Not only that, but any member who does threaten violence against another member here has a very high chance of getting permabanned, so it isn't likely that a senior member like Hispo is going to risk that even if engaged in a highly-charged P&S discussion.  Sure, it could happen but it didn't here.

On a related note, I don't visit that section but I have heard stuff here and there about a rise in antisemitism and such around the US.  I'm not quite sure what's true and what isn't since I really don't trust the media, but Jesus....everyone these days has skin the thickness of toilet paper, zero tolerance for anything offensive, and the entire world just seems to have been flipped on its head since I was a young man.  Glad I'm not growing up right now.

To be fair, jvanname isn't necessarily suggesting corporal punishment or any such violence against Hispo.  But that member definitely needs to grow a pair if they're going to be on this forum, and especially if they're going to contribute to the P&S section.

I'll admit I never read the whitepaper for bitcoin, but it's my understanding that Satoshi did intend that bitcoin become a form of currency, which would kinda-sorta imply that one of its primary uses would be to buy things with it.  That certainly hasn't been its primary appeal to people, but people also use currency as savings too, right?  That's where things become grey, because currency doesn't fluctuate in value as much as bitcoin does, and that's the big reason people the latter as an investment.  Well, that and the fact that fiat works just fine for people and the average person isn't looking for a replacement.

MS is a bitcoin evangelist if we have the same definition of the word.  What he shouldn't be treated as is a bitcoin guru and--I agree--a mentor or a figurehead, spokesperson, whatever.  He's definitely a huge bitcoin supporter, and for that he's got my respect.  That and that only, because I don't know much else about him aside from the fact that he's the CEO of MSTR.  But as I've said before, his company's value now very much hinges on what bitcoin does, and that wasn't originally in MSTR's business plan.  For his sake (and for the rest of us, too) I hope bitcoin doesn't tank.  I've also said that before and the company didn't implode, so who knows.

Sure, unless the government starts saying you own "tainted coins" which is a term I understand but find as ridiculous as holding "tainted cash".  I would not put anything past regulators when they're trying to protect fiat and decrease personal privacy, which has been on many governments' agendas for quite some time now.  All it takes is some politician making a statement that the media broadcasts to a public that doesn't question anything they see on the news and that's it. 

This is what scares me about stuff like mixers being verbotten on the forum come the first of the year.  I absolutely get where Theymos is coming from with that decision, but it's the fact that he had to eliminate something that isn't (yet) illegal just to protect himself and bitcointalk from scrutiny.

All of that shit that OP mentioned has been done to death with cash before bitcoin came along, but I think we all know that.  Just thought I'd say it anyway.

I've seen that line of thinking on conspiracy websites so many times, it boggles my mind why people believe would be paid in some backroom deal to write posts agreeing with the person paying them.  The truth is that some people take sides based on their opinion of whatever, whether it's someone's performance as a campaign manager or some other loyalty that wasn't bought and paid for.  I've stuck up for Royse777 in the past because he never cheated me and was completely above board in any dealings I had with him.  Same goes for icopress, Hhampuz, and many other people here.  I'm sure that same motivation or similar is the driving force for whoever is disagreeing with notblox1. 

Seems like I missed some more recent drama with Royse777, because I'm reading new accusations.  Question:  is all the information in this thread or elsewhere?  I'd like to know before I embark on a bunch of reading that would require a lot of attention being paid to it.  I'm not being lazy, just efficient and asking for help.

Even better advice would be:

I would absolutely do that.  There needs to be something permanent and collectible to commemorate the Club, Foxpup, and our Bacchanalian gatherings by the full moon's light.  

Seriously.  A Satochip would be the perfect way to do that.

Huh, didn't know that.  I bought a card reader a while back for the Satochip I got and thought it was a proprietary thingee.  Then again, I don't think I have anything that would be able to read one, so it turned out to be necessary.  Good thing they aren't expensive, which surprises me in a good way.

I know who you're referring to here and even a few details about what you're talking about, even if other might not.  Speaking for myself only, I'm not taking sides in any feud between you and the other party because you both manage campaigns well.  You're in a tough spot here, but I think most people understand your position and that it was probably the safest, best move you could make even if it leaves a number of members unhappy.  Nobody expected mixer advertising to be eliminated or that some of them were up to shady shit.  

I don't know.  I think you've said all you can say, and you know you're not going to make everyone happy.  Continuing to argue about this is just going to aggravate you and anyone else who engages in the argument.

Ugh.  That's unfortunate, but believe me I know how you feel.  If I didn't think that bitcoin was and always will be the king of cryptocurrency, I'd be gone in a heartbeat--but I do think that, and plus I really like this forum even when Theymos drops a hammer like he did this month.  

I've always thought that bitcoin is for saving, not spending, and thus the wicked fees haven't bothered me much (not that I save a lot anyway).  That issue has been a long-standing one with seemingly no resolution, so why let it get on your nerves now?

Edit:

Errrrrrr....rewind what I wrote above for a sec.  I think I missed what you just said Royse777 did, as I don't generally follow campaign threads in the Services section.  I revert to a neutral stance until I figure things out.

(BTW, I'm posting and then reading the thread backwards as usual.  Sorry.)

Just noticed this now, and boy was that a retarded post.  That gif of Daniel Day-Lewis was fantastic, by the way--the movie whence it came from was a masterpiece.

WTF is that shit?  Now I'm asking seriously now, is that an example of an AI-generated post?  I'm thinking not, because there's supposed to be some intelligence in AI and there's none in the above splat of crapola.  Christ, this forum used to be loaded with posts like that back before the merit system.  I guess there are some crevices in the forum that can't ever be cleaned out completely.

I don't know if Theymos is privy to any info the rest of us aren't, but I think he's being proactive and sees the writing on the wall as far as mixers go.  Obviously the US alphabet agencies have them under the microscope, and Theymos wants to protect the forum, so....

I do find it unfortunate things went this way, but what happens when you try to fight the government?  You lose 99.999% of the time, and why even try to do something that would instigate a battle with the SEC and who knows what other agencies?  We'll survive without mixer campaigns or even threads about mixers; the forum did just fine before they came along, right?

Yes, and thank you to GazetaBitcoin for verifying that.  For whatever reason, usernames drop right off my neuronal radar when they disappear, assuming they haven't made a big impact on me or the community.  Yogg and those charity scammers were ones I didn't know well, but in any case I don't think Vod has any of them on his trust list.  And the Coldkey scam is something Vod might have been aware of anyway.

I know I've written this at least once, but I discovered bitcoin first from some kind of news reports, and that might have been back in 2012-13.  I figured it was a total scam, something along the lines of the other digital kinds of money like Flooz (that Whoopee Goldberg promoted back in the late 90s/early 2000s).  Then in 2014 I kept doing searches for bitcoin and most of the results linked to bitcointalk, so I bookmarked a page.  Mostly I read stuff that dealt with all the scams that were going on at the time--and I still didn't understand the fundamental difference between the centralized digital money stuff and bitcoin, so I remained ignorant.

Then, after seeing all the ridiculous shitposts I figured I needed a place to troll, and so I registered in 2015.  That was my intention, anyway.  I soon realized after doing some deeper reading that bitcoin was way different than anything that came before it, and after a while the trolling I planned to do turned into becoming involved in the community and learning a hell of a lot more about bitcoin than I had previously.

And wouldn't you know?  I stuck around and have been pretty active since then.  The scams keep happening, but the forum and bitcoin haven't changed much.  Cheers to that!

Lol, I saw that post and it brought me back to the pre-merit system era when you'd see idiotic things being written just like that, except that ineedhelpplease isn't in a campaign or bounty.  Guess he's just trying to boost his post count or something.  See, Vod?  Some things just never change around here.

Thankfully since you've been away, there haven't been too many reputable members who've turned into scammers.  I can't recall usernames, but there was that charity scam a while back, the Coldkey scam in the Collectibles section, and maybe a couple of others.  I'm sure that doesn't help, but I thought I'd just mention it if anyone remembers the details/names.

Hmm....You donated to OP and you're both in the same sig campaign but your registration dates are a ways apart.  I'm inclined to think this is some shilling, but I have no evidence.

In any case, there shouldn't be any begging going on here as it's against the rules.  There was some talk if I remember correctly that yahoo62278's request for donations qualified as begging, but that seemed to pass muster--but if this isn't begging I don't know what is.  Vod is right.  You really should be trying to get a loan instead of asking the community for crypto.

Lol, I don't know why he posted that; it sounded as dumb to me as it did to you.  Speaking of dumb, I didn't realize there would be more cards available, else I would have paid attention to the ones that came out after the first series.  I definitely would have bought the one with Satoshi's statement about lost coins.  I've made more than my share of "donations" to the bitcoin community (though Satoshi himself no doubt made the mother of all donations of lost coins, assuming the genesis block coins never move).

I'd love to see a Merit Cycling Club Satochip card, and I'd tried designing one myself on their website but it came out like crap.  Just thinking aloud.

Agreed, which is why I stopped tagging account sellers using brand new accounts long ago; it's just a waste of time.  And the flag system....I never really understood why the trust system, which was already convoluted, had to be further complicated by adding the flagging in. 

I say do whatever you feel comfortable with, Poker Player.  Nobody's going to give you shit about whatever it is you decide, so nail that sucker to the wall with any tool you can find.

I'd ask you for a source, but I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to provide one for that assertion.  And who'd be looking to go to war with each other?  The only conflict going on that I'm aware of is that between Russia and Ukraine, and since it started the price of precious metals has been all over the place.  Copper has been pretty flat as far as I know, and that'd be one of the metals used in huge quantities for instruments of war.  Meh.

As of today when I checked the price of gold & silver, they were both down quite a bit, whereas bitcoin seems to be rebounding from that little dip it took.  That much I'm happy about--bitcoin going back up, that is.  Hopefully that dip was just that, and bitcoin is in an upward trend.  Guess we'll see, and I'm on the sidelines rooting for it like a parade watcher.

Don't know what country you're in, but in my area of the US nobody was locked inside their houses.  Some businesses weren't open, which was inconvenient, and the economy suffered as a result of that, but that seems like so long ago.

I've seen this thread kicking around but didn't open it until now.  So this new virus has originated in China, eh?  That was the case with COVID and yet it seems like nobody wanted to hear that fact--probably because of what a superpower China has become.  I haven't been hearing much about it from people, so I'm hoping it gets contained before we end up with another debacle over here with masks and vaccinations and all that shit.  That's what really bugs me.

The news came out of China, right?  It just makes me wonder what the hell is going on in some of the microbiology labs there, and what they're doing as far as virus research.  It's not as though a lot of news leaks out of China about those things (same goes for other countries, too, I suppose).

Wait, what?  Did I miss something or are you busting apogio's cubes?  I've been unconscious for the past 20 hours and am still groggy from the coma-like sleep.  The last time that happened and I missed something big was in 2018 when the merit system was created.  Oh, what a week/month/year that was!  If anyone wants some interesting reading, check out the posts in Meta from Jan. 2018.  The whole section was on fire.

I'm a merit source, for anyone who wants to check me off their list.  I've said that enough times, though, that anyone who's interested in knowing who's a source should have done so already.  And it was smart of Theymos not to make that list public, lest sources get inundated with PM requests for merits or get stalked all over the place (which I still see happening).

Yep, kind of.  It's probably more of a merit-grab attempt than anything else.

I've got no problem with people who earn money here on principle; it's just that this forum has had a long-standing problem of members in sig campaigns or bounties making posts in horrible English that are of little to no value.  It would be great if more posts were paid for in the local sections, as that would reduce the number of posts that non English speakers try to make.  I'm not knocking anyone for not knowing English well, because a lot of people here know more than one language and that's admirable--but trying to make substantial posts in a language that you're not fluent in and being incentivized to do so makes for a really bad combination.

Yeah man, I haven't been paying attention to what other kinds of sig campaigns are going on, and I've got sigs and avatars on ignore so I don't see who's advertising what.  I'd imagine that when the new year rolls around there's going to be a mad scramble of members trying to get into campaigns.  That might be a good thing, as it would allow campaign managers to choose the cream of the crop instead of having to settle for mediocre posters (or worse) just to fill up the rosters.

In any case, I'm very glad Cyrus included a signature ban as a requirement for getting a second chance.  That ought to weed out quite a few members who just came here to get paid and not only didn't read the rules but broke one or more of them.  Should be interesting.