Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: My friend and I have know each other for several years and he is now in his early thirties. Years ago, he decided not to finish his university education, which has unfortunately accumulated a lot of student loan debt for the classes he did take. He has since then been trapped in a low-paying job with bad prospects, which he despises. I really care about him as a friend and have always tried to help him out any way I can including job hunting and financial advice. 

Since last year, he has been caught up in a multi-level marketing scheme. His “uplines” have charged him over $3000 for the “opportunity” to sell water ionizer machines that cost thousands of dollars to people on social media. He has not been able to recoup a single dollar after many months and his total loss out of pocket due to involvement with them is probably $5000.

Despite this, he continues to be invested in this scheme, which would be due to charge him the same amount again this year. I have, in my attempt to stop him from continuing in this scheme, suggested to him many times to look for a higher paying opportunity or even have his employer help with getting better certifications. I sent him a lot of job postings, and he would respond that he never wants to work for a boss again, and that people who work for companies are obtuse conformists who can’t think out of the box. 

It came to a head yesterday when he told me his debt repayment had been hiked up by the lender which makes it hard for him to pay his bills on his current salary. When he told me this, I said: “if you don’t want to get a better paying job right now, why not look into Uber? It can help you make a plan because the earnings are not huge but pretty stable (we live in a big city where earnings are more predictable) and you can earn around your hours.” 

He replied: “Uber is just a dead end job, I would not make any job where I had to answer to someone else my priority. I need to focus on (the mlm scheme) until I can pay my debt off at once.” 

At this point I felt a bit angry and said : “no, you need a budget plan, because you’ll never get rich off this, it’s a total scam, you know that right? They are looking to scam you and you are brainwashed into trying to scam other people.”

He was very upset by this and responded that I am being unsupportive of his entrepreneurial-ship. I said being a distributor for an MLM was not being an entrepreneur because the business doesn’t belong to him, and that his focus should be to pay off debt instead of get rich quick schemes with con artists. 

His response was that I was being a terrible unsupportive friend, and that I am acting this way because I can’t stand to see him “woke” and knowing what he wants in life and that I am trying to ruin what he believes in. He has since blocked me on text. 

Was I an asshole for this exchange? Am I a bad friend for causing hurt because I feel that he’s wrecking his life? 

If so, what should I have done? 

Thanks for reading all this.

telling my friend he'd never get rich from multi level marketing schemes