Topic: Seeds of distrust - page 3. (Read 6561 times)

I quit reading when I got to the word 'rant'.

+1

Nice post, Matthew.

~Bruno~

There are only two kinds of people "invest" into ponzi:

1. Suckers, who do not get it.
2. Scammers (fraudsters), who want to "get in early" and liberate money off of suckers.

There are no other options. Now note how many of self-confessed scammers (as per above classification) are on bitcointalk.

Shun the non believers!

Yep. I don't necessarily agree that your name must be attached to some work for it to be taken seriously. We're talking about purposely hiding and masking your identity while operating in a financial marketplace. Big difference.

Not taking credit for something happens all the time. Unfortunately, so does not taking credit for thefts.

A great many, and also:  No. 

Take a look at Stigler's Law of Eponymy. 

For almost all of these great scientific discoveries, conquests, thinkers, whose names you are thinking of, there are others you haven't heard of who really did it first or did the grunt work. 

LOL, what are you bitching about? If pirate was honest, you should receive lots of of money for your investment. Why would you care about some doubters here?

I think the thread starter is unhappy because he is afraid that he won't get his money back...

Step 1 - Publicly meet your investors/goon squad and invigorate them

Step 2 - Close shop

Step 3 - ?

I can't talk about the others, but I've met Micon and listened to his show a few times, and I understand why he was so vocal about pirate.  With so many scams in bitcoin, and then something that seems too good to be true, 31% monthly aka 3370% annually, returns pops up and seems like obviously a scam.  But if you can convince enough people that it's legit, big money will pour in for those kinds of returns, so it behooves the scammer to really work the audience for the long play with a scam like that-- so I genuinely believe that Micon truly believed that pirate was out for a big scam and Micon was trying to protect people.

That said, I met some of the better known and respected community members as well, and those that had met pirate and talked with him about his operation and how he got the returns-- and now they know his real identity (which for a long play scam could ALSO be a fake) -- but these people who had good judgement trusted him.

So weighting all the voices around, I decided that pirate was most likely the real deal.  I would have put a lot of money with him if it wasn't already tied up.  I was actually planning to put money with him at the end of this month.  Oh well.  But the point is that all these voices that OP claims are needlessly spreading FUD are NOT evil or doing harm.  They are simply voicing reasonable concerns to the community that when something seems too good to be true, it often is.  But as a reasonable thinking person, you should be able to try and discern WHY each party says what they say and try to figure out who benefits and what the real information is.  I know why the pirate FUD spreaders were spreading FUD-- they truly felt they were trying to protect the community from a big scam.  I also know why the people who trusted him trusted him-- they met pirate and saw how the operation worked and determined that it was logical and consistent and possible to legitimately get those returns.  I weighted all the opinions and the facts I could find and made my own determination.

THAT's what everybody should be doing, always.  Making their own decisions.  There are no seeds of distrust that can overcome facts and data and logical reasoning.  As long as you think for yourself you will be able to protect yourself.

I don't really follow the logical connection between "some people may have lost money to a bitcoin scam" and "it's time to panic sell!"

Why would anyone panic sell over this type of announcement? Is the assumption that pirate's was going to dump his btc holdings, causing the price to go down? If so, why would he bother announcing?

Trust is earned, not given. What did pirate do to earn trust? Do people know who he is or where he lives? Do they know how the money they give him is used to make those returns? Do they know how much of the profits he keeps for himself? Do they even know why he needs other people's money instead of just earning the 7% weekly return on his own money?

With Bitcoin, the new awesome feature is the publicly available ledger that is still pseudonomous. I would guess pirate would have had way more trust if, while staying anonymous, he explained how the investor's money was being invested, and posted his own accounting ledger online along with the Bitcoin addresses being used, so people can verify that the money is going where he says it is. No need to disclose your identity to be fully transparent when it comes to Bitcoin and the blockchain. That's actually how the Bitcoin100 works, with a publicly viewable ledger matched to all a dresses and transactions (though we're not ourselves anonymous)

Seems to me it's the price swing in bitcoin that was the main driver of pirate withdrawal requests. I hope this isn't the beginning of a QQ wave.

Is this a trick question?  

Who's to say how many unknowns working for the good of others rather than for fame or prestige etc., have contributed to, if not single-handedly brought about,
some of the big "world-changing" events in history?  More than we will ever know... more than we can ever know.  
  

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously? All the scientific discoveries, the conquests with the super-leaders, the great thinkers, they all have their name attached to their lifes-work. Dont worry about the "rant", you made a good point.




Teddy Roosevelt ( NOT FDR ) was shot during a speech once. He continued his speech.

Your point is invalid unless he actually pays back.

Destructive? Destructive of what exactly? I would say they are wise (to some degree), not destructive.

Now, dear aq, given this https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/aq-29031 disclose your exposure to the pirate's op.


Anyway, it is too late, most likely. Just wait to find out the fate of whatever interest you had in that operation.

At the heart of all of this is a split movement in Bitcoin, both supporting it equally-- hackers and crackers. Hackers want transparency and information to be shared. They want government for it's power to change and control, but they want to be a part of the change and take away control from the evil forces. Crackers just want personal gain and are mostly against government, crave anonymity, etc.

In the Bitcoin community it is easy to see the split between those who outright refuse to give even their name (why?) and those who don't care if their name is plastered on a billboard along with their private bank transactions for 10 years. The difference is a philosophical one as best as I can tell. Some people believe the world is full of good natured people who let too many bad natured people take control of it, and that things need to be balanced. Others feel that any control is bad and chaos is beautiful, because we only live once anyway.

People who support bitcoin, support it because it enables something. What it enables for them is different from person to person, but if what it enables for you is to be able to steal from others more easily, then you will have a large majority of hackers constantly going up against you. If what it enables you is to track thieves easier, then you will have crackers constantly up against you, spreading lies and creating sock puppets.

Frankly speaking, I see no future where anonymity reigns. Then again, no one matters in the end and names and faces are just representations of initiative and intentions. Bitcoin is a tool. We use it to transfer value. GLBSE, Pirate, you name it, these are all intentions of individuals. As a diverse community of Bitcoin, we should always allow questioning of intentions from individuals, and encourage transparency. There is not a single thing I wouldn't share about my own personal life if it served a purpose of betterment. The problem is that the forces of crackers, dishonest businessmen, and chaos lovers is inherently loud in these forums given their greatest weapon is sockpuppetry and simulating public opinion in their favor.

Ask Pirate what he's doing, if he tells you he refuses to explain anything, don't put money into him, warn others in an honest manner what he said to you, nothing more. When news sources ask you your opinion on certain things, tell them the facts. We will only ever be looked at as a "bad" currency so long as the people in the community keep showing emotion where logic should be shown instead. This forum is a comedic venture and it's full of daily drama from Dank trying to convince people that he's trustworthy for a loan while refusing to explain anything, to loganschrye trying to convince people that buying popcorn should be on the first of the to-do list for starting a movie theatre with other people's money. This place is a proving ground for economics, philosophy and basically serves as an experimentation ground for ideas, horribly ill-thought out ones especially. Pirate is part of the experiment. So was Bitcoinica. So was Bitmunchies. So is SilkRoad. Everything is just an experiment and everything here is new. We're all part of this experiment. It's currently high risk just to be involved in something this new as protocols, adoption and value can change at any moment. That said, the forums are not Bitcoin. Everyone knows this. Real bitcoin business and movements happen outside the forums. The very reason it is the busiest network of bitcoiners is directly due to its nurturing moderation in favor of anonymity, deniability, etc.

I'm not convinced that's a good policy, but the best I can say is-- if you don't like it, start another one.

P.S. Sorry for the rant.

This is a very good thing - it means that scammer have a more difficult job of ripping people off. Anything that pushes the cost/benefit ratio towards being less profitable to defraud should be encouraged.

"I have an amazing investment opportunitiy that will make you a lot of money very quickly but I can't explain the details; just give me your cash and don't ask questions" should always be regarded as a scam until proven otherwise because scammers have been using minor variations of that line for centuries. Legitimate businesses don't need to keep their business models secret and don't promise returns on investment that are mathematically impossible to sustain. Notice that several successful Bitcoin businesses like BitInstant and Bit-Pay don't get constantly accused of being Ponzi schemes. It may be related to the fact that they don't exhibit all the classic signs of one.

Yes, one way or the other. Bitcoin as the greater structure is something that really isn't analogous to anything in human history. That's why the movement inevitably will have to go through traumas to gain new wisdom and develop traditions to help make better judgments.

The optimist in me says that the end result will be better whatever turns out to be the case; which also means the general distrust has also been a positive thing. It will be an interesting experience if the "team Ponzi" is shown to be at fault. It would be pretty dull if pirate turns out to be a scammer, but the resulting climate would be more firmly grounded.

I have to agree with the OP, from what i have seen this forum is extremely distrusting of new ventures. I hope that as bitcoin matures, its users will also mature and this attitude will pass.

I have to absolutely agree