This is classic Atlas.  He defines his own morality, and expects others to respect that.  If he steals from you, too bad, it isn't immoral to him, so it shouldn't be immoral to you.  You can trust him because even if he does steal, he doesn't consider it theft.  Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Atlas, it is more or less universal that people don't trust others who have proven they are willing to steal, particularly if they have no remorse for it. Religious belief has nothing to do with it.

If you want people to trust you, own up to it, and don't do it again.  And finish a project for once.

To clarify for the rest of you, this is Atlas, someone who hopes to do business in your community, stating that in his mind, it is perfectly ok to steal, and has done so in the past, an act for which he refuses to take any responsibility or even acknowledge.

You're kidding, right?  You have no integrity at all.  You ran a script that stole CPU cycles from visitors to your website to mine bitcoins for you without their knowledge.  You then defended it because you only stole a little money, and anything you steal under 25 cents is fine.  You cannot even see how the very act of theft itself is wrong and makes you dishonest and unreliable.

Every time you get called out for some half-assed idea you bail on (which you also refuse to acknowledge.  Where's the Woolong Device prototype?), you delete all your posts and change your name, trying to pass as something nuts like a retired horse trader.  You refuse to take responsibility for anything you do, preferring to hide and attempt to pass yourself off as something you're not.

You're a liar, a thief, and are unfathomably dishonest.  Then you have the gall to turn up here and talk about all the integrity you have?  Answer for something at least once in your life and address all the above.

Seems like a better idea would be to open a merchant who will actually accept that card.

Do it.  Half of the people you scam here will actively defend you long after the fact.

Free Market, where reputation is paramount!  (unless you just change your name.)

So this is bitcoin.

"You hurt my feelings so I no longer have to hold up my end of the deal".

Sounds great, where do I sign up?

Here's a hint.  His incentive was to fulfill the promise he made.  In business, this is actually a valuable thing.  He made a promise, and should be expected to follow through.  That people didn't believe him is not a good reason to break that promise. 

Or hey, what about reputation?  Isn't that a good incentive not to welch on a bet?  Isn't reputation supposed to be massively important in your fantasy society?  Had he kept his end of the bargain (even ignoring the post, he did obligate himself verbally in that interview of his), his reputation would have been considerably improved.  He just ruined it now.

No wonder this board is so jam-packed with scammers and deadbeats; people like bitlane defend them to the bitter end.

Any person who visited your website while you were covertly running that javascript bitcoin miner.

You said it yourself in the SA thread, you have no problem with theft as long as you steal only a small amount from each person.  You tried to equate it with conversation, somehow, which only works if you are talking to them to distract them from the fact you are picking their pocket.

So there you go, you are an admitted thief. Further, you even admit that you don't feel the slightest bit of guilt about it. That is more than enough reason to call you untrustworthy.

Funny, for someone so into objectivism, you really have a hard time getting how your reputation has made you a total joke here.  You really haven't completed anything.  How's that Woolong device going?  By your timetable, the prototype should be complete.  Post some videos of it in action.

[citation needed]

Quick question.  How do you think those products end up on those store shelves?

Also, these strawberries just look gross.  I wouldn't give those to my dogs.

Like anybody is going to trust Atlas of all bitcoiners to pay out on a bet.


Are you insane?  Atlas frequently misuses words and phrases, quite often the the point of unintentionally contradicting his own statements, and I have Korean middle school students with a better grasp of grammar than he does.

You were, and still are, totally dependent on your parents for food, shelter, and affection.  No man is an island.

On topic, I remember kids like that in school too.

I totally skipped that phase too, only stupid jocks hang out with all the girls and have sex every night.  I have more important things to do and think about.  Oh god why won't they touch me? 

Hey, the question was why is there so much anti-bitcoin sentiment, I'm just telling you why.

Don't take for granted bitcoin will succeed simply because the software is decent.  It takes a lot more than good code and rainbow wishes for a full blown currency to take off.

I'm really just curious how this makes evolution somehow look lousy.  It is what it is, it's not like evolution only selects for species, it can and does also select against.

34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father,
   a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’"

Matthew 10:34

How does this show how "lousy" evolution is?

On what grounds do you believe this to be a legitimate issue?

I'm sure glad Minsc is here to check the work of career scientists against a database literally anyone can edit.

Hey, I found a neat article!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

So you're basically boycotting every company except Meze Grill.  Good luck with that.

Haven't seen a good nerd fight in a long time.

Atlas, you're a thief, you basically admitted it in the SA thread, but handwaved it away by dismissing the low value of your theft.  It isn't the value of what you stole that matters, its the violation of trust that makes a thief untrustworthy.  People cannot give you money in good faith, because you have shown that it is in your moral center to take what does not belong to you. Besides, you didn't set out to steal "only a little", you set out to take as much as you could, but got called on it before that amounted to anything serious. The fact remains, you took that which does not belong to you. It's the same as picking their pocket and justifying it because they only had a penny. That you either can't admit what you did was wrong, or that you honestly don't believe it was wrong, only serves to show exactly why you can't be trusted.  

You're also a liar.  You claim to have never stolen, but you did steal with that javascript miner.  You claim to have never lied, but you lied about your scores in that robot competition hoping to get some donations.  I don't buy your story that you didn't see the scores at the competition for a second, and even if that is true, it still means you just made up those numbers on the spot.  This is behavior you're going to need to stamp out when you enter the real world.  You don't have value because you declare you do, when you leave the protection and safety of your parents, people are going to expect results when they hire you.

Also, you really need to check your terms in a dictionary.  Nothing makes someone look dumber than attempting to use big words to sound intelligent, and then using them incorrectly.  And you do, often.

You're still just a kid, I wasn't particularly enlightened at your age either, and you'll most likely grow out of it as you enter a world where you really do need to take care of yourself, and can't rely on parents for food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment.

Matthew.  Stop this trainwreck.  You're a grown-ass man in an internet slapfight with a teenager.  That's just sad.  Don't call his mom, stop following his every move, no one here trusts him or takes him seriously anyway, it really isn't a big deal. Let it go, you'll be a lot happier.  This is good life advice in general. Bitcoin won't fall solely because of Atlas' inability to follow through on a single project.  That's your free market weeding him out, alright?

All the wild conspiracy theories are the correct answer.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you are limited in cashing out deposits, or that investing/spending bitcoins has literally a 50/50 chance of someone taking your coins and running.

Nearly every bitcoin business venture has turned out to be a total out-and-out scam and you have had two ponzi schemes that were brazenly labeled as such.

Exchanges shut down regularly and often without any warning or explanation.  They are also hacked multiple times.

Mybitcoin shut down and offered you guys 49% of your coins back and you treated it as a victory.

Your list of bitcoin accepting vendors is 90% broken links and 10% stuff that could be bought cheaper with USD.

Anything you can buy with bitcoins still ends up converted into fiat money.  Bitcoin serves as a pointless middleman, not a currency in and of itself.

Your own bitcoin conventions don't accept payments in bitcoin.  Big confidence builder there.

Rampant scamming.

Bitcoins can be and often are permanently lost.

Using an exchange, bitcoins are not anonymous, they are linked to your bank account and can easily be traced back to it.

MtGox is just a repurposed Magic: The Gathering trading card website.  Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange.  This is entirely ignored.

Bitcoin adherents generally won't accept any criticism, no matter how valid. It's like watching a cat trying to bury his shit in a bathtub, funny, yet sad.  Any differing opinion is regarded as trolling.  This is so bad, even after solid legal evidence of Bruce's scamming, he was still widely defended here.

I will say, though, that as a piece of software, Bitcoin is pretty solid.  The community just sucks, though.  You guys need to stop labeling everyone who disagrees with you as trolls.  You make a lot of noise about the free exchange of ideas, but you sure as hell don't really believe it.