Nigerian scammers don't have much to do with Nigerians themselves, so the joke isn't making fun of Nigerians, but rather the perception of Nigerian entrepreneurship until now.
Some people find racist jokes funny. It doesn't mean the such jokes should be tolerated. You're judging an entire nation, yet you're complaining about judgement?
I didn't read the comment you answer to, but people like you drive me nuts, seriously.
Racist jokes can be perfectly funny, any joke can be perfectly funny it just depends who you tell it to, and at what humor degree you and the listener function.
I find some racist jokes funny because they're mostly a joke on racists on some level. On the other hand i find totally insulting that people dare believe that i'm actually racist if i happen to say a racist joke. In most cases it just means the listener is dumb enough that he doesn't try to analyze context and just wave his flag because he heard a bad word.
A joke is not a political commitment FFS, it's a fucking joke.
For your enjoyment at work in my unit we actually have a racist day every week where racist jokes fly all over the whole day, and most times make them with the targeted /(race|nation|skin color|whatever)/ present. It could go like that for example :
- someone : anybody saw my paperclip ? can't find it
- someone else : Abdel probably took it, remember the guy is Arab, he steals all he can find. Seen your sister lately ?
- a guy that happens to be jew : yeah Arabs are bad people, we've been telling you all along.
- The Arab guy : Sorry i needed it for the seven virgin that are waiting for me guys.
Come and crack your 'funny' jokes anywhere in my country and I guarantee you nobody will be laughing. People will look at you funny and assume you must be ignorant, and most likely from France.
"This should go a long way as Africa is not limited by many of the strict regulations or entrenched cooperate interests that can limit trying new things. Mobile payments taking off there long before here in the US being a good example of this in action."
That is definitely a better comment. But I'm not sure it's correct. Note that M-PESA, which I think is the leader here, originated from a do-gooder scheme, is controlled by an entrenched interest, and happened not because there were no regulations, but because the regulators were willing to try experiments:
SJ issues aside, this is also a better comment because it doesn't start with something that makes me immediately think "This is of no value; How did it get past my spam filter?"
Oh come on. The classic Nigerian email scam was the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline. I half expected a parody but saw that it was Forbes.
People are too sensitive these days. Especially people who get self-righteously offended on behalf of someone else.
"So what is scambaiting? Well, put simply, you enter into a dialogue with scammers, simply to waste their time and resources. Whilst you are doing this, you will be helping to keep the scammers away from real potential victims and screwing around with the minds of deserving thieves."
The morality of what is done might be questionable though, especially for 'highly successful' operations that leave the scammer in another country's desert without money. Most just end with a photo of the scammers doing things like wearing a fish on their head.
