Question

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Mark

Appeal to success?

I see this often when referring to scams, especially in the world of crypto, trading and dropshipping.

Essentially, the person will justify why you should buy into the scam but they, or certain people, have used it before and it has been successful. A fallacy in that, just because some people have been successful, does not mean everyone can be and it in no way confirms that it is not a scam.

asked on Thursday, Aug 18, 2022 03:56:55 PM by Mark

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Shawn writes:

So you just answered your own question. 

posted on Thursday, Aug 18, 2022 05:07:40 PM
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Mark writes:
[To Shawn]

Idk man I just think it should be added

[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Aug 18, 2022 07:58:50 PM

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Answers

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TrappedPrior (RotE)
4

A few fallacies could apply:

argument to the pursethis is committed by the scam victim (intended or real) if they are swayed by the supposed 'success' of the crypto scammer rather than fairly evaluating their claims.

pragmatic fallacy - "if it worked for me, it'll work for you!"

There's also the risk of survivorship bias when they present "testimonials" of success. When they show people who "made it", they're also not showing you the ones who failed - even though they probably outnumber those who succeeded. The intention is to make you think you have a better chance of 'making it' than you actually do. 

answered on Friday, Aug 19, 2022 12:31:54 AM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Kostas Oikonomou writes:

And cherry picking .

posted on Friday, Aug 19, 2022 11:34:34 AM
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Jorge
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Is this your argument?

Argument for selling
1. People have been successful with the product.
2. Just because people have been successful with the product, it does not mean that it's not a scam.
C. I will not buy your product just because people with it have been successful. 

If so, we could write new arguments to list reasons on why we shouldn't buy the product:

Argument for abstaining 

Reason 1.
1. People that have the product are successful but perhaps they have access to an upgraded membership.
2. Upgraded memberships are exclusive to members that have been there for years.
C. I shouldn't buy.

Reason 2.
1. Perhaps just a small fraction of the people with the product fare well. Could be out of expertise or some other reason.
2. I don't know what the reason for line 1 is.
C. I shouldn't buy.

Reason 3.
1. Maybe a large number of members are successful, but the fraction with respect to the population (people in the business) is very small.
2. There might be a reason why not a lot of people don't buy the product even if a lot of them with the product are successful.
C. I shouldn't buy. 

Reason 4.
1. People are successful with the product can do just fine without it. It might be an unessential luxury.
C. I shouldn't buy.

Reason 5.
1. People with the product are in fact successful but it's a full-time job.
2. This is not my full-time job.
C. I shouldn't buy.

Suppose that the first line in the argument for abstaining is true.

Reason 1.
The argument for selling would be omitting an important fact. This would be the post hoc fallacy. This is because the claim would be that the lower membership is the cause for the success of the people with the upgraded one.

Reason 2. 
The argument for selling would be omitting another important fact; proportions. If this is true and the buyer ignores that, they would be committing a base rate fallacy.  

Reason 3.
Also a base rate fallacy if the buyer proceeds with the buy, but also, what's true about most is not necessarily true about the individuals (maybe most of them are family members with an upgraded family pack). This would be a fallacy of division.

Reason 4. 
This would be a package-deal fallacy because people in the business usually have the product. 

Reason 5.
There's an important exception to successful people with the product, being full-time. This could be an overwhelming exception, there's an extra qualification. 

answered on Friday, Aug 19, 2022 06:02:29 PM by Jorge

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