Comment by awbvious

Of course, some might say that accredited investor rules are there to protect this type of investor in the US. But do they really when these rules prevent non-accredited investors from investing in the box business, but allow accredited investors to invest in the box business, and no rules prevent both accredited and non-accredited (as the rules should apply to both) from using a US-based version of this box that too would later fail spectacularly? It's quite likely Samsamelo would not have been able to grow so big as to collapse so spectacularly without accredited investor money. And very likely this US-based version wouldn't have been attractive as a box to non-accredited investors had there been other options for non-accredited investors. And thus, the lack of other options for non-accredited investors actually makes it more attractive as a box business to accredited investors. Are these double standards really to protect anyone or just the wealth/income divide status quo?

Now let's turn to “almost trolley problems.”

Samsamelo, through hook and at least a third of a crook, has made the money. (For himself, and, I guess, some trolley development.) He promised investors one year. He needed all the money in the world to make it safe in ten years. But if he waits even that long with the risks and lies he's made, he could lose it all (or at least that's what he tells himself).

Clearly (to him) five years will have to do.

Now one of the promises he made was no more needing a person to pull the trolley, the Arty Ingineer. And, he says, it's really almost there, Arty Ingineer just needs someone to be in front and pull the trolley a bit. Just a bit. But soon! Soon not all.

Five years later and Samsamelo wants to unveil his extensive trolley system. The engineers, of course, tell Samsamelo this is extremely unsafe. To even partly manage what he claimed to be able to do safely, he'd have to do it extremely dangerously. He'd have to have people located throughout the track system, pulling it along, and in some places, they might need to be directly on the track and in harm’s way.

Not that the general public knew this, as Samsamelo cleverly made sure his engineers signed agreements that would make them substantially lose the money they were promised for their hard work, or worse yet would vindictively be persecuted to an almost petty degree if they revealed the truth. Either by hounding with private investigators and smearing publicly or by litigating into submission by being able to outspend on all legal costs. That doesn't seem very ethical either, but, trolley utopia, et cetera., something, something, somehow, it’s more ethically good than bad.