I wish to comment on the oft-heard claim selling or promoting segulah items is “manipulative”, because “there are people who end up impoverishing themselves due to desperate “investment” in such things.”
Unless it is halachically fraud (not my topic for the moment!), you can’t prove “opportunity cost”. How do you know they would have extra money left over if they hadn’t used it for this? You can’t know.
It’s like the claim if people weren’t wasting their time and energy on statistically ineffective politics, they could be making real changes in the world by Direct Action, or whatever. Says who? As best as I can tell, people like the illusion of politics. They don’t like changing things. And so one does not come at the expense of another.
Can you prove me wrong?