Funny you should mention greed as that was playing on my mind too. If only humans could be content with the now and what they have. I mean the advancement of technology is good, I wouldn't wish to live in the stone age, but this relentless pursuit to get rich beyond fast, the pusuit to get wealthy at a great expense to others (exploitation), if humans could curb that, where there is this very great divide between the haves and the have nots, everyone would be better off. Unfortunately the powerful on earth want to keep power, they forget they arrived on earth with nothing and their achievements wern't a result of their superiority but because everyone achieves, due to the leg-up of others who provided to them previously.
Any scam starts with an easy mark. If the mark is there, it'll almost suck the scam in. Sometimes people even fool themselves! Cheaters really do you a service. They make you more critical, stronger, and after a long time, wiser. Without them or the cheating, the world would be left more vulnerable. You find the same dynamics in software/spam too. You can find the value in everything and move on, or you can get stuck in the mud.
One problem with that theory, those who are just honest citizens most often don't suspect a con because they don't think that way. There is a saying, "it takes a crook to catch a crook". But in another way you are correct, an education is a requirement to learn.
Preachy victim blaming nonsense. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to become successful. As long you go about it ethically. And that's key. Fraud is wrong. Theft is wrong. Hurting others is wrong. Also, as I said I lost almost nothing in terms of money to these vermin - I lost only time, a dream and some psychological consequences but that's a lot. But tons of other people lost money to them in addition to what I lost and that doesn't mean I can't empathize with them because I can and I do. And many people want to be retail traders not because of money per se - many want to be able to spend more time with their kids at home or not having a boss, etc. - there are many reasons - I would bet you "moar money!", mansions and a private island is not even the primary motivation.
So identity thieves provide a service. It's not fraud because if we weren't so greedy we wouldn't develop all these options to get credit cards, loans, etc. They just remind us to cut back on our greed and materialistic consumption. They're teachers, not criminals. Got it. Robbers are service providers as well - they teach us to be situationally aware and develop some kind of a self-defense plan. So do the rapists. And the pedos - they teach us to pay more attention to our children and protect them better. They're just teachers to be respected and awarded rather than condemned and punished. Sometimes we just need to call a spade a spade instead of twisting reality into some preachy victim-blaming bullshit!
It doesn't mean stop punishing criminals. But if what someone did wasn't a crime, what do you do then? Are they really worth blaming for the rest of your life, what purpose does it serve after a few decades and how will it affect yourself over time? Of course you get pissed off, but at what point do you move on?
Plenty of good, ethical, responsible, competent, intelligent people (and organizations!) become victims of all kinds of crime every fucking day. To assume that every victim is inadequate in some way and in some way "deserved" the crime is so fucking dumb. And even if the victims were dumb or incompetent does that make it any better? By that logic telemarketing fraudsters who deprive senior citizens with Alzheimer's of their life savings are somehow higher on the moral scale than the snakes defrauding wanna-be traders? The seniors are certainly dumber than the wannabes. O, wait, I forgot the fucking geezers were greedy - obviously deserved it, 300% return my ass muahahahah!
What they are doing is certainly a crime - fraud to be more precise. The SEC and CFTC just don't have resources to prosecute even 1% of them and they know it. It pisses me off that they get away with it just because the agencies tasked with enforcement are short on resources. I feel bad about all the people they scam and dreams they ruin. Am I allowed to care about tons of people who get scammed every day? Because personally I've moved on a long time ago.
I think some of the educators are ppl that used to make money, just that the market changed and they can profit no more, so they move to scamming others for a living