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SilasBarta comments on Open Thread: November 2009 - Less Wrong
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I think you've answered your own question. Let me elaborate:
1) Rationalists significantly overestimate people's vulnerability to money pumps, often based on mistaken views about how e.g. religious irrationality "must" spill over into other areas.
2) Even if you don't care about ethics, scamming people will just make the population more suspicious of people claiming mastery of rationalist ideas.
To elaborate your elaboration:
To do money pumping on a grand scale, you have to be in the financial markets; but there are no money pumps there which aren't being busily pumped away. ('Bears make money, bulls make money; pigs get slaughtered'.) This is true for pumps like casinos, too - lots of competition.
And most ways to make a money pump in other areas have been outlawed or are regulated; working money pumps like Swoopo (see http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001196.html ) are usually walking a fine line.