There's a greasemonkey script which will hide quotes of ignored posters in vBulletin so it's possible.  Someone here once wrote a script which flagged all of Atlas' alternate accounts, so again - it's possible.  I'm not sure that either option should be built into the forum software, though.  Do we really need that much spoon-feeding?  When the basic search function on here is so horrible, do we really need to be running searches to provide the kind of "feature" you've requested?

An awful lot of people are entitled to receive cheap software from legitimate programmes run by Microsoft - especially students and government employees.  It's always worth checking whether you qualify for any kind of discounted price from Microsoft before looking elsewhere.

If you start peddling the idea that Bitcoin is backed by an actual resource/commodity, you're going to make it very easy for it to be brought under existing laws related to e-currencies in some places and I'm not sure that's what you're really aiming for.

Those pesky bacteria, parasites and viruses have nothing to do with it.

I rather hope it's a time share thing for some Libertopian island.  I'd pay to watch Lord of the Flies play out in real time.

I assume you won't be using any antibiotics, analgesics or anaesthetics throughout your life then.  Good luck with that.  Your statement reeks of First World privilege.  But hey, lets not worry about trying to get modern medicine to those millions of people in developing countries for whom you feel so much empathy - let's teach them how to mend their souls instead just like countless generations of missionaries have done for hundreds of years. 

A long, long time ago I did a degree in criminology and criminal justice.  One of the problems which was identified both within policing and within corrections related to the issues which arise when you use young male officers to exert authority over young male offenders - you end up with a lot of unnecessary conflict and can unintentionally create an environment in which abuse of authority is almost inevitable.

To be honest, the idea of using teenagers as corrections officers/security guards scares the crap out of me.  I hope that the training is world class, but I suspect that it won't be given everything I've read about the US correctional system (and Texas).

I'm not sure that they did start dropping out.  Ageing Baby Boomers are seen as a real problem in many First World nations precisely because such a small proportion of us are going to be self-sufficient in our old age.  We're seen as the self-indulgent generation which spent our young adulthood travelling and studying esoteric subjects at university when education was low cost and which has always tended to live in the moment and let tomorrow take care of itself (given that many of us grew up expecting a nuclear holocaust in our lifetime, providing for our retirement wasn't exactly a high priority for us as young adults and by the time that threat had passed the rules had changed).

As far as "making it work this time" goes, I guess you need to look at the whole picture.  Money is simply a more efficient way of getting some things done than donating produce or labour.  Fuck knows how many years it's going to take to make an impact on malaria, but it's going to happen a lot faster with funds from the Gates Foundation behind the quest than it would if the project relied solely on people donating their expertise.

dank sees isolated problems which have seemingly simple solutions.  The reality is a bit more like a very large jig-saw puzzle.  You have huge sections of humanity living in regions where producing enough food for the population is an uphill battle.  Those same regions often lack the kind of infrastructure which helps reduce disease (bear in mind that lack of proper sanitation meant that disease was rampant in the major urban centres of many First World nations in the early twentieth century).  Getting clean water to people in developing nations isn't nearly as simple as it might sound - doing so would greatly reduce the death toll in those nations but reduction in the death toll would stress the food supply even more.

It's ironic that dank is talking about carbon footprints when Bitcoin is inherently so wasteful from an energy point of view.  It's ironic that he's a Bitcoiner when the Bitcoin economy as it stands right now is driven largely by greed and the desire for people to increase their own wealth without producing anything which benefits others.  

I don't think that we're going to solve the world's problems in my lifetime.  If we couldn't do it during a time of great prosperity in First World nations then we're not going to be able to persuade people in developed nations to "live simply so that others may simply live" when huge segments of the populations of those nations perceive themselves as barely getting by.  There may have been huge technological advances in my lifetime, but they haven't driven the kind of change which was envisaged - which was nations producing so much that people worked far less hours without any drop in standards of living.  When large segments of a population are hugely discontent with their own lot in life, they tend to be more focused on getting their own problems solved than on the plight of strangers thousands of miles away.  dank mistakes that for lack of empathy, when in reality he's just as self-indulgent as the most rampant consumer.

At the end of the day, change requires people asking themselves what trade-offs and sacrifices they're prepared to make to bring about change.  Not the trade-offs and sacrifices they're willing to make when they win the lottery or someone gives them $5 million, but the ones they're willing to make right this moment - regardless of their current circumstances - to make this world a better place.  I don't know what answers the current generations of young adults have to that question.

dank, there is absolutely nothing original about your ideas - including your idea that a whole generation should turn on and drop out - they were common in young adults 40 years ago.  Just because an idea, a realisation or an experience is new to you doesn't mean it's never been thought of, realised or experienced by others in the past - I belong to the Age of Aquarius generation and I can assure you that you're saying nothing which wasn't said by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s.

And Carl Sagan.

dank reminds me of Atlas a year ago.  As I'm at least convinced that Atlas is a real person, I'd have to vote for Atlas.  If dank's a real person rather than an elaborate troll, then I weep for the future of humanity.

What makes you think that they're using the exchanges to launder their funds?

Good luck.  Do you know much about the recruitment process?  It takes months here and includes physical and psychological testing.

Which is absolutely irrelevant to your assertion that people should do only the work they wish to do and which makes them happy.  You're presuming that enough people will want to work in providing essential infrastructure to provide for the needs of those who want to work in other fields.  You're completely overlooking the fact that many people who work at providing infrastructure do so only out of economic necessity, not because it makes them happy.  Put more simply, if all of us choose to sit around indulging our creative side, who is going to provide us with housing and food in return for our artistic efforts?  You're really going to be dependent on a well off individual patronising your artistic endeavours, except you'll be dependent on them for food and shelter instead of for money.  And the number of well off individuals looking for artists to subsidise is much smaller than the number of wannabe artistes.

Of course, but dank was talking about a world in which people do only the work which makes them happy and in which people's motivation to feed, shelter or otherwise provide him with basic life essentials would be him sharing his music - if not enough people who have food in excess of their own needs like his music, he starves. 

They could try but those causes of action seem to be much more difficult to pursue in the US than is commonly believed.  Not to mention the fact that there's little point in seeking damages from someone with no capacity to pay.

It should if it was deposited to the same account or if the deposits were broken up in a manner that looked like you were trying to avoid some kind of transaction limit.  It doesn't matter if the total of the transactions is under the mandatory reporting threshold - financial service providers are well within their rights to set whatever transaction limits they like and to set their software to flag any activity which looks like an attempt to bypass those limits.  They can also file reports on suspicious activity even if the amounts involved are below the mandatory reporting threshold. 

You would file a lawsuit against Zhou in what jurisdiction?  And your cause of action would be what exactly?

Likewise pirate.  If you had no direct exposure to pirate, then what is your cause of action?  What proof do you have that he owes *you* anything?  Why would you underwrite the cost of legal action against pirate when he's currently under investigation by the SEC and they have far more resources to investigate whether he has any assets as well as to launch legal action?  How many people to whom pirate owes funds directly have "clean hands" from a legal standpoint?

Even filing a lawsuit costs money - pursuing it costs even more and the more complex the case the greater the likelihood that the only people who will see any money are the lawyers on both sides, who are going to want money upfront to even accept the case.

While it's entirely possible that Zhou will eventually be named in the Cartmell lawsuit, there are still questions of jurisdiction to be addressed and the issue of his age to be dealt with. 

It's been done before - many times.  dank should probably go and join an existing commune given the effort required to establish one.  And yeah, you're going to need food whether or not people want your music.  That you're willing to share your music doesn't mean that people will be willing to trade food for it.  Nor does it mean that people will be willing to provide shelter, heating, clothing or sanitation for you in return for you providing music.  You're naive if you think that infrastructure will get built if everyone does only the jobs that they want to do and which make them happy (not to mention the fact that the raw materials for building infrastructure need to be procured).