That doesn't make sense to me. If I took my life savings and bet it on a roulette system where I kept doubling down, and then lost and complained that i didn't know it was risky, should someone feel bad for me? A greedy ignoramus (lots of them) put their money into a ponzi scheme and lost it. That's not something that should be encouraged, or softened. People should learn that their actions have consequences.

There’s a reason roulette tables are illegal in most parts of the US. Being unintelligent should not be a justification for a life of misery. If we’re lucky, many of us will get older and lose some cognitive ability. I hope society maintains such safeguards into my twilight years.

> Being unintelligent

There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity

Should stupidity be punished by death?

Should you? As in do you owe them pity? Fuck if I know.

But would the world be a little bit nicer if they only lost, say, half of their life instead of all of it? Seems so to me.

You could argue the opposite. The accredited investor rule excluded a significant portion of the American population from participating in economic growth over a 20 year period. They are consenting intelligent adults, why does the government need to police their prowess over what asset classes they can participate in?

Note, I’m not arguing for wild Wild West rules, but it goes both ways.

Because many people do not have anything that could be described as “prowess” when it comes to money. Is it an a priori fact that the government should help? No.

Is it practical? Seems like it.

How is exclusion helping for a largely non binary but on average positive integer?

And it gets even harder to defend if you slice thinner: are penny stocks ok for grandma to own or just individual Fortune 500 stocks? Or no stocks at all just indexes? Etc.

Further, surely you wouldn’t argue the same for lottery tickets right? That the consumers can’t understand the math and/or can’t calc the probability ex ante therefore the government should preclude them from participating due to low “prowess” (ignore the positive tax base component).

I’d be okay with a “drivers license” type regulation than a minimum net worth threshold regulation which just increases inequality in the long run and creates greater divisions in society.

Edit: it’s weird I can work at riskyStartupXYZ as a 22 year old but not easily “bet on it” succeeding, even though the later implies much less risk.

It's hard to have sympathy when their "foolishness" involves undermining the existing financial system because they don't like the government and they believe taxation is theft.

The irony is that they now have no problem going to the government (specifically the courts) and asking for help to get their money back. It's only government waste if it's not directly helping them.

For most of history, being a bit foolish would have got you killed.