Man...you are getting too philosophical for me here.
I think that you are saying that if you are hellbent on committing a crime and you engage in some act that you believe is illegal but it turns out to be legal then you have criminal intent but have not committed a crime.
I guess I would say that participating in a scam is against the law in every state (at least I believe it is). If you believe QEDN is a scam and QEDN turns out to be a scam then I believe you could face charges for participating in the manipulation. Especially, if you post on this board information that you believe to be false or have no knowledge of being true (aka the Nestle crap).