Bitcoin Forum

So set aside the Larimer thing for a minute. Steemit's poster boy, Jeff Berwick, wrote this:

"How I Made $15,000 in 12 Hours on the New Blockchain Based Social Media Site Steemit"
https://steemit.com/steemit/@dollarvigilante/how-i-made-usd15-000-in-12-hours-on-the-new-blockchain-based-social-media-site-steemit

Now, first of all, if you got an email with a subject line of "How I Made $15,000 in 12 Hours....", you would delete it without a second thought, right?

Yup.

(By the way, when people address Jeff with "that sounds too good to be true" he says "people said that about Bitcoin at first." Which is true, but is also what EVERY SCAM COIN AUTHOR SAYS WHEN CRITISIZED. LOL.)

Now add to it, JEff Berwick, the author of that blog post, I'm not saying he's a scammer, but I did 600 dollars worth of work for him a few years ago, and he still owes me 200 bucks of it. When I asked for it, he said he forgot he hired me, then reluctantly paid me 2/3 of it. When I said to him "you millionaires never pay your fucking bills" he said he was "almost broke."

He presents himself as a jet-setting playboy millionaire though. That's why people pay him for financial advice.

He's also been doing FUD for a decade. Every other word that comes out of his mouth, forever, is about how the US is going to collapse next week and he has the solution to save your money. Including those passports.....

He was one of three people behind this ALLEGED land grab / scheme / plan / whatever....7 million dollars of investor money went missing. But Jeff Berwick and the other two principles all blame each other:

"Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart"
http://www.vice.com/print/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10

Jeff been accused of scamming people out of 30,000 US per person to sell them passports that allegedly never arrive:
https://www.google.com/#q=jeff+berwick+passport+scam

One of those^ is actually video someone obtained that sounds like Jeff actually doing the passport deal thing over Skype with someone. ALLEGEDLY.

etc. etc. etc.

I am NOT saying he's a scammer, but a lot of people say he's a scammer and present evidence. But hey, they're probably all wrong. I know there are a TON of posts on bitcointalk praising his "vision" (a lot from accounts that were new at the time. There are also new accounts praising Steem HARD on here.)

SO.....here's my question: Berwick says he just heard of Steemit and Steem a few days ago and is crowing about it as a lowly user who has no involvement beyond that, but made five figures in a day. HOWEVER

I SMELL INDICATIONS THAT MAYBE JEFF BERWICK IS A SILENT PARTNER IN STEEMIT.

Ian Freeman, another libertarian somebody (who's actually a great guy, and also is the guy who introduced Bitcoin Jesus, Roger Ver, to Bitcoin back when it was easy to mine)... Ian has been on Steemit for a week
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ftlian/steemit-just-got-discussed-on-national-radio-for-several-minutes

Ian is about as popular as Jeff Berwick. Ian said he (Ian) has made about two dollars in a week on Steemit. And it's in some kind of "company store scrip" that he can't cash out for a while until it reaches some threshold.

Speaking of company scrip, I did some work for Bitshares about 18 months ago. Was offered "all now in Bitcoin, or all in Bips" (their "company store scrip", basically sort of stock in the company used early on to pay contractors).

My distant recollection is that I said "how about half in BTC, half in Bips?" and got paid about 200 bucks in BTC, and the other half in Bips. The Bips, I"m told, are now worth about 100 bucks. I wrote a guy there and said I'd like to be cashed out, and they can't remember if I was paid or not.

You could say it's my responsibility to remember, but really, shouldn't a company know if they owe someone or not?

Daniel Larimer, can you please find out if y'all still owe me a hundred bucks, and pay it out of your large share of the premine worth a quarter of a billion dollars if you do owe it to me? I think you do.

We talked about all this and more on the second half of our show tonight, starting 49 and a half minutes in:
http://www.freedomfeens.com/?p=12373

Jeff Berwick will be on Free Talk Live today (Monday August 8th) pimping Steemit. Free talk Live takes calls. Not sure when he'll be on but the show is live from 7pm-10pm Eastern time.
Toll Free: 1-855-450-FREE    Skype: LRN.FM

If Free Talk Live is not on the radio in your town, you can listen here:
http://lrn.fm/
=--
I think one reason people don't speak out about Jeff more is that he has a history of threatening people who irk him on the Internet.

It may sound petty to some that I'm complaining about a few hundred bucks that millionaires owe me for work I did. But I think it's important to share some first-hand experience with these folks.

My dad always said that "People behave with large sums the same way they behave with small sums."

MWD
=-=--=-
Edit on Aug 8:

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. Investors' money pays in to pay out initial well-known writers to get them talking about how great it is, which brings in more investors, ....you know the rest.

I immediately don't see those hosts as entirely astute:


About Jeff, some hearsay is I once called about their second passport service and spoke to one of the other principals, and they got very excited when they mistakenly thought I said I have found a way to mine Bitcoins at lower cost (or something like that), so I sort of detected that they might be "perpetually hoping to get rich quick" fake millionaires.

Steem does not appear to be entirely a scam as you describe in your radio segment. I suggest you click my username to read my recent post archive and bring yourself up-to-speed on the issues for and against Steem.

I've heard that saying many times about don't trust people who can't handle the small things correctly.

I doubt very much that Jeff was a partner in Bitshares from the get go. He may have been paid off lately or maybe not. He may just be pushing it so he blog posts will continue to receive $1000s in upvotes from the whales and their Steeminions.

Also you might want to be aware of regarding Jeff's association with Doug Casey's estancia in Argentina (which Jeff mentioned in a recent blog on Steem):

http://www.themodernsurvivalist.com/archives/1868

Digital alchemy? Yes. I could see them getting VERY excited.

Jeff has always been into "get rich quick" ideas. Speaking of which, whatever happened to his Bitcoin ATM company? A few years back he was VERY excited about that, and looking for investors and then he quietly jumped out of it without much fanfare.

Everyone remembers when this type of person gets it right (stopped clock) but less people point it out when these folks have failure after failure.

Jeff did make a few million in the dot com boom years back in the day. It was a very "right place, right time" thing, and he has been playing the part of millionaire playboy since, even as he's hit "almost broke", as he described it to me. (A real multi-millionaire probably wouldn't bother with "blogging for dollars" either.)

He's still looking for another "easy money" payoff like he had in the mid-late 90s.

He also talks like he got into BTC when the getting was really good, but did he?


I wasn't implying my dad invented it. Just that I heard it young and it made an impression on me. My dad was also fond of saying "it's a poor workman who blames his tools." He didn't invent that either, but I use it all the time. It is SO commonly applicable.



I also doubt that. I was talking about Steemit.


Jeff Berwick loooooooooooooooooooooooooooves Casey. Doug Casey is genuine long-time multi-millionaire and an actual financial advisor whose opinion is valued by smart people.

Casey is who Berwick wants to be when he grows up.

Thanks for the link about chile, it is a very interesting read. i thought about going to chile and maybe hooking up with some libertarians out there. Now i guess ill keep myself to myself, all utopias end up rotten.

I take a lot of heat for going after people like this, and for doing it over and over and over. But I do it over and over because there are always new people who haven't heard about it.

If I can keep one person from losing their life savings, or even from wasting a bunch of money / time / effort, it's all been worth it.

MWD

This guy has some realistic blogs on Chile:

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@escapeamericanow/escape-america-now-is-on-steemit

Man, you are easily impressed.

Read the Vice Magazine article:

"Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart"
http://www.vice.com/print/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10

that I linked in my original post on this thread.

You just posted an article by the guy who was Jeff Berwick's partner in the land deal in Chile where 30 people lost a total of 7 million dollars. He, Jeff and the third guy all blame each other for making the money "disappear."

MWD

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

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.

"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'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.

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.

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.

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.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpMTjGIUkAEdPJ4.jpg:large

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.

Argue with an 82 year old constitutional scholar:

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

I am @anonymint

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

This.

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

MWD

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

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

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

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.

Jeff Berwick always gave me the classic "internet marketer" vibe, that's all. He has no deeper technical knowledge about anything, he just parrots whatever the smarter engineers are saying.

Anarcho capitalist.....shit businessman with an attitude problem.

Tone Vays is apparently not an expert. Apparently he has somewhat average or slightly above understanding of blockchain tech.

Afaics, Satoshi was incorrect:



A selfish miner with 33% of the network hash rate would simply withhold the double-spend transaction (http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243) and release it when it wins the next block, thus reverting innumerable instant transactions.

Thus the loss rate could hypothetically be egregiously worse than the 5% chargeback rate on credit cards.

What Satoshi didn't account for is a systemic attack where the attacker has a game theory to bring down the Bitcoin price, e.g. is shorting it.

I am not saying that case is likely near-term, but when you are talking about the politics of who controls the world's transaction system, the Satoshi's design loses the key quality of it being impervious to control. Thus it is a power vacuum, which is precisely what we are trying to eliminate with blockchains (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984#comment-236173).

Satoshi apparently didn't account well for the systemic risks that come from the natural centralization of mining due to economics of ASIC farms. He seemed to think these parties would be ruled by the Nash equilibrium that says if they attack the network, then they destroy the value of their own investment, but he forgot about shorting and also that ASIC hardware can be fungible and used to mine other coins.

Also bytemaster (Daniel Larimer) was correct about the bandwidth and computational resources being a problem, but he didn't emphasize that the problem was scaling without centralization of the full nodes. But that centralization is coming to Satoshi's design any way due to the (even political, e.g. subsidies in China) economics of ASIC mining farms.

I suspect Satoshi knew this weakness and didn't emphasize it on purpose.

Note Dan's DPoS "solution" is centralized control as well, so it is not like Dan found a solution. He just made the centralization more efficient before Bitcoin does. One could argue that DPoS with a competitive distribution is at least the same as democracy (unlike Steem which is authoritarianism), but democracy is what we were trying to eliminate with blockchains, because it is a power vacuum.

So true.

Yesterday on the radio he said the Steem white paper is "possibly genius." lolz.

He doesn't represent all AnCaps. Not by far. He also isn't really libertarian at all. He goes to full-on copypasta "I'm going to unleash my teams of hackers and assassins" online when he gets pissed at people. Especially people who point out that he's full of shit.

=-=-=-
Here's a thought: maybe Steem's business plan is monetizing rants about how Steem is a scam.

Actually there is some genius in the white paper, specifically they've apparently solved the onboarding problem and the clever idea of a time-locked token (STEEM POWER).

Also they've apparently solved the security problem for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. You aren't aware of the details. I suggest to you to go read everything I've written about Steem and including my (@anonymint's) posts on steemd.com. If you aren't willing to do that, then you if you keep basing your opinions of incomplete understanding, then you will be suffer mistakes.

Here's Jeff taking a STEAMIT all over himself on radio for 90 minutes yesterday:
https://www.freetalklive.com/podcast/2016-08-08

Agreed. He comes no where near to representing my philosophy. Ditto he isn't any where near the league of Eric S. Raymond, smooth, etc..

I see iamnotback keeps posting, but I don't see it.

I put him on ignore as soon as he:

A. Posted his IQ as an argument. That's hilarious grade school-type shit. And IQ is:
--biased in about ten different ways.
--a measure of actually intelligence in the same way that it's accurate to say "I have a great computer because it's got a 2 terabyte hard drive!"

B. He linked a sovereign citizen (the "80x year-old Constitutionalist" guy) as a defense of something.

Not sure how that mess makes sense in Australia, but in America they're considered about the same as palm readers, people who speak to your dead relatives for you, and 9/11 truthers. And Jeff Berwick.

Oh, to everyone else on this thread, and speaking of soothsayers and hoodoo and woo: Jeff Berwick on "Flat Earthism" ....Here's a video where he's actually taking that "theory" as a serious possibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq8oEpc6CTs

Just that alone makes it astonishing that everyone doesn't have Berwick on "ignore", both online and in their head.

Here's my buddy's commentary on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9FwnggC_IE

MWD

p.s. FYIW, Jeff Berwick brags about his IQ also. lolz.

So there you go folks. He has totally blown his credibility by playing childish games.

I listened to his radio broadcast. He doesn't let his other co-hosts speak. He is reasonably smart, but you know he has to always be correct. His co-host tried to tell him (more than once!) that others were earning big rewards as well (in addition to Jeff), but he cut him off (more than once).

What i've noticed with steemit is most if not all the big earners are invited directly by the creators to wear shirts that say "steemit" between two boobs. They are using these post to create fomo and condition other users. On top of that, the payout system is devilish. I mean its great for keeping the game moving forward but devilish none the less. There was another social network that paid users to use it, I cant remember what its called though. It didnt last long.

Tsu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ts%C5%AB_(social_network)).

+1.

And that network was called Sue or Tzu, something like that.

I don't know how the pump is being orchestrated, but as a speculator I would be away at the time, given the current downtrend.

Ah yea Tsu!

+1.

But as a spectator, I'm making popcorn!  :D

I always thought why in the hell would steemit which is a cool looking website and whatever, would need a token and not just use bitcoin... when people use tokens for their projects instead of bitcoin i start doubting.

+1

also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip

Then you understand nothing about how Steem solved the onboarding problem.

And you bragged about being smarter than most people in your radio broadcast where you mentioned the reason why you stopped following Bitshares because you felt it got too complex and if you couldn't understand then most people wouldn't be able to.

Contradict yourself all the time?

And of course there's Futurenet (http://www.futurenet-club.com/english-home/)  :o

+1
 
kek.

Amway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amway
needs a social network.

MWD

The OP nailed it:

Jeff makes a very astute point at the 32 minute mark, where he reminds me that some allege that Facebook messes with their following and reach, so they build up their followers and then are at the mercy of the whims of Facebook.

Whereas, with a blockchain this will not be the case.

That is a major selling point to make to bloggers that forever they will be in control of their investment into their following.

thee/e for uh of whence

(yes, ep0

Am I the only one to notice that STEEMIT, as a word, attempts to not only steal thunder from the Steam platform for games, but mainly REDDIT? The Reddit part just hit me. Damn I'm slow sometimes. Am I the last person to "get" this?

They're allowing anything now, but give it a while and I'll bet they censor posts damning Steem, Bitshares and Dan Larimer.

I am starting to think that IAMNOTBLACK is a paid shill for Steem. He's a fairly new account, mainly active on two threads (both pro-STEEM), and he's defending Steem HARD on both.

Probably Larimer.

I also think a lot of people have him on ignore.

https://i.imgur.com/G04e9vG.png

The Larimers are scum of the earth and always associate with their peers who are trash.  Not too long ago, they were welcoming with open arms the drug dealing, porno peddling, pigeon racing, internet "get rich quick" guru Mark Lyford.  Birds of a feather.


I'm sure that it's also a "pure coincidence" that they chose a name starting with an "S" and by no means are meaning to have people confuse "Steem" with "Synereo".  Synereo was started way before Steem and is actually developing a legitimate DECENTRALIZED social networking platform and tech stack.  Those who are familiar with how the Larimers operate know that they steal ideas from others and shoddily implement them to make a quick buck off the uninformed.

My friend JP just sent me this.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpdPbHLUEAAQ-M3.jpg

"Steemit: where people who swear by the free market now expect to get free money for their crappy writing." - Michael Jon Barker

I see you have dementia from all that heroin you admitted to doing (heard it on your radio broadcast).

---

Hmm. At least they didn't name it Scenario, Cheerios, FruitLoops, or SatoshiCrunch. The porn or locomotive connotation seems to insure people won't confuse it with Synergistic.

Any other examples of them ripping off other ideas?

Anybody who was around during 2013 knows that Bitshares' DPoS algo was a blatant ripoff and perversion of NXT's PoS algo.  I was one of the very first people mining PTS, and BTS was originally going to be pure PoW.  Once the Larimers heard of NXT's revolutionary PoS algo, they copied it and changed it into Delegated PoS, which ensured that they could rig the elections via strategic voting to keep it under their control.

Hi, just a few thoughts. I was given the link to this thread by a steemit user, because I had told him how mad I was and that I was about to go to the German authorities and the press, if I was presented with solid evidence of a scam or fraudulent behavior.
There was simply too much chatter of "centralized power", "scam", "dan`s big ego", "steem dumping", "bitshare buddies bailout", "envy" and bad behavior even among whales" etc etc etc., so it got me worried, because I had actually turned into a "True Believer".

Normal crypto-projects are B2B projects for me, so buyer beware rules, but I`m actually so exited about Steemit because this time "we crypto people", invite the moms and pops and little guys and poor africans etc into crypto and with end-users and non-crypto-experts, my line for fraud is pretty fat red and rather easy to step on. You don`t even have to cross it.
I also like Jeff Berwick and got to know him a little at Anarchapulco. He might not have a flawless character (not that I noticed anything unusual), but I think he`s honest.
I also like Synereo and hold some AMPs since ICO.
I am also a Dashtard and @smooth and @iamnotback and some other Monero guys with their SJW-like ultraorthodoxy have been getting on my nerves quite a few times here, since more than two years now.

But I love seeing them here now, because if they are so dead serious about Satoshis principles, I hope they would not fall for a crypto-scam that hurts little guys (as opposed to some bct troll freak, whom I don`t give a shit about).

@iamnotback:

Are you Anonymous or can one find your name if one wants? Same question for Smooth.

I`m asking because I am not anonymous and you can find my name if you want.
I`m also to be found on Steemit: https://steemit.com/@fabio
I`m a finance guy and after being in crypto since 2011, I`m growing tired of the old "oh, I hide my identity because I`m such an idealist" mantra, as in my experience, 95% of the time it`s just a lame excuse for being a coward at best and some criminal at worst.

But I don`t think this applies to smooth and you, iamnotback, it only makes it harder for me to trust you guys.
I don`t know shit about coding and I am not as smart as anyone here in the thread, but I`m an idealist and I`m going to raise hell, if it turns out that people I bring into steemit are being treated like stupid german money one more time by some US salespeople.
(I advise any Noob to not put a single Dime into it, what I do is another story).

So that being said, thanks for the thread, because it actually make me a little bit more condifent again, because nothing MWD64 has presented so far contains a single shred of evidence regarding Steemit (I don`t give a fuck about that Chile thing and yes, entrepreneurs are well allowed to fail). No offense MWD64, I really appreciate what seems to be good intentions, but you`ll have to put up some more facts.

PS: Harcore voluntarist here. You have no idea how much you have to piss me of if I ever threaten with calling the Gov for help.

I am not anonymous:

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@anonymint/anonymint-from-bitcointalk-introducing-myself

Afaik, @smooth is anonymous, but he should be the one to confirm or deny.


Maybe you missed @anonymint's (some people claim I was TPTB_need_war although this remains officially unconfirmed because iamnotback yet[1]) recent mea culpa and move away from being an altcoin sheriff:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1218399.msg15121763#msg15121763
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1474910.msg14869764#msg14869764
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1513252.msg15234366#msg15234366

@smooth also appears to have taken a turn for the more pragmatic side as well:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1513252.msg15228523#msg15228523
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1513252.msg15226165#msg15226165


[1] This monkey business has something to do with a permanent ban but I don't really understand nonsense.

Simply wow and thank you so much Sir! Still reading, but it`s already some of the best stuff I`ve read on this Forum (not talking about the coding stuff, I don`t understand everything anyway, but from an ethical point of view).
You have a new follower on Steemit.

Yeah it seems this guy is a great pumper but that's about it. He sometimes gets things right tho.. he was recommending buying Bitcoin when it was like 10 dollars, so if someone listened to him and bought im sure they have good opinion of this guy.

Me also. Pretty sure same is true with smooth and iamnotback....


I don't have a lot of "proof" either, just evidence and gut feeling. I'm usually right about that too. Unfortunately, I can't tell what will be a winner (if I could, I'd be rich), but I can usually spot the losers. Have a good track record with that.

But for something more than gut feeling go through the last week of this guy's Twitter and read his page-by-page analysis of the Steem white paper:
https://twitter.com/Tone_LLT


I've met him in person too. He's likely fun to have a beer with, HOWEVER. Libertarians let people get away with so much shit.

If Jeff did the shit he appears to do with other people's money, and did it in the outlaw biker world instead of the liberty world, he'd be buried alive in the desert in an oil barrel.

If he did it in the street drug trade he'd get capped in an alley.

I'm not talking about the $200 bucks he owes me (though that wouldn't stand either) but I'm talking large sums. Like people's life savings.

If he behaved like he has to libertarians but did it in actual finance worlds, he'd be either in prison, or no one would ever deal with him again. Yet here is everyone saying "Jeff is on to something new! He's got such a good track record with money! (he doesn't). Let's jump on his new thing again!

I mean, just the fact that he pretends to be a millionaire but when I ask for the few hundred he owes me, he says he's "practiculy broke" and pays me 2/3 of what he owes me. Jesus.


It's hard to say what Steem is. The makers of it have layered it in so many wrappings of whatever. They say that's part of the mechanism. I say it's to obscure its true nature.

Regardless, I predict than within about 9 months Steem and Steemit will either:
--be bought out by Facebook or Google and nothing people like about it now will remain, and every non-whale will feel cheated.
--be exposed as a Ponzi and the principles will be headed to prison
--will be exposed as a CIA plot to keep anarchists busy chasing digital nickles.

--The least horrible outcome will be this: it turns out to not be a scam, won't be out of business, but will be the shittiest site in the world. Because the pay model encourages click-bait.

Imagine a social network that has a hundred million articles with spam-email titles like Berwick's "I made 15,000 dollars in a day in my underwear!" or whatever.

MWD
(I'm not anon, three smart clicks and you'd have my full name.)

Exactly. And he still can't even really solidly explain what Bitcoin is. And he certainly can't explain what Steem is. Listen to his interview on Free Talk Live from the other day.
https://www.freetalklive.com/podcast/2016-08-08

Check out how when Darryl asks Jeff a tough question it's all "I'm not really sure of the technical details."

In that interview, Jeff also calls the Steemit white paper "possibly genius." lolz.

Very true.

In the liberty world, which Bitcoin certainly was in the early days, many have gotten away with worse things than Jeff Berwick did: Mark Karpeles comes to mind. I was so convinced that he'd end up dead in an alley, but even he is still crawling around.

Yup.

Mark Karpeles is safe (?) in prison. Berwick throws an annual party in Mexico and invites everyone. lol.

Ironically Berwick the anarchist might thank his freedom or even his live on the protection by the state.
(Not many people want to risk going to jail for getting justice)

Karpeles for sure, though I don't suppose he is an anarchist.

Possibly true. Though life can be pretty cheap in what Jeff claims is the Libertarian Paradise of Mexico. And if you appear rich there you only have state protection if you pay extra in the form of bribes.

Berwick has very publicly threatened to send his "private armies of hackers and assassins" after people who piss him off. lol.

Not sure how he'd pay these armies since when I asked him for the 200 bucks he owes me he said he was "almost broke."

That is what I meant when I said he gets more fans every day than he loses due to his history.

I normally wouldn't give a fuck if you don't give a fuck about someones track record.

But if you say you are a hardcore voluntaryist, which I consider myself to be as well, I must wonder, how you feel that a voluntary society could work if people refuse to ostracize bad actors, or the very least call them out for their moral obligation to make whole those whom they have hurt with their actions (which he publicly admitted).

This^

+100

Between people thinking Berwick is a financial genius,
and people thinking Molyneux is still an anarchist
and people thinking Cantwell is a decent guy with some interesting ideas on race,
and people thinking a few other people are "great men",
I sometimes think liberty is doomed.

MWD

I think liberty can only work if the majority of people have a moral compass and will act if the NAP is infringed upon. I think it is no secret that this has never in history been the case and is currently at an all-time low around the world.

Liberty is solid. But also attracts sociopaths. Because sociopaths have the same contempt for authority that good-hearted liberty people do. So sociopaths find liberty and go "I'm home! Finally!"

And some good-hearted people are easily fooled by sociopaths, because sociopaths are often interesting and charismatic.

My friend Steve adds: "And a good number of those sociopaths will look upon a community that won't call the cops as an opportunity to scam with  impunity."

MWD

Yes I agree with that. I believe the majority of people is good-hearted, but they allow their morals to be easily manipulated to go against the NAP. By their peers, by sociopaths, by some ideology, for the greater good, for the children, etc.

Liberty can only work if the majority of people have an incorruptible moral compass and will act upon it to protect the NAP.

The NAP, in most voluntaryist's life, is a theory. Something to argue about on Facebook. Or Steem.

Liberty can only work if the majority of people call out scammers on their bullshit to the point that the scammers disappear from liberty and go back to the day jobs they had before they became horribly flawed liberty "heroes."

People who say "I don't care about Galt's Gulch" make this shit not work.

If voluntaryists spent 1/10th the time they spend arguing about the nuances of the NAP and instead spent it verbally bashing people like Jeff and Stefan, the State could end a lot sooner.

Tearing down the shitty "heroes" is required. In the same way that removing termite-riddled wood in a house is required.

No heroes is better than bad heroes.

Heroes are gods. Amazing how many atheists need a liberty hero.

And if someone DOES need a hero, Ben Stone the Bad Quaker has everything required. Have you even heard his podcasts? Have you read his new book?

In punk rock back in the day, heroes were ripped apart. Figuratively.

Hell, Jello Biafra was literally beat up at Gilman Street. Fuckers put him in the hospital.

Oh please don`t get me wrong! I so totally agree with you. That`s actually why I love Steemit so much, because it incentivizes just that.  Please don`t forget: coding noob here. Enduser who happens to be in crypto for a while. I just love the pure experience on the site and the psychological and pedagogical dynamics. To me it is my Spaceship Liberty cockpit and THE voluntarist trojan horse we will sneak into every household. I`m so hooked I`d come back again if this crashes and burns, for a new try, if Dan and Ned treat the disaster openly like Gentlemen.

But I disgrees.

The point is, the thread is about Steemit, neither Jeff Berwick, nor that Chile thing. I did a quick check and talked to a few people in Acapulco close to the matter, and I simply could not find enough fishiness to be worried. And it as nothing to do with Steemit.

You know "in dubio pro reo" right?

But please keep diggin, I don`t mind, on the contrary. I would just shift my focus away from Jeff a little. He truly is new to Steemit and has nothing to do with it and if you dont like him ignore him or buy so much SteemPower and hit him with the BanHammer like Bernie Sanders did.
I`m sorry, but I find that so much more entertaining and refreshing than anything else:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@dollarvigilante/steemit-is-a-scam-how-bernie-sanders-screwed-me


Edit:


I give you an example of what I mean, please bear with me and I promise you it will be worth your time:

http://suspiciousdeaths.blogspot.de/2011/11/bob-marley-everything-happens-for.html

So did that german nazi guy kill Bob Marley or not? What do you think?

Volunteerism is for communists. It is just another form of delusional (wolf in idealistskin) meddling political correctness whiny bullshit.

Work hard in a meritocracy and keep your fucking (whiny snotty ass) brown noses out of my asshole.

I am all for working for the good, and making a profit in a meritocracy while doing so. You Marxists in sheepskin are always returning for more megadeath feelgood.

Volunteerism != Voluntaryism

You are very fond of throwing insults around, but you don't even seem to understand what the adults are talking about.

It is very fishy from pump day 1. How can steem be limited if those writers get rewards, and repeat? I mean if unlimited writers can make unlimted rewards, and the steem's total supply is limited? Illogical scheme.

Where do you live then? Somewhere nice?

thats true there are many unanswered questions with steem though i actually expect for it to be a legit crypto as it allows people to make money for their work

How can you claim to uphold respect for voluntary human action while you demand that others behave a certain way and judge them according to your petty political correctness.

You expect others to behave altruistically or honestly or whatever all the while applying your subjective judgement of their performance, which is just volunteerism and communism. You are demanding they volunteer and submit to your subjective ideals and petty judgments.

Yeah I am criticizing you because that is what you are doing to others.

Mind your own fucking butthole. Rimbit coin can help you find it.

I'll respect you both more when you stop complaining about other individuals and produce something yourselves. If all you can do is hangoff the coattails of those who you claim are losers, then what does that make you. Hopefully there is a mirror in your bathroom.

Because I didn't.



Unbelievable how you managed to link these brainfarts to what I said.



You are not criticizing, you are spewing incoherent hatred to people on an internet forum because of some interpretation you manufactured in your mind.

Tell you what, at this point I couldn't care less about who you respect.

well of course it is a fishy currency, it sounds a little bit too good to be true right now though i also might be wrong about it, i dont know what to think

I would say "iamnotback's confusion might be an 'English as a second language thing', I understand the mistake, easy mistake to make. I've seen people with English as their first language make that same mistake, cut him a break", but then he'd call me a "whiny snotty ass brown nose commie Marxist" again. lolz.  

I have iamnotback on ignore because of his frequent livid outbursts like this. I only see his stuff when someone quotes him.

I generally don't like to use the word Voluntaryism on myself for this exact reason. I only did here because someone used it on themself first, and I didn't want to get into a discussion of semantics. But since we're exactly where I didn't want to end up, here is the difference for those who don't get out much:

Volunteerism = things like building houses for the homeless, usually with government tax stolen money involved.... i.e. often socialist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteering

Voluntaryism = more or less commonly interchangeable with anarcho-capitalism or hardcore libertarianism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism


Most volunteerists I've met want to ban guns and heavily regulate cryptocurrencies.

Most voluntaryists I know carry guns and use cryptocurrencies to buy much of what they consume.


I am a voluntaryist. I was saying I think smooth is too. But I don't want to speak for him, he can chime in here and put a label on himself if he wants. lol.

FYI, Voluntaryism doesn't have to be commie, as long as it doesn't involve the government. Check out Bitcoin Not Bombs, a voluntaryist-run volunteerism organization. The guys who run it are friends of mine, and they'd rather drink paint than take money from the government.
http://www.bitcoinnotbombs.com/

I think anyone who would bash voluntaryist volunteerism is likely a sociopath.

One of the Bitcoin Not Bombs guys, Davi, is the guy who famously got hassled by the government at the airport for "having Bitcoin in his bag." lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsLwPCRv49Y

Brouhaha. Enjoy your circle-jerk.


Obviously you don't. But credibility doesn't seem to be something you really care about.

Rewards originate from inflation (new coins issued). Rewards are a fixed percentage of the new coin supply issued.

With a fixed-sized marketcap, if userbase goes 10x or 100x, average rewards go down 10x or 100x.

Rewards are currently excessive precisely because the userbase is in the tens-of-thousands instead of millions.

Yeah I didn't know, but found out quickly enough.

I don't know what his excuse is for being an idiot, but I had a good laugh when he called me a communist. Or that's what I think he meant between his other brainfarts. At least now I can cross that one from my bucket list.



Cool, yes I've seen their organization many times (Bitcoin Not Bombs) always thinking what a great name and I heard about the airport story too. I didn't realize that was also one of them. Nice.

I saw the word anarchy used about 400 times in this thread.  Am I the only person that thinks "anarchism" is a meaningless word that people just use to try and look cool?  Anarchism and statism both converge on the same outcome:

https://steemit.com/anarchism/@r0achtheunsavory/anarchy-doesn-t-exist-it-s-the-equivalent-of-a-simpsons-parody

I guess it depends on the country. In some countries "anarchists" are perceived to be black-hoodie vandals, not philosophers of liberty...

Dan Larimer's Anarchism and statism converge to form the outcome: Steemit.

I read it. Typical of steemit. You don't really know what you're talking about but you like the sound of your words.

And quoting Reagan about anarchism. Lolz.

Though he did sometimes sound like an anarchist, but from your writing I doubt you know enough about modern history to know why.

It was because he was imitating Barry Goldwater who had a speech writer who was an actual anarchist. This guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Hess

Read up on him. Interesting cat. And an article about him on Steemit might make a few dollars. There's also video of him talking, on YouTube.

The black blok types love to argue endlessly with us AnCaps about who are the "real" anarchists. I always ask them, and never get a good answer:
1. how they plan to redistribute the wealth without some type of government violence.
2. why they care so much about their ownership of the intellectual property of the word "anarchist" when they don't believe in property. lol.

Though from hanging out in Europe with black blok types, I will say this: Many of them are more willing to get pepper sprayed by cops for their beliefs than many American AnComs.

FHI, I wasn't calling you dumb with that reply. You're pretty smart about a lot of things. Politics just isn't one of them. Your knowledge of anarchy is about as correct as old gold bugs' attitude on Bitcoin. You know, people who have never used Bitcoin but say "It's a Ponzi scheme." lol.

In Greece where I am, there's too much black blok infiltration by the police.

They are used to break up any peaceful protest. The pattern is like this:

1) People gather peacefully to protest.
2) The establishment picks up the phone and tells them "hey you must break the peaceful protest"
3) They come and start vandalizing buildings / attacking the riot police
4) Riot police throws tear gas in millions of peaceful protesters
5) The protest is effectively destroyed
6) Some "clashes" ensue between "anarchists" and riot police, which aren't very real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8S6XYixMAk

They pretend to fight, when the "anarchists" are to be attacked, the guy is like "hey hey, stop man, we are undercover... see?" - removes hoodie. LOL.

Fuck this shit...

You still blaming your problems on others I see.

Still licking the coattails of The Dollar Vigilante.

Get a life. Get off your mother's sofa and accomplish something yourself.

And yes it is very obvious that you not mature yet.

That happens everywhere and has for decades. Whether the protestors are black blok now in Europe, cop blockers now in the US, civil rights protestors in the 50s and 60s in the American South, Apartheid protesters in South Africa in the 80s. Etc.

With any protest against whatever in any country.....most "riots" are actually the police rioting, but the media takes the side of the police.

MWD

It does seem like a "duh", but I'd bet that well more than 50% of the world doesn't know this.

Also, I'm amazed that there are people who love Bitcoin who dismiss "anarchy" and think  "anarchy" means "Mad Max" or something they saw on the Simpsons.

Because Bitcoin is a perfect example of anarchy in action, probably the most perfect in wide scale use. It has rules but not laws, it circumvents silly government controls, It enables A to B transactions where any nosy third party can "C" their way out of it, etc. etc. etc.

Not saying that to you banano, you probably get it. Just saying it in general.

And it's a "duh" to people who get it. But not only does well more than 50% of the world not know this, I think well more than 50% of Bitcoin users don't get this on an internal level.

Any Bitcoin user who understands the mechanisms of Bitcoin and still finds themself voting, or even saying "there oughta be a law" is square and stupid. No matter how smart they are.

The worst are people who want to "use the blockchain to make voting for politicians more accurate." That's just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

MWD

The OP's author and you are poor imitations of the real Thought Leaders who show by doing, not blahblahanging off the coattails of criticizing others because all you know is how to steal (the attention capital) from others and not do something yourself.

Two bit losers waste their time criticizing some two bit promoter Jeff Berwick. While you pretend you are protecting the poor n00bs from something and hurling idiomatic bullshit. Fuck man, you are just spewing crab bucket mentality (don't let any other crabs escape the bucket, pull everyone down to the same level) communism in sheepskin (disguise). Look in the mirror, you are fucking pitiful and lying to yourselves.

Here is a role model for you:

This.

It's amazing to see statists jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon (or should I say blockchain, because Bitcoin is such a filthy word) while supporting or even screaming for regulation. These people are hopeless, they will never get it.

First they laugh at you, then they get mad at you, pretty soon they go silent, then they start agreeing with you, finally they say they were right all along.

You completely ignored my statement that I do not care about what happens in the interim, only in the endgame, and in the endgame, both anarchism and statism converge on the same outcome.  That outcome is where one entity or a cartel monopolizes available resources and becomes a slum lord with rent seeking behavior to exploit the rest.  The slum lord will either be the government or some large business entity, but it doesn't really matter.  

In the end, you are either the exploiter or exploitee.  Somebody is always getting screwed working for less pay than they should, and someone is always making tons of pay by doing nothing.  Extreme rent seeking behavior is the outcome in both systems.  It's all the same difference.

The first sign you have a real free market is that cartels and monopolies form, and then you don't have a free market.  Just because the state doesn't subsidize them doesn't mean they can't hang onto their power.  Especially when the state is smaller and parties can just murder anyone who stands in their way - Billy the Kid, Lincoln County cattle wars style.

People who are just hell bent on pretending you can create a system of anarchy with some type of Nash equilibrium to prevent one party from turning it into a dictatorship just don't come across as very smart people to me.  Hell, we are watching that unfold in Bitcoin right now.

Yes it is a massive scam that made the devs super rich

I hear, you win even if you don't sign up!

Déjà vu:

https://s17.postimg.org/6hb81fvtr/dejavu.jpg