Pages:
Author

Topic: The psychology of a con man - Zhou (Read 6582 times)

donator
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1007
Poor impulse control.
July 29, 2012, 01:58:08 AM
#74
Wow. Talk about a hijacked thread. Wish I could moderate my own thread.
You can.

Really? How can i do that?

Lock the thread (you have the ability). Then contact a mod and ask them to remove the off topic or offensive posts or make a statement after the lock that the thread will reopen at a given time when posters return to the OP topic.

Yes, otherwise you end up with this sort of thing : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/putting-your-money-where-pirates-mouth-is-91661

It consists of half a page that's on topic. the following 25 and a half pages have nothing to do with the OP, and consist of bets, insults, thinly veiled threats, and some slander. All fun stuff, but nothing to do with the OP. I think you should do what CBH suggests if you don't want this to degenerate similarly, what with all the degenerates posting here.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
July 29, 2012, 01:39:22 AM
#73
Quote
All of your posts seem to demonstrate that you are precisely the kind of person who would not like Bitcoin at all

I'm just ahead of the game.  In a few years there won't be any libertarians around here once they realize what Bitcoin is really meant to accomplish.  Of course, a few years later they will come back when they realize the great things socialism and communism have to offer once paired with a superior currency.


I'm leaning strongly towards "trolling".
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
Look upon me, BitcoinTalk, for I...am...Rarity!
July 29, 2012, 01:30:04 AM
#72
Quote
All of your posts seem to demonstrate that you are precisely the kind of person who would not like Bitcoin at all

I'm just ahead of the game.  In a few years there won't be any libertarians around here once they realize what Bitcoin is really meant to accomplish.  Of course, a few years later they will come back when they realize the great things socialism and communism have to offer once paired with a superior currency.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
July 29, 2012, 01:21:42 AM
#71
I am not ignoring the side effects of charity.  They are the side effects of giving someone a fish.  This is about rescuing them from starvation and teaching them to fish. 

Good luck with that.


You know, I'm having a real hard time telling if you're trolling. All of your posts seem to demonstrate that you are precisely the kind of person who would not like Bitcoin at all... Either that or you don't understand it in the slightest.

I think you would fit in better at http://www.freicoin.org.
sr. member
Activity: 455
Merit: 250
You Don't Bitcoin 'till You Mint Coin
July 29, 2012, 01:00:01 AM
#70
Wow. Talk about a hijacked thread. Wish I could moderate my own thread.
If posting here, please reread the original OP and stay on topic and ignore all the sock puppets.

Here's another nugget:
Another disclosure:

I detected two vulnerabilities in ExchB (hope you guys still remember this exchange) last year and I returned the money I "stole" from them actively after the hack.

I also wanted to test whether Mt. Gox had the same problem, so I created the account using my stevejobs email. I didn't want to use my own account for this testing. And Mt. Gox was secure enough that I failed to exploit.

Actively hacking other sites and steeling money if possible but then boasts of giving it back.

From the article in the OP:

Quote
Some con men describe a “rush” from closing the deal. They know they are doing something wrong, often illegal, and the success of that activity combined with the physical stresses and rewards in the brain become addictive. The chemicals released in the brain from the pursuit and capture of the cash becomes its own reward; the game becomes more than just a way to get money. Other con men have been known to use their work as a way to massage a fragile ego: Every time they get away with stealing money, they’ve proven to themselves that they are smarter than the authorities and their victims.

So, it can be more that just money that drives a pathological liar.

You can.

Really? How can i do that?
full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
July 29, 2012, 12:56:58 AM
#69
Sorry Angry

Is Zhuo Tong a Crooked little bastard?: Discuss
sr. member
Activity: 455
Merit: 250
You Don't Bitcoin 'till You Mint Coin
July 29, 2012, 12:33:48 AM
#68
Wow. Talk about a hijacked thread. Wish I could moderate my own thread.
If posting here, please reread the original OP and stay on topic and ignore all the sock puppets.

Here's another nugget:
Another disclosure:

I detected two vulnerabilities in ExchB (hope you guys still remember this exchange) last year and I returned the money I "stole" from them actively after the hack.

I also wanted to test whether Mt. Gox had the same problem, so I created the account using my stevejobs email. I didn't want to use my own account for this testing. And Mt. Gox was secure enough that I failed to exploit.

Actively hacking other sites and steeling money if possible but then boasts of giving it back.

From the article in the OP:

Quote
Some con men describe a “rush” from closing the deal. They know they are doing something wrong, often illegal, and the success of that activity combined with the physical stresses and rewards in the brain become addictive. The chemicals released in the brain from the pursuit and capture of the cash becomes its own reward; the game becomes more than just a way to get money. Other con men have been known to use their work as a way to massage a fragile ego: Every time they get away with stealing money, they’ve proven to themselves that they are smarter than the authorities and their victims.

So, it can be more that just money that drives a pathological liar.
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
Look upon me, BitcoinTalk, for I...am...Rarity!
July 28, 2012, 11:39:05 PM
#67
I am not ignoring the side effects of charity.  They are the side effects of giving someone a fish.  This is about rescuing them from starvation and teaching them to fish. 
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
July 28, 2012, 11:21:09 PM
#66
Which is why you both invest in the community and stave off starvation at the same time.  Even so, there is enough food in the world to feed everybody already produced, distribute it and you might have some problems down the line if you don't invest in the community right but otherwise people starve.  It's not worth protecting some yacht for a rich guy to let people die.

Rarity, I think you are ignoring the side effects of charity. The only way to "stave off starvation" in the mean time also entails destroying the success of any up-and-coming agricultural or comestible industry.

While there is enough food in the world to feed everyone, this may not always be the case, and it is not desirable for poor nations to be reliant on the charity of others. It is much better if they can produce their own food, or at least be self-sufficient.

And yes, people will starve. Humans have been starving since humans existed. This is (or at least was) a fact of life, and it is necessary to push food production technology to a point where starvation is no longer a problem.

This is a fairly straightforward issue of incentive. If there is an incentive to create the facilities required to avoid starvation (the incentive being starvation), those facilities will be created. If there is no incentive (because the food is being shipped in from charitable wealthy nations), the facilities will not be created, and those people will be at starvation risk forever.

You are also reducing the idea down to the strawman situation of "Rich people being rich vs poor people eating food". Those two things are not in opposition in any way, and temporarily feeding people with the money of the rich will not make the poor any better off in the long run. (By the way, the amount of money that all of the world's rich people have saved up is not very large compared to the world's GDP. That is to say that using up all that money will not actually do very much.)

You place too much importance on people not dying of starvation right now, and not enough importance on the future.
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1012
Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack.
July 28, 2012, 11:10:54 PM
#65
I believe bitcoinica ran within its liquid means initially but as soon as they changed their service to include interest rates to encourage to actually leave BTC and USD on bitcoinica which would enable them to remain more liquid while pulling out more profit than they should.

At that point any bank run would crush bitcoinica and this is why I believe it all turned into one big scam before a bankrun could occur that would 100% confirm that liquidity of funds didnt actually exist and so would have marked Zhou Tong immediately as a scammer thus its much more convenient to have a bunch of failures to happen which would direct liquidity problems away from bitcoinica and only directed to so-called hacks occurring due to outragious security issues.

Basicly, they needed interest holders to keep BTC/USD on bitcoinica in order to fullfill their obligations to actual traders withdrawals.
The only problem with this theory is that everyone would have to have been in on it. If Bitcoinica had obligations that exceeded its assets, there would have been nothing for Zhou to sell to the consultancy. So every person involved in Bitcoinica before and after ownership transferred would have to have been in on the scam.
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
Look upon me, BitcoinTalk, for I...am...Rarity!
July 28, 2012, 11:02:40 PM
#64
Which is why you both invest in the community and stave off starvation at the same time.  Even so, there is enough food in the world to feed everybody already produced, distribute it and you might have some problems down the line if you don't invest in the community right but otherwise people starve.  It's not worth protecting some yacht for a rich guy to let people die.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
July 28, 2012, 10:54:17 PM
#63
This thread appears to have been heavily derailed, but in response to the last few posts, think about this:



Offering free food to nascent developing nations means that the local farmers have no business. No one is buying their food (what little they have) because they can just eat UN rice or whatever for free.

Because there is no money in making or selling food, no one does it.

The infrastructure and supply chains required for food production are never developed.

There is no way to make or get food locally.

The cycle of starvation and dependence continues.

full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
Look upon me, BitcoinTalk, for I...am...Rarity!
July 28, 2012, 09:58:23 PM
#62
We give them food when we need to, and wealth to invest in their own communities so we don't need to anymore.  It's hard to do that when the top 10% accounts for 85% of the wealth.  There is plenty to go around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
Look upon me, BitcoinTalk, for I...am...Rarity!
July 28, 2012, 08:58:13 PM
#61

Quote
Who the hell is going to do that - work for the mutual benefit of everyone?  This isn't the starship enterprise.

Scotty, beam us up.

Quote
According to the NCCS Table Wizard, there are currently over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States.

http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/howmany.html

Keep in mind however, we aren't talking about a world where everyone is non-profit.  People who still want ten times as much income as everyone else, or wherever you set the max pay, will still have that to drive for and it will encourage them to build new companies and work hard.


Charity you are talking about centralized control. You are talking about the total and complete opposite of what bitcoin is all about. You are trolling whether you know it or not. This is not a forum that will take kindly to your collectivist ideals. You are advocating for the initiation violent of force. Setting a max limit on someones income just like setting a minimum wage, requires a third party to enforce their opinion with the threat of violence. I appreciate what you are trying to achieve (a more fair and equitable world). Free market thinkers like myself and probably many others on this forum have found that the best way to achieve more fair and equitable interactions between people is to allow them enter into voluntary agreements with one another for mutual benifit. Without a third party imposing, by threat of force their views, regulations, rules, etc. Party A does business with party B and everyone else minds their own business. If party A earns 10,000,000 BTC per year then she is obviously creating amazing value for others.
TL;DR interfering with the free market = initiating violent force

The starving children around the world sympathies with your utopian free market ideals, I'm sure, but I'm more concerned with the practical matter of making sure they have food.  If it means a rich man has to have a little less luxury, that's fine by me.

Quote

Not just punished but severely punished.   

And no doubt it wouldn't be just those who failed to obey all the proper laws and regulations who would
suffer, as hir views on psychology seem to suggest.

Absolutely.  We would already have punishments so severe if we had the tracking ability BitCoin provides for us with cash.  That ability protects the innocent so you can be sure they aren't accused of a financial crime they did not commit.

Quote
Democracy is already the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', you can't tell me the 99% aren't the ones deciding elections... yet, they have decided to compromise with the bourgeoisie, the 1%... because it is in the self-interests of the 99% and they know it!  The socialist experiment is undone.

Bitcoin is the magic that changes all this and makes real leftist government possible.  It's the best thing that has ever happened to socialists, even if they don't realize it yet.  There are non anonymous political donations or obfuscated lobbying ties or blackmail when all this is public and recorded.  Those are the tools the 1% uses to dominate politics.

Vod
legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 3010
Licking my boob since 1970
July 28, 2012, 06:42:48 PM
#60
Innocent people will fight and fight and fight to defend their name.   That's why the police ask you the same questions over and over - they know that if you are guilty, you will eventually give up and admit it.   There is psychology behind this, but I was unable to Google the correct term to find it - maybe someone else will have more luck?

Now let's look at Zhou - he made up his big story and when no one (save for an ignorant few) believed it, he quickly stopped posting.  Didn't try to defend himself at all.

Does anyone know his real name yet?
He's definitely still fighting, so this point isn't helping your case. Check his post history.

My case is tight as it is, thank you.  He started posting again 10 minutes after I wrote this.  Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1077
July 28, 2012, 06:23:46 PM
#59
Innocent people will fight and fight and fight to defend their name.   That's why the police ask you the same questions over and over - they know that if you are guilty, you will eventually give up and admit it.   There is psychology behind this, but I was unable to Google the correct term to find it - maybe someone else will have more luck?

Now let's look at Zhou - he made up his big story and when no one (save for an ignorant few) believed it, he quickly stopped posting.  Didn't try to defend himself at all.

Does anyone know his real name yet?
He's definitely still fighting, so this point isn't helping your case. Check his post history.
Vod
legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 3010
Licking my boob since 1970
July 28, 2012, 05:06:09 PM
#58
Innocent people will fight and fight and fight to defend their name.   That's why the police ask you the same questions over and over - they know that if you are guilty, you will eventually give up and admit it.   There is psychology behind this, but I was unable to Google the correct term to find it - maybe someone else will have more luck?

Now let's look at Zhou - he made up his big story and when no one (save for an ignorant few) believed it, he quickly stopped posting.  Didn't try to defend himself at all.

Does anyone know his real name yet?
legendary
Activity: 2030
Merit: 1000
My money; Our Bitcoin.
July 28, 2012, 03:32:14 PM
#57
TL;DR interfering with the free market = initiating violent force

Rarity doesn't seem to have a problem with that...

Quote
I wonder how many loyal subjects will adhere to the regulated block chain as opposed to the free market block chain that will certainly continue to exist.

Businesses who engaged in such activity would be severely punished.


Not just punished but severely punished.   

And no doubt it wouldn't be just those who failed to obey all the proper laws and regulations who would
suffer, as hir views on psychology seem to suggest.  Anyone deemed to be abnormal ( the government
being the sole arbiter no doubt ) would perhaps be considered to be possessed by demons and simply
exterminated...  no need for things like psychology and psychologists.

full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
July 28, 2012, 01:27:13 PM
#56

Quote
Who the hell is going to do that - work for the mutual benefit of everyone?  This isn't the starship enterprise.

Scotty, beam us up.

Quote
According to the NCCS Table Wizard, there are currently over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States.

http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/howmany.html

Keep in mind however, we aren't talking about a world where everyone is non-profit.  People who still want ten times as much income as everyone else, or wherever you set the max pay, will still have that to drive for and it will encourage them to build new companies and work hard.


Charity you are talking about centralized control. You are talking about the total and complete opposite of what bitcoin is all about. You are trolling whether you know it or not. This is not a forum that will take kindly to your collectivist ideals. You are advocating for the initiation violent of force. Setting a max limit on someones income just like setting a minimum wage, requires a third party to enforce their opinion with the threat of violence. I appreciate what you are trying to achieve (a more fair and equitable world). Free market thinkers like myself and probably many others on this forum have found that the best way to achieve more fair and equitable interactions between people is to allow them enter into voluntary agreements with one another for mutual benifit. Without a third party imposing, by threat of force their views, regulations, rules, etc. Party A does business with party B and everyone else minds their own business. If party A earns 10,000,000 BTC per year then she is obviously creating amazing value for others.
TL;DR interfering with the free market = initiating violent force
Pages:
Jump to: