Topic: Something Fishy about Steemit and Steem? - page 5. (Read 6184 times)

Did I say it is?

The point was it is a different culture, legal system, etc.. So you should always have an attorney sign off on things you don't understand well when investing in foreign lands.

Chili inherits some of the attributes of a third world country apparently, because it is no so long ago that it was, and in some respects it still is. I've heard that is almost impossible to find an apartment in Chili that isn't noisy. Sounds a lot like my frustration in the Philippines (although I finally found a gated community that is somewhat quiet enough for me to work).

I've never been to Chili, only Colombia in 2001 as my only South American visit thus far. I've been to Mexico numerous times starting from the 1980s and Guatemala in 1993. I am interested to tour S.America, but I am under no delusions about it being a first-world environment (although I assume it has developed a lot since 2001). That is not to say I want a first-world environment. One thing is Latin american is apparently much more violent than Asia. (and btw Colombians have the highest average penis lengths on par with Africa if my statistical resource can be trusted, unlike Asia, indicating to me a much higher level of testosterone and violence) Machismo is very big time in Latin america, perhaps greatest in Mexico? Ferfal's blog goes into how violent S.America (or at least Argentina) is. Maybe he is exaggerating, I dunno. Note inner-city USA is also quite violent. Suburban USA had not been, although that might be changing, I dunno bcz I haven't been to USA since 2006. When I was in Colombia I saw people pulling out long blades. I've heard the situation has improved some there.

Contrast this with I believe some town in Germany, where by law men can't stand and must sit down to pee, so they won't disturb their apartment neighbors with the sound of the water trickling into the toilet basin.


Did I say they were literally bailed out monetarily? You seem to not read the word "or".

Also "bailout" can have multiple meanings. It can mean bailing them out of what would be their own self-guilt and reflection on their own mistake, by focusing on blaming everything on the perpetrator who needs willing victims to become a perpetrator.

Note that for as long as there exist willing victims, it doesn't matter how many perpetrators you DOXX, there will always be more to take their place.


Afaik, you haven't proven he is dishonest. Please be careful with your words when you are slandering someone's reputation. It is as if you've decided that he is scum of the earth, but any of us can have bad luck and get mired in a bad business deal that is difficult for us to extract ourselves from.

Perhaps you can make a good case for he has mislead, if he didn't reveal publicly the problems in Galt's Gulch as soon as he became aware of them.

I am not saying he won't eventually be proven to be dishonest. Everyone is free to speculate.

(Note I don't like to hang out with promoter types of personalities because they'd pull me off in unproductive directions and influences, so I might share some of your sentiments, but I am trying to maintain my rationality/objectiveness/impartiality)

P.S. no animosity intended. Just saying.

 satashoi in 2010 telling Steem creator Daniel Larimer that he's dumb.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpbDqv0UEAAQCWO.jpg

I presume you mean competitively distributed, because even distribution could only be obtained by force of top-down control.

This.

Also: Terrence is a good guy, even before he did the work on this. I know him in person.

MWD

The issue with STEEM is that it's been rigged to favour some selected few with just a click.
Tony Vay is a bitcoin maximalist, He even called Ethereum a scam, so Microscoft too is been scammed by ethereum. Until steem distribution is seen to be evenly distributed, this issue with steemit with no go away.

Yeah, that's not really how it happened for many of them.

By the way, Chili is not a third world country.



I don't think anyone deserves losing money due to dishonesty, but yeah if you do you could see it as learning costs.

I prefer to view is as a penalty for trusting, accepting and defending dishonest people (most of whom are in politics and ruling our lives).



Nobody was bailed out, what are you talking about?



It is a moral hazzard, but that doesn't imply there shouldn't be any recourse. Unfortunately in this world, the state is the only chance for most investors to try and get back what is theirs.



That is all I intended by posting a link to the full story. People who are interested can make up their own mind.

I did not say he is a criminal, just that he has been misleading a lot of people. I couldn't care less what some state department or lawyer would call him. To me he is a dishonest person and that is all you should need to know.

Foolish investors buy into something involving huge sums of money without having their attorney check all the paperwork, especially in a Latin american or third world country where we know that permitting is a political favors game.

It is as if these investors are totally naive and deserve their losses as an education ("charge it to experience").

Please let's stop rewarding people who fail to do their due diligence, by bailing them out or blaming their problems only on the perpetrators. This has a similar smell as The DAO debacle.

Why do we always want a Nanny State to protect fools from their education. It is a moral hazard. I've paid for my mistakes in life for the most part and hopefully I'm wiser for it.

I am not against making these fools aware that they better be more suspicious of Jeff. Right on. But let's not make it all one-sided. Jeff is trying to find ways to make money. He is a promoter. That is what he does. Until he has been proven with evidence to be a criminal, I can't just assume that. It does appear to me he has a chain smoking addiction and this probably reflects on his overall discipline in life, but again I can't entirely judge him and any way I don't need to, because I have no dealings with him.

In general the masses are very gullible and prone to idolization. I doubt we can ever change that.

So while you may cite the "Have no idols" wisdom of the 10 Commandments, I might also cite Jesus in Matthew 7:

Matthew 7 New International Version (NIV)

Judging Others
7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

---

Edit: the huge rewards paid to blogging at Steem are a dilemma because they can end up overly focusing and tying the reputation of Steem to some prominent shady characters. We really need to clean up the image of blockchains and crypto in order for the masses to not be rightfully skeptical, but perhaps we can do that algorithmically instead of via the fingerpointing of the bully pulpit.

The women tend to be more skeptical of things outside the mainstream. And they are often correct!

We boys never saw an adventure that we didn't want to try, often willfully oblivious to risks.

I followed the Galt's Gulch Chili scam at the time (2013-2014) and it was and still is one big mess.

Fact is that he has mislead investors who lost a total of 7 million dollars. It is unclear how much he lost, if anything at all. It seems that he and his managing partner never put any real money into it themselves.

Terrence Gillespie has done a lot of research into the Chile scam. The main characters were Jeff Berwick and Ken Johnson.

This is the first of ten (!) parts on his blog: http://mcgillespie.com/galts-gulch-chile-story-timeline-references/

TLDR; Jeff Berwick is guilty, it is just a matter of degree at this point. He has apoligized and he never talks publicly about it anymore. It seems he hopes that it will go away by itself now. Which is kind of working, because people have a short attention span and the next scam is always around the corner. And in Berwicks case, well he loses some fans who take time to look further, but he attracts many more new fanboys every week who don't know any of his history or don't care.

Hell.  That made me spit coffee on my monitor laughing.

Tone Vays' math is not complete:

https://steemit.com/steem/@anonymint/who-pays-for-the-blogging-and-curation-rewards-part-1-steem-power

And that is my blog.

The SP holders are being debased, thus they are being diluted (but very slowly which has been one of my complaints given the egregious distribution of the money supply).

Whether the whales are using their voting power to transfer that debasement to users which are beholden to the whales (such as kickbacks or whatever), is a separate argument. One of the whales @smooth says that most of the whales vote rarely.

I have been stating for weeks that the distribution of the sneaky "pre"-mine is inappropriate. And I am busy on trying to make a replacement for Steem with a competitive (i.e. fair) distribution. If the unfair distribution is Tone Vays' complaint, then I agree.'

I also stated that Dan and Ned effectively control the DPoS blockchain.

So I had already made all the allegations long before Tone Vay came late to the party. And again Tone's mathematical understanding of Steem's debasement appears to be simpleton at this point. He needs to study more.

Argue with an 82 year old constitutional scholar:

https://steemit.com/irs/@ericwhoru/how-to-beat-the-irs

I am @anonymint

I tried to tell you that, but you think you know everything.

I had to help Jeff on Steemit on how to right-click to get an image url.

You are paranoid and making shit up in your mind.

wow. Dick measuing. Nice.

What's your brilliant opinion on the very short part in the white paper that Ton Vay says "this takes bullshit to a whole new level." (left column below, third highlighted section down.)

 I agree with him. If you don't, please tell us why you don't.

Challenge him and put your money where your mouth is. The same way Roger Ver has offered a half million bucks in BTC to any charity for Bernie Sanders (socialist) to debate Adam Kokesh (libertarian) about socialism.

The couple of instances where I've seen him on video, Tone Vays doesn't impress me that much. He seems to have an average level of intelligence.

I've read the Steem white paper several times.

Tone Vays versus @smooth would be the end of Tone Vays' credibility.

Tone Vays has an IQ of maybe 117. Up against smooth and myself, it would be hilarious.

Appealing to authority is bullshit. It means you don't understand.

I'm not FUDing. That guy still is blamed by some for having taken the money. Including the other two guys. Also, read the Vice article before you say I'm FUDing. lolz.

I really think you aren't informed enough to have an opinion on this. I understand, it's a lot to digest to have an informed opinion. You don't have to take my opinion of "there's something fishy about Steem, and Jeff Berwick", but you have no place to accuse me of FUD until you do a SHIT LOAD more reading and listening. You don't have to do that, but until you do, you should keep your criticism of my criticism of this whole mess off this board. Or you'll embarrass yourself.

Tone Vays (REALLY smart guy with cryptoSpace, writer for cointelegraph just called Steem a total scam, based on his analysis of the Steem white paper.
https://twitter.com/Tone_LLT/status/761975587451928576
and
https://twitter.com/Tone_LLT/status/761239210443497472
Whereas Jeff Berwick just said on Free Talk Live "I've read the white paper and I think it might just be genius."

After 90 minutes of hearing Jeff Berwick just now utter complete and uninformed bullshit about Steem on the radio, I'm revising my thought on Steem. I think Jeff might just be a useful idiot and the whole thing might be more of a Ponzi scheme.

"Cobin v. Commissioner (John Cobin's arguments—that he had the ability to opt out of liability for federal income tax because he was white, that he was a "sovereign citizen of Oregon", that he was a "non-resident alien of the United States", and that his sovereign status made his body real property—were rejected by the Court and were ruled to be "frivolous tax-protester type arguments"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement

I didn't know that he was involved in the bad land deal. I haven't had time to research every one of your links. I am overloaded with tasks.

I read one of that guy's blogs and he heavily criticized Chile.

I also notice you tend to quickly jump to conclusions without proof, i.e. you have no proof that Jeff is an owner of Steem (or otherwise given special deal by Dan and Ned) other than what he has earned from blogging. I am not saying I don't appreciate your reports, but I don't want to automatically assume. Perhaps I'll find time to read the sources you've cited.


Edit: I just read your Vice Mag citation and Cobin exited early to avoid the problems. Please stop FUDing.


Edit#2:

https://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2015/12/07/whatever-happened-to-galts-gulch-chile.html

I think you should provide some proof of your allegations that anybody owes you money. You make a big stink over $300 and then you falsely accuse those who haven't been charged with a crime. This is putting your credibility into question. If you can't be trusted on small matters, how can we trust you on larger ones.

 Tone Vays weights in on Steem, says it's a scam:
https://twitter.com/Tone_LLT/status/761975587451928576