Just because you are intelligent, it doesn't mean that you can'r be stupid. In this case we should criticise the post and not the poster. We criticise the poster when he keeps repeating the stupidity. Now we come to the problem of the assessment of stupidity - I believe that anyone who believes that Britain should stay in the EU is myopic and stupid, but nearly 50% of the UK may not agree with me. So how can we determine the group opinion of stupidity - I think informed discussion is the answer, and I agree the the attack should be on the opinion, and not on the holder.

My Baronets post seems to come up as Jet Cash. This isn't a problem, as Baronets is one of my alts, but it may cause some confusion. What should I do to reduce this?

Make everybody solve a crypto problem to make a post. Then we could raise the difficulty for bounty hunters.

A historical note from Jet Cash

The reason that so many pirates wore eye patches during the day, was to preserve night vision in one eye. Shielding it from sunlight strengthens night vision, and this was valuable to them, as a lot of their action was nocturnal.

Yep - if he needs to flush 15 times,he needs to change his diet or his plumber.

If he really wants to be environmentally friendly, he could go in the garden/

Why does it matter? I suspect that there may be a couple of areas where I have greater knowledge than most of the members here, and this may give me an advantage when applying it to the Bitcoin economy, but in most areas my knowledge is less than many here. The importance of this forum is the improvement and dissemination of knowledge, and I am grateful to be able to be a part of it. You opening post seemed to emphasise your trading knowledge, but that is peripheral to Bitcoin in my opinion.

You may have noticed that I referred to the Bitcoin economy, rather than to Bitcoin, and I believe that the long term stability and potential of Bitcoin is more important than short term trading activities.

One way for the central banks to reduce the impact of  Bitcoin globally, is for them to own all the Bitcoin. This probably won't happen, but if they own enough, then they can destabilise the market, and destroy public confidence in it daily use. I still wonder how many mining farms are owned by central banks.

I believe that Bitcoin is unique in the crypto world, and I agree that it's dominance over other alts is not relevant. If the BRICS do introduce their own crypto, and/or other global organisations introduce cons, then Bitcoin dominance could drop below 1% by most metrics. However, if this happens, then I believe it will result in a substantial increase in its value. Bitcoin's use case has evolved, and I believe that its relationship to gold and silver is far more important now.

The merit system is not confined to the awarding  of single merits - Exceptional posts can receive awards of up to 50 sMerit. Of course I don't know what Theymos intended to be the primary motivation in implementing the merit system, so I have to guess, and that means that I introduce a bit of personal bias. My impression is that the merit system has two functions. One is to deprive low value noise posters of the rewards that are available to higher ranked members. The other function is to improve the quality and variety of the thread topics in the forum. Without the quality topics and posts, then there is no value in trying to achieve higher ranks, and the forum will start to lose the members that make it the valuable resource that it is at the moment.

We are entering into to period of unprecedented economic change, and I hope that Bitcoin Talk will remain a leading discussion forum for the shift from fiat currencies to cryptos over the next few years. To enable this, we will have to retain and recruit some of the leading players.

I believe that sold accounts should have a tag or warning attached to them, but this doesn't seem to be forum policy.

I believe that Bitcoin is in the process of consolidating its position as an additional store of wealth alongside gold and silver. I't obvious that the price is still being manipulated, and this means that many people approach purchases with justifiable caution. I don't believe that price direction and amplitude will become clear until some economic instability settles down. Brexit, the BRICS crypto, the US and China trade deals, the alliance between Russia and China, and the collapsing EU and Euro are all creating uncertainty.

Hopefully this forum can move away from being merit talk, and put some more emphasis on Bitcoin and global economics. At that point, people won't need to receive an email regarding a merit award, but will just watch their merit count increase,

The most important statistic is the number of members and posts that you find interesting and informative. We seem to be going through a period where people are obsessed with forum metrics, and not bothered about the quality of posting content. It would be great if we could get back to being a vibrant Bitcoin and crypto community.

I don't believe that this should be a consideration. The forum needs good posts to be merited, and replying to posts and awarding merit is a way to build an interesting and vibrant forum. We need to encourage new members, and help them on their Bitcoin journey, but we also need to encourage long term and senior members to continue posting on the boards. Activity is the ranking tool, not merits.Merits were created to reduce the activities of the spammers, and to improve the quality of the threads.

Regardless of your rank, if one doesn't see one's merit count increasing, then one tends to feel that one is out of touch with the current forum attitudes. This can have three results. The member can change his posting topics to stay with the forum, or he can try to generate interest in more traditional topics or the new trends. The third alternative is to find another forum, and regrettably this seems to be happening at the moment. You can prevent this by spending time in the quality threads, rather than dumping sMerit on posters just to enable them to get a bigger signature.

Maybe somebody should start a project to help the local members learn English.

I'm not sure why you are having problems. I have a node under Windows 10, and one under Ubuntu. When I started the Ubuntu one, I copied the blockchain and wallet data from the Windows machine onto an external SSD ( the Netbook doesn't have a large enough drive internally ), and I downloaded and installed the core software. When I started it for the first time, it asked me for the directory to use. I pointed it at the SSD, and it picked it up happily, and it sync'd a few recent blocks, and reported everything as fine. It really was pretty painless, but that was a while ago.

You need to read the small print for these types of cryptos. Hypothecation seems to be the main process for giving an apparent backing for a crypto, and there is often the possibility to introduce fractional reserves. Fiat currencies have no intrinsic value, and are inflationary, so if they are used to "back" a crypro, then its value is more or less guaranteed to reduce in real value.

I don't think that you can look at Russia and China on their own, but you should consider them as part of BRICS. It has been announced that  a crypto is being developed to replace the dollar. This will probably have gold backing, and it may also include Bitcoin backing. Germany is in decline together with the Euro, and if they don't succeed in their attempt to continue to rip off the UK to support it, then Bitcoin could well become a safe haven alongside gold for the unfortunate residents there.

My feeling is that it won't be that important. I think it is so widely known, that its effects have already been factored into the price and investment decisions. There may be a short term attempt to manipulate the price in one direction or another. This could be downwards, as there will be some who will use gearing to try to profit from a potential gain, and they could be squeezed out fairly easily.

My unpopular health tips.

Try to avoid visiting the doctor, all they do is ro push the propaganda that they have lent from the Pharma companies.
Don't allow them to vaccinate you, it doesn't do any good, nd it is designed to damge your immune system.
Drink a few litres of water every day.
Cut out sugar, you get enough from fruit and veg.
Make sure yo get enough salt - you lose a teaspoon of salt if you drink 4 cups of coffee.
Use salt from ancient oceans ( such as Himalayan ), and not table salt with free running agents or sea salt with micro or nano plastics in it.
Use Bicarb of soda to reduce acid reflux - don't buy antacid ills.
Stop smoking or vaping
Don't take drugs - pharma or recreational
Don't use seed oils (vegetable oils ).
High blood pressure is your body trying to cope with a problem - fix the problem, and don't make things worse by reducing your blood pressure.
Get regular exercise and sleep.
There are loads more - for example, eat a cup of raw spinach every day

Remember, I'm not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. It's just the opinion of a 77 year old man with no medical problems, who doesn't take any drugs ever. The above advice may not apply if you have already messed up your immune system as a result of bad advice from your doctor.