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From: n2557@cypress01.cray.com (Steven Levine)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation,sci.electronics,sci.misc,soc.college,soc.misc
Subject: Re: SORRY
Message-ID: <122711.11464@timbuk.cray.com>
Date: 30 May 91 22:39:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: timbuk.122711.11464
References: <1991May30.025825.29490@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Eagan, MN
Lines: 22

In article <1991May30.025825.29490@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:

>At any rate, if James Parks really "did not mean to defraud anybody"
>(as he said in his apology), then his knowledge of mathematics is sadly
>deficient. All pyramid schemes fail because they require impossibly large
>numbers of people, often exceeding the population of the earth after
>ten or fewer steps.

When people try to interest me in a chain letter/pyramid scheme,
I try to point out that for every dollar you come out ahead, someone
somewhere comes out one dollar behind (there have been no exchange
of goods or services, just money being shuffled around).  For some
reason, this usually takes enormous amounts of energy and argument,
though most eventually come to understand the point.  I point out that
this feels like stealing to me, but that's idiosyncratic.  As long as they
understand that somebody else is losing money if they gain, then 
it's not up to me to tell them it's wrong.

I often get the response, "But it's only $1"  (or 5, or whatever).

Steven Levine
n2557@cypress.cray.com