In the old days of the Internet, there was a simple reason chain letters were evil: they wasted precious bandwidth. They were basically a form of non-destructive virus that got people to voluntarily propagate them. But if you look at your average chain letter, there's something much more insidious underneath. Many of them are evil.

A friend of my sister just sent one out this morning. It has a nice inspirational message about how money can buy a house, but not a home, can buy sex but not love, etc. Then it says:

One man, got his first copy of the proverb in 1953 and asked his secretary to make him 20 copies. Nine hours later he won $99 million in the lottery in his country.

Of course, if you do some research into the history of gambling, such a result is highly unlikely. In most countries that had lotteries at that time, $99 million would be stupendous. In 1954, Italian lottery revenue was $45 million. In 1955, Australians spent a grand total of $62 million on lottery tickets for the year. Adjusted for inflation, that $99 million dollar jackpot would be worth $759 million in 2007. This claim is most likely a lie.

But here's where it becomes evil.

An employee of his received the same card, but did not forward it. A few days later he lost his job. After that, he changed his mind, sent it and became rich.

In 1967, another man got the proverb; he laughed about it and discarded it. A few days later his son got sick. The man looked for the note, made 20 copies, and sent them. Nine days later, he got good news: his son was safe and sound.

What kind of "good luck" threatens to harm your children?

Basically, you're not sending people good luck. You're sending them bad luck that they must pass on to others to avoid. And if they do what the evil letter tells them, they will be rewarded.

If you pass on chain letters, you're a tool of evil. And you don't want to be a tool, do you?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Techno Thoughts, Technology & Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.