Your support of unfairness and corruption is bizarre to me. I think we must have very different opinions on many matters and should perhaps agree to disagree. I hate unfairness and corruption so I think we are unlikely to reach a consensus or even have any meaningful debate since we come from such diametrically opposed positions. I never thought I'd see someone unapologetically defend unfairness and corruption! Only on BitcoinTalk, haha.


This made me laugh. You have metaphors in Brazil too, right?


Hahaha. Is defending the indefensible a hobby of yours?

If you think it is a perfectly fair situation, then why are we arguing? Even if I prove to you that it happened like that beyond a doubt, then you have already said you approve of it regardless?


Only if you choose to blindly believe them despite how suspicious it seems. If you want to believe them, fine. I choose to think for myself rather than just believe what people tell me without questioning it.


Hahaha. Well he didn't get banned before he criticized Theymos on the forums, did he?

Do your own research if you want to read the posts where he took issue with Theymos.

Generally, you seem like a pretty despicable person. You seem to approve of corruption and unfairness. I think what you have said is loathsome, and I don't understand how anyone could have the sickening opinions that you espouse. You're obviously some kind of totalitarian statist, and I don't think that Bitcoin is right for you. Bitcoin is about liberty and freedom, both of which seem to be anathema to your own personal philosophy. On a personal level, you make me sick. People like you are the reason that Ernesto Geisel, João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, Emílio Médici and Artur da Costa e Silva were in power in your country. I would not be surprised to learn that you supported them if you are old enough, or perhaps you were even a part of their government. I want nothing more to do with a man like you, who supports corruption openly. You are a vile excuse for a human being.

You've already been corrected, but if you had read my post properly you would have known that this forum predates Mt. Gox by several years. No offense, but you make yourself look pretty dense by weighing in with ignorant assertions, especially when the truth of the matter is right here in this thread. I humbly suggest that you should ensure that you know what you are talking about before you try to correct me on a matter I am clearly far better aquatinted with than you.

No one is expecting you to know everything, but when you assume you know more than someone else and you are wrong, well....

...you know what they say about what happens when you assume. You make yourself look like a bit of a cunt.  


I agree.


How on earth would you know? I suspect you are making assumptions again. Haven't you learned your lesson about that yet?


That is true. So why was he only banned when he criticized Theymos, and not before? I admit that he became more vexing recently, but it's a rather rum coincidence that his behavior was suddenly deemed to be intolerable as soon as he began to take issue with the personal dealings of Theymos, isn't it? Especially as this has happened a few times recently.


I never suggested that it should. However, as I have said many times now, if Theymos suddenly decides to ban someone right after they have a personal disagreement, and the official reason is behavior that was previously tolerated over a long period, then it is a cause for concern.


Yeah, maybe. But did he do it for the right reasons? That's up to everyone to decide. You certainly seem to have made your mind up. Personally I am not so sure.

So if someone in power has not been democratically elected they can and should be free to do whatever they want, no matter how unfair or corrupt it is?

With that kind of mindset I wonder why you are even involved in the Bitcoin project.

I think if a man owns a house he should be able to do anything he wants in it. But Theymos does not own this house. He is merely looking after it for the benefit of us who live in it.

This forum is the heart of Bitcoin discourse. It has been since the very beginning of the Bitcoin project. It's not just some private forum that Theymos started.

Theymos doesn't have ownership. He does have a lot of power and a big responsibility, perhaps the biggest responsibility of anyone involved in Bitcoin. If he starts banning people for criticizing him, or any other subjective and extrajudicial reason, then it will negatively effect Bitcoin, and all of us in one way or another. This forum is too closely entwined with the entire Bitcoin project for it to be any other way. It always has been.

If Theymos can not maintain a neutral position, then he should resign and hand the reigns of power over to someone who can enforce the rules consistently and independently of their own subjective feelings or any personal criticism that has been leveled against their private business activities.


Actually I have only recently had my posting rights reinstated after a 14 day suspension as a result of making a poorly thought out "joke" post.  I absolutely deserved it and you won't see me complain about it here or anywhere else, so yes, I can cope with rules being enforced by the administrator.

I don't have a problem with forum rules. Spammers, scammers and anarchy makes for shitty discussions. The problem is that the rules don't seem to be enforced in a consistent, impersonal and impartial way. If rules suddenly become more strictly enforced when the person who breaks them criticizes the private business practices of the administrator, then we have an unfair situation, wouldn't you agree?

I'm not the biggest fan of Goat. Personally I think he's an idiot. Running a PPT should have earned anyone involved a scammer tag.

However, this move to censor him, as many others have said, is worrying.

The justification for his being banned can't be argued with. Anyone who looks through his post history will concur with the fact that he contributed nothing of substance, and was occasionally even a disruptive influence.

It is disturbing to me that this problem came to a head as soon as he criticized Theymos and his private business activities. It feels like his general idiocy has been used as a convenient excuse to ban him. It's very easy to get rid of someone who has an indefensible character, but we should think about the true motives for this action.

The same story applies with Rarity. Rarity was a longstanding troll who was here purely to have some fun, sometimes at the expense of more genuine users. I doubt the person in control of that forum account has ever even owned a Bitcoin. I doubt anyone could come up with a compelling reason why Rarity should not have been banned. The problem is that Rarity was allowed to troll the forum for many months until he directly criticized Theymos. Suddenly trolling which had been previously tolerated became a huge problem, in the same way that Goat's longstanding idiocy and inept investment schemes had been tolerated until he criticized Theymos.

Goat's gibberish was completely invisible to anyone who hit the ignore button. This is how he should have been dealt with. This is how countless users did deal with him. Now he has been censored completely and we should ask ourselves not if we miss him, because we don't, but why he was censored. I for one don't agree with the party line on this subject.

Bitcoin is  a great way to avoid economic control from a higher authority. It's a shame that a more laizzez-faire attitude is not taken to forum moderation too.

This forum is important to the Bitcoin community. It does not belong to Theymos, he is merely the caretaker. He did not create it, he does not own it, it was entrusted to him for the good of the community. He should be held accountable for his actions, for the good of the community. If he continues to impose an iron rule on those who criticize his private business activities, he should be ousted. For the good of the community.

To just allow this to stand is to risk damaging Bitcoin.

And I am sure I will be banned for this post, and I am sure that my past posting history will be used as an ad hominem attack on what I am saying. Yes, I have had some fun on this forum. It has occasionally been at the expense of others. But I believe in Bitcoin. I want it to succeed for both personal and political reasons, and I know that if Theymos and his cabal are allowed to dominate the discourse in by far the largest Bitcoin community then it is bad for Bitcoin. It is also bad for freedom.

Thank you Sebastien, I will take your advice.

I would advise everyone to not trade Bitcoins with Barrabas until this matter is resolved.

Thank you.

I am posting today with regards to some important and influential historical evidence that I have unearthed regarding the Biblical figure Barrabas.

As you no doubt know, there is a large body of evidence which suggests that there was no tradition where prisoners were released upon popular demand during Passover. In this instance, the historical accuracy of the Gospel is questioned.

However, after looking through an ancient and little known Roman text (the Collectio Flagitiis, held in the collection at the Sopraintendenza agli Archivi di Stato in Palermo) which describes certain elements of custom and practice during the Roman occupation of Judea, I discovered that prisoners were occasionally set free due to popular demand during that period, but only those convicted of certain crimes were eligible for release. I was quite startled to find this included "culum vitium virginis", which roughly translates as "anal rape".

My curiosity was piqued by this interesting discovery, and I decided to travel to the Holy Land in order to investigate further. Working
with David Mevorah, Curator of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Periods at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, I began a full search of any relevant documents or artifacts which might help uncover the truth. After almost a year of painstaking search, I came across a small
pottery fragment which lay almost forgotten in the museum archive.  On it was Aramaic text, translating as "Anal Rape". I was not shocked to find out that it fit together exactly with a pottery fragment bearing the name of Barrabas.

I thought maybe that this forum may be able to offer advice on how I can publicise this exciting discovery.

He had to fly to England to convince Jim Morrison's former roadie to help him put on the greatest show that Aurora, Illinois has ever seen.

Well that is even more pathetic, because clearly your best isn't good enough.

You're not going to be a famous musician. You aren't going to be a famous anything.

You're a nobody, a complete non-entity. When you die, you will turn to dust and soon after everyone will have forgotten that you ever existed.

You're nothing. Just like your father.

It's not an asset, you don't own it, it's not tangible and it's not intellectual property.

It isn't property of any kind.

What you have is advanced payment for services rendered. It's non transferrable, and it can't be stolen.

I'm not sure what your point is.


This is true and I should have mentioned this. However Bitcoin isn't legally defined as one of the, Debts, regulated financial instruments, and money are all intangibles, but Bitcoin doesn't fall into any of those categories. It also isn't a an event ticket or water rights.

Again, I'm confused as to your point.

Haha wouldn't that be nice.

I'm afraid tax laws are a bit more simple than property laws! Income is income, whatever the legal status of the source. They are always very clear about that one.

However if you don't sell Bitcoins then you won't have any tax liability.


I think you have missed the fact that this is precisely my point!

It's a subjective assessment rather a fact, per se., but I would be interested to hear about what talents you think he has. Personally I think the world would be better if him and Dank were deathfucked by Georgie Proudfoot.

I think that there is a good chance BFL is planning a huge scam.

Firstly: It's so, so much easier to sell fGPAs than ASICs. fGPAs you can just buy from China. Design and manufacture of ASICs is a vastly more complex and expensive proposition. Considering the relatively small amount that will be sold (relative to a mainstream product, that is) I just can't see how it will be profitable for them. The volume of Bitcoin miners just isn't big enough.

Secondly: Their CEO is a convicted fraudster. Sure, you can look at his stories about how he was just trying to make an honest living but those damn government regulations got in the way. He certainly knew his audience when he was concocting that line. The picture of him with the baby was a nice touch too. But if you look past his appeals to your willingness to support The Little Guy vs. Uncle Sam and your emotions, the fact is that he was running an insidious and vicious fraud against very vulnerable people. Ask yourselves, what kind of person runs a mob-style numbers racket? An honest john? Somehow I don't buy it. And that is just the part he admitted to. Lots of elements in his story just don't add up. The guy is a scumbag, he's a convicted felon, and he's a known confidence trickster. I wouldn't trust him with a nickel.

Thirdly: They are encouraging payment in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has a bright future but at the moment one of the problems is that the price can and does go up and down like a yo-yo. I just don't think that anyone who was involved in a complex, long term and incredibly expensive project would willingly expose themselves to that risk.

Fourthly: Bitcoin is a scammers paradise. People who are scammed out of Bitcoins have pretty much no legal recourse. Some guy just stole $5.5m worth of them and he hasn't even been arrested. On it's own, this fact isn't significant, I'm not saying that everyone doing business with Bitcoin is dishonest. But when you combine it with the above pieces of information it does give pause for thought.

You are both talentless losers who will never amount to anything.

You made a song, but anyone with ears could tell you that isn't the song agreed on. You were even provided with tablature which you didn't follow.


Rarity expected you to honor your agreement. I don't think that is someone setting themselves up for failure. Rarity believed that you would do as you promised. The fact that you didn't is your fault, not Rarity's.


No. You lied. You broke a promise. End of story. The irrelevant part is whether or not Rarity is a troll.


I assume this is your way of saying that you don't play recognizable pieces of music.

You should have made it clear to Rarity that you can't or won't play the song in a recognizable way from the tablature provided.

Instead, you decided to lie.

You never had any intention of honoring this agreement, and you shouldn't have made it.

Now that you have, you have been dishonest and you should get the scammer tag.

You are exactly like Matthew N. Wright. If he has the tag, then so should you.

If Matthew Wright deserves a scammer tag, then Dank does too.

They both made a promise and then failed to keep it. No money changed hands in either situation, but lies were told and agreements were broken.

While this thread may appear frivolous to some, it brings up an important point: What exactly is the criteria for the scammer tag?

As an individual, I feel that the scammer tag is useful because it is a signal that the person tagged is dishonest and therefore I shouldn't do business with them. Therefore my personal feeling is that any instance of dishonesty should be punished with the tag, even if the person involved didn't gain any money or stand to gain any money in that particular instance.

However, of course instances of dishonesty vary in seriousness, and people make mistakes. No one should be branded with the scammer tag for life in a situation like this. In my opinion, Dank should definitely get the tag, but it should be removed as soon as he comes up with "Mary Had a Little Lamb" played to the tablature that Rarity provided for him. As anyone who has read any of his threads can see, he claims to be well on his way to becoming one of the world's finest musicians, so Mary Had a Little Lamb should be very easy for him. A refusal to provide it is just obstinacy and should be punished with the scammer tag.

Yes.


Yep, I'm with you.


It wouldn't take long to dig that out. People have been prosecuted for stealing bread many times i'd imagine. However there aren't any instances of people being prosecuted for stealing Bitcoins, so you are making an unproven assertion.


It's not always illegal to steal stuff. Check out the post I made earlier in the thread about that sword incident in China. Legal theft in action - and it's a very similar thing to Bitcoin.


Well laws are mostly pretty old, especially ones which deal with fundamental crimes such as theft. Here in the UK the Theft Act was written in 1968, when the idea of an item existing purely in the virtual world was science fiction. There were electronic funds transfers though, but those transfers were backed by hard currency somewhere or other. Bitcoin is backed by nothing. You can't take it out of the bank, it is purely a virtual item. To expect people to legislate for something like this back in 1968 is asking too much.

No laws name every possible item or have to, but usually they name one (or both) of two main types of legally defined property: tangible property, and intangible property. Tangible property is the stuff you can hold in your hand, like bread, or money (even if you never actually see the cash money and it just goes from bank to card to another bank etc, it still technically exists, it's in a vault, and you can go and get it whenever you want.)  Intangible property is intellectual property, like the copyright to a film.

Things can be both. Like if you buy an old master painting, generally the right to reproduce prints comes with it. But things can't be neither...or they are free for the taking.

Which category does a Bitcoin come under? I would argue that it is neither a tangible asset nor intellectual property. So, legally, it may not even be property at all, and therefore criminal charges can't be brought against Bitcoin thieves.

In the law, there are very few "of courses" If there was, we wouldn't need laywers.

The ECU wasn't a currency. It was a measurement of the valuation of a basket of currencies, to be used as an accounting unit. As such it wasn't possible to steal "an ECU". You could steal currency to the value of an ECU or number of ECUs, but not an ECU its self.

Bitcoin is not the same thing, in countless different ways.

TAre you saying that it's easier to do credit card fraud than Bitcoin fraud?

I actually can't argue with that, since I have no idea how credit card fraud works. I do know one thing though, people go to prison for credit card fraud but Bitcoin fraud seems to be done openly and with impunity.

If you take Satoshi Dice out of the equation, I wonder how many bitcoin transactions have been people sending money to a place where they expected to get their coins back somehow and didn't in the end. I'd imagine a not inconsequential percentage.

*sigh*

You're the autistic guy aren't you?

Is it too much to hope that you concentrate on the actual argument rather than the completely inconsequential numbers that I used illustrate it? Or am I in the wrong forum for that?

Let me ask you a question. If someone says "Can you wait a second?" do you look at your watch and wait for one second to elapse?

In most jurisdictions, intangible property is things like copyright, patents, trademarks, brands and other intellectual property. While these are universally recognized as own-able properties, it's reasonable to say that none of these can be stolen in the same way as a Bitcoin. Intangible property is more a thing to be misused, or infringed upon. I can steal a Bitcoin and remove it from circulation, but I can't steal the Coca Cola logo and remove it from circulation.

From a semantic point of view, Bitcoins are of course intangible, but from a legal point of view I think they have little in common with what is usually defined as intangible property.