. In sports yes people strive to be the best at it but they also have to play by the rules. With capitalism there are essentially no rules and the end goal is to make as much profit as possible and the easiest and safest way of doing that it to ensure others can't compete. I mean it would be the equivalent of barring people who could compete with you from competing in the sport to begin with. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

1 hour ago, Real_Smoky said:

Not considering water and GPUs to be equal means my principles aren't strong? Wow, that's a new one for me, I gotta tell ya. Yeah, applying different standards to entirely different things with an entirely different function in totally different economic situations makes me the bad guy LMAO! 

 

Not what I said, don't misrepresent my point. I specifically asked you why you consider "essentials" to be exempt from scalping and on what philosophical grounds. Answer that question instead of building a strawman. Again, saying "they're different" or "it's because they're essential" isn't an argument, you are treating a property of something as a justification in itself, instead of outlining why the difference should matter in the first place.

 

To take your own argument, why is Martin Shkreli an asshole for buying a manufacturing license for a pharmaceutical and jacking up the price by over 5000%? After all, if you're upset, you're arguing from the perspective of someone who can't afford the medication. And someone who would be able to pay for that might find it unfair that they have to wait for it like everybody else and instead have their wealth, which already puts them at a general advantage in society, let them skip the line.

 

Like I said, your argument reads like you engage in scalping yourself and are trying to find people who agree with you so you can appease your conscience.

[LogicalDrm]

Welcome to the club? So what's the point here? Who cares what you care about? Were you here posting threads 1-2 years ago about you mad because miners, scalers and retailers (which were totaled as scalpers) were stealing your money and the luxury items you were entitled to have? What's the reason of bringing this discussion back up?

[Real_Smoky]

48 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

 I specifically asked you why you consider "essentials" to be exempt from scalping and on what philosophical grounds.

On the grounds that they are essentials, duh. 

It's like asking why you should take care of your children instead of taking care of children on the streets. Because they are your kids, duh. 

I thought it is normal for different, stricter standards to apply in questions about life and death. Access to water and food, or even medication, is or should be an essential human right. An RTX GPU is a frivolous commodity. Instead of me explaining why something that is essential to life should have different standards applied to it than something that is just a part for a hobby that is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the hobby to begin with, maybe you should explain why you think that those two should have the same standards applied to. 

Even in cases where people use them for work, it doesn't really matter because you can continue working with what you got. If your competitors get cards before you, that's on you. If they paid a scalper price, then they value the card more than you and they need it for work more than you do. Simple as that. 

[Real_Smoky]

10 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Welcome to the club? So what's the point here? Who cares what you care about? Were you here posting threads 1-2 years ago about you mad because miners, scalers and retailers (which were totaled as scalpers) were stealing your money and the luxury items you were entitled to have? What's the reason of bringing this discussion back up?

I have occasionally posted an angry comment, but generally I feel like I cared less than most.

Anyhow, I think self-reflection is important and with the 4090 out, the discussion is reigniting as there are some who, successfully or not, try to scalp the 4090s. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

26 minutes ago, Real_Smoky said:

On the grounds that they are essentials, duh. 

It's like asking why you should take care of your children instead of taking care of children on the streets. Because they are your kids, duh. 

I thought it is normal for different, stricter standards to apply in questions about life and death. Access to water and food, or even medication, is or should be an essential human right. An RTX GPU is a frivolous commodity. Instead of me explaining why something that is essential to life should have different standards applied to it than something that is just a part for a hobby that is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the hobby to begin with, maybe you should explain why you think that those two should have the same standards applied to. 

 

Ah, so you're trying to deflect the question by posing me the inverted question. Sure, I'll give you an answer, but you have to give me one in return for my question. Because all you've done up to now is claim that the differences between essentials and non-essentials are in and of themselves a justification for why it is morally ok to scalp one but not the other.

 

Because that's where the crux of the matter lies and what my answer to your question is. You're trying to convince us that it's morally ok to scalp. You came up with the comparison between essentials and non-essentials and you deliberately posed them in a way that tries to invoke a lesser-evil type of argument. My answer to that is that a choice between two lesser evils is not a choice at all and that you need to examine the underlying assumptions that lead you to this lesser-evil comparison in the first place. That's what I'm trying to do here, I'm asking you to think your philosophical beliefs through and really come to terms with the morality at play here.

 

If you're principled, you must conclude that even though there are significant differences between essentials and non-essentials, the mechanism of scalping in and of itself is still morally reprehensible in both scenarios. Of course, if your stance on the matter is that unfettered capitalism in all non-essential sectors is great, you wouldn't agree with me, but that's why I mentioned principles and morals, because those always fly out the window first when there's a capitalist profit motive. So that's my answer, they should be treated equally because their root cause is the same and the difference in flowers on top is cosmetic and no justification for a rotten root.

 

Your turn, why do you think it's morally ok to scalp non-essentials and what's the deciding factor between them and essentials? And to really hammer this home, I have two scenarios for you to consider:

 

1. Imagine a world where every non-essential commodity item, regardless of scarcity, gets immediately bought up by the super wealthy and resold at a markup to end consumers. Would this be ok?
2. Imagine a world where non-essential items aren't sold at retail at all, but instead the entire economy worked through auctions. Essentially, manufacturers would scalp their own stock to the highest bidder, cutting out the middleman of the scalper running a bot to buy up all the available stock to resell on eBay. Would this be ok?

[suicidalfranco]

33 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Imagine a world where every non-essential commodity item, regardless of scarcity, gets immediately bought up by the super wealthy and resold at a markup to end consumers. Would this be ok?

yes

33 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Imagine a world where non-essential items aren't sold at retail at all, but instead the entire economy worked through auctions. Essentially, manufacturers would scalp their own stock to the highest bidder, cutting out the middleman of the scalper running a bot to buy up all the available stock to resell on eBay. Would this be ok?

yes

[AndreiArgeanu]

And I don't care about your opinion on scalpers. Just because it's not food and water doesn't instantly mean scalping is justifiable.

[solado]

What's a realistic soloution to the problem of scalping ? Genuenly curious.

[Moonzy]

48 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Imagine a world where every non-essential commodity item, regardless of scarcity, gets immediately bought up by the super wealthy and resold at a markup to end consumers. Would this be ok?

I think what you're describing is retailers.

[Avocado Diaboli]

24 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

yes

yes

You know, sometimes it's like pulling teeth with certain people here. Do I really have to go all math teacher and say "show your work" instead of you just snidely responding with a single word that contributes literally nothing to the conversation? If you have nothing to add, you're not forced to participate. 

 

3 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

I think what you're describing is retailers.

Not really, because retailers don't just sit there as a middleman that adds no value at all. A physical retailer is responsible for bringing goods to people where they can buy them. An online retailer is someone who facilitates distribution that a manufacturer can't handle. Neither of which a scalper does, they sit in-between retailers and consumers.

[Motifator]

4 hours ago, Real_Smoky said:

This can be said about any sport. The goal is to get so strong and so fast the other guy can't possibly beat you or outrace you. Yet people still enjoy sports. 

Again, with the morality eye for an eye kind of thing you're trying to push here. Let's say, you're on a blackjack table with somebody who doesn't know how to play it as well as you do, and you're playing it without even real money involved. Are you going to be counting cards all the time or will you be playing it without doing card counting? Because of you count cards, you will pretty much always win.

Let's apply this to sports, you're trying to build your body for a bodybuilding competition in the earliest days like 50's, and your opponents aren't really using steroids. You do to get an edge of them, then others start doing with time up until a point everybody does it.

Again, you're being immoral by repeating the immoral acts of others.
 

30 minutes ago, solado said:

What's a realistic soloution to the problem of scalping ? Genuenly curious.

They legit create a Gulag for other buyers, so why not create a Gulag for them? Like before the listing of the ad goes online, check if it's a scalp. If so, limit their account and don't let them do transactions for a long time. That should do them fine enough, for the meanwhile. Just an idea...

[solado]

1 minute ago, Motifator said:

They legit create a Gulag for other buyers, so why not create a Gulag for them? Like before the listing of the ad goes online, check if it's a scalp. If so, limit their account and don't let them do transactions for a long time. That should do them fine enough, for the meanwhile. Just an idea...

Who would be responsible for this private companies or goverment oversight ? Would it be set as a law ?

[Motifator]

4 minutes ago, solado said:

Who would be responsible for this private companies or goverment oversight ? Would it be set as a law ?

It's just one idea that could be implemented, I still see people scalping stuff. Recently they were scalping the QD-OLED, asking $2000 for a $1200 product because people were on the wait to get theirs.

There could be other means of preventing this, like not allowing the ad to be listed if it is much higher than the usual price tag. The implementation doesn't need to be the harshest, but that's what scalpers realistically deserve.

[suicidalfranco]

29 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You know, sometimes it's like pulling teeth with certain people here. Do I really have to go all math teacher and say "show your work" instead of you just snidely responding with a single word that contributes literally nothing to the conversation? If you have nothing to add, you're not forced to participate

yes, a world where non-essential goods where all sold for profit by a single entity would still be good

yes, a world where manufacturers, who produce non-essentials goods, would bypass scalpers and sell everything through auctions would still be good

nothing more to add to that. It's non-essential. The market will bear what the market can bear. If the price's too high nobody or few will buy it if it's too low, he may risk selling at cost.

Auction not much is different, but only works if the goods are in limited quantities, and manufacturers only do single production runs and move to producing a new different item once they're done with the old.

[Avocado Diaboli]

19 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

yes, a world where non-essential goods where all sold for profit by a single entity would still be good

yes, a world where manufacturers, who produce non-essentials goods, would bypass scalpers and sell everything through auctions would still be good

nothing more to add to that. It's non-essential. The market will bear what the market can bear. If the price's too high nobody or few will buy it if it's too low, he may risk selling at cost.

Auction not much is different, but only works if the goods are in limited quantities, and manufacturers only do single production runs and move to producing a new different item once they're done with the old.

You still ignored the crux of the matter of my entire argument of that post. I suggest instead of simply focusing on the two thought experiments, you read the entire thing again to understand the point better.

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, Real_Smoky said:

On the grounds that they are essentials, duh. 

It's like asking why you should take care of your children instead of taking care of children on the streets. Because they are your kids, duh. 

I thought it is normal for different, stricter standards to apply in questions about life and death. Access to water and food, or even medication, is or should be an essential human right. An RTX GPU is a frivolous commodity. Instead of me explaining why something that is essential to life should have different standards applied to it than something that is just a part for a hobby that is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the hobby to begin with, maybe you should explain why you think that those two should have the same standards applied to. 

Even in cases where people use them for work, it doesn't really matter because you can continue working with what you got. If your competitors get cards before you, that's on you. If they paid a scalper price, then they value the card more than you and they need it for work more than you do. Simple as that. 

That is such a stupid argument. They can just make do with what they already have. You are assuming they have a working gpu which might not be the case. You do work on your gpu and it dies and now you need a new gpu but unfortunately all of them are selling for 2k instead of its msrp. 

[Real_Smoky]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You know, sometimes it's like pulling teeth with certain people here. Do I really have to go all math teacher and say "show your work" instead of you just snidely responding with a single word that contributes literally nothing to the conversation? If you have nothing to add, you're not forced to participate. 

 

Not really, because retailers don't just sit there as a middleman that adds no value at all. A physical retailer is responsible for bringing goods to people where they can buy them. An online retailer is someone who facilitates distribution that a manufacturer can't handle. Neither of which a scalper does, they sit in-between retailers and consumers.

LMAO the person asked if it would be okay and the other person responded to the question. Honestly, your pseudo-philosophical walls of texts contribute less than their two "yes" answers.

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

Just now, Real_Smoky said:

LMAO the person asked if it would be okay and the other person responded to the question. Honestly, your pseudo-philosophical walls of texts contribute less than their two "yes" answers.

You haven't answered my question. 

[NF-A12x25]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

yes, a world where non-essential goods where all sold for profit by a single entity would still be good

yes, a world where manufacturers, who produce non-essentials goods, would bypass scalpers and sell everything through auctions would still be good

nothing more to add to that. It's non-essential. The market will bear what the market can bear. If the price's too high nobody or few will buy it if it's too low, he may risk selling at cost.

Auction not much is different, but only works if the goods are in limited quantities, and manufacturers only do single production runs and move to producing a new different item once they're done with the old.

A world that thrives on exploitation seems to me like a pretty bad one. I kinda miss enjoying things before class consciousness tbh lmao (joking, I do still enjoy things)

[Real_Smoky]

5 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You haven't answered my question. 

In regards to the two questions that the other poster responded to with 2x yes, I agree with them, 2x yes. Well, kinda. I wouldn't be particularly happy about it, and in case the rich had so much money that could do that I would probably be worried about them having too much power in general and outraged because of that, but in essence, yeah, if the rich can buy large amounts of a commodity, they will then sell it for what it is worth (and how much something's worth is solely decided by the final buyers), or they will have stock of things they can not sell and will soon no longer be rich. The market regulates itself. There is a limited quantity of people who will buy GPUs for inflated prices and for all I care, if they wanna pay way more than I am willing to pay, they deserve the item more. 

The other person said essentially the same thing with different words. 

 

[HeyYouOK?]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I think you miss the point. In sports yes people strive to be the best at it but they also have to play by the rules. With capitalism there are essentially no rules and the end goal is to make as much profit as possible and the easiest and safest way of doing that it to ensure others can't compete. I mean it would be the equivalent of barring people who could compete with you from competing in the sport to begin with. 

lol yes "play by the rules" If only that were the case.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You still ignored the crux of the matter of my entire argument of that post. I suggest instead of simply focusing on the two thought experiments, you read the entire thing again to understand the point better.

3 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

why do you think it's morally ok to scalp non-essentials

yes, I think it's morally okay to scalp non-essentials

3 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

what's the deciding factor between them and essentials

one is a luxury item that serve no purpose toward the individual's survival, the other is a required necessity in order to survive.

 

3 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

If you're principled, you must conclude that even though there are significant differences between essentials and non-essentials, the mechanism of scalping in and of itself is still morally reprehensible in both scenarios. Of course, if your stance on the matter is that unfettered capitalism in all non-essential sectors is great, you wouldn't agree with me, but that's why I mentioned principles and morals, because those always fly out the window first when there's a capitalist profit motive. So that's my answer, they should be treated equally because their root cause is the same and the difference in flowers on top is cosmetic and no justification for a rotten root.

This wall of text I'll simply boil it down to:

consenting adults should be able to make economic trades when they think it is to their mutual advantage

[suicidalfranco]

22 minutes ago, NF-A12x25 said:

world that thrives on exploitation seems to me like a pretty bad one

but there is no exploitation in this instance