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If we want for BTC to take off in the near future as a legitimate currency by the mainstream, then we must take steps to limit bad PR damage from the numerous "scam" accusations that have taken place on this forum. I believe taht it is very demoralizing for a new user to come here and see that most forum posts are taken up by people cry babying that they have been "taken advantage of" because they chose to make bad investments and it does far more harm to the Bitcoin reputation than it ever helps them in getting any of their money back.
Given that this community is for the purpose of spreading the word on Bitcoin and given given that it is one of the first places new Bitcoiners and the curious are likely to check when they are just finding out about bitcoin, it would behoove the mods here to limit the scam whining from being seen by them. For instance, the "scam accusations" forum should be hidden from view to anybody but posters with a high post count, and any discussion of scams should be eliminated from the rest of the site entirely.
Also, what is the purpose of a "scammer" tag? It certainly doesn't stop these people from posting and in many cases it seems to have been misapplied (on Matthew N. Wright for instance). Why not simply eliminate this silly punishment and let the freemarket do its job and make it so people have to avoid "scams" the old fashioned way: by doing their research and not making bad decisions?
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It makes me wonder... could we pay people in bitcoin to curate bitcoin related pages? It could certainly help with our PR.
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I think it would be far more worthwhile to bitcoin to simply discourage the discussion of defaults and scams in the main forums, maybe even ban them entirely to any area that a person under a certain postcount can see. Bitcoin needs lots of interest from new users to flourish, if they log in here and the first thing they read are a bunch of posts by gullible people whining about being "scammed" (when 9/10 times it was their own mistake for doing business with untrusty worthy people) they will be unlikely to want to participate. "scams" can still be discussed in areas where long-term users can access but not newbs.
It is possible that there is a good legal reason to do this as well: if these are really "scams" then it's a matter that could come under investigation by authorities andf therefore anything written about them can be used as evidence. I think it would be unwise for bitcointalk to allow potential compromise in this way.
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The world runs on fiat. When the FRN loses even more buying power after the next round of debasement, people will start looking for others places to try to keep from sinking. Traditionally, it's been metal. Bitcoin will just add another option. That will add to its mainstream appeal. Sure, with the added disadvantage of bitcoin disapearing the moment society goes broken. Metals don't do that. Traveling from a broken country to a non-broken country with your assets in tow may prove quite dangerous. However, my Bitcoins will be waiting patiently on the block chain wherever in the world I may end up. Guess again. If the bills are not payed a country goes down. If that country carries some essential infrastructure or commerce component of the world economy it can affect the rest of the world heavily. If, for instance, the USA would go down the euro will go down, china will go down, etc, etc, etc. It would be more likely that the destruction of the governments would allow anarchocapitalist communities to flourish. there would be a period of instability, but it seems to me that theres enough nowhow for people to start generating their own electricity again and networking their computers relatively quickly, and having seen how vulnerable fiat "wealth" is to inflationary manipulation, people would be ready to turn to a truly stable deflationary currency. LOL ok, how will the people of new york make their own electricity and enough of it to run the computers that are needed for bitcoin? Or even better, how will they do it before starving? Where will they grow their food? Who will grow their food and for what service in return? The problem is that a city like new york cannot survive without sitting firmly in the current economy. If the current economy collapses and goes away they are mostly screwed. I mean, people are going to die, people are going to starve, people will be mostly out of work, people are going to raid etc etc etc. That's the kind of 'instability' we're talking about. After such an event it is questionable wether something like a pc, or even bitcoin, will meant the same thing it means now. But is suspect we would reboot the current system long before it comes to this. Simple: there would be considerable demand for a way to survive and succeed in this environment, the smart and industrious would find a way to meet that demand. Without a parasitic government actively working against them, I bet you would be surprised how much driven, intelligent individuals would be able to achieve |
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The world runs on fiat. When the FRN loses even more buying power after the next round of debasement, people will start looking for others places to try to keep from sinking. Traditionally, it's been metal. Bitcoin will just add another option. That will add to its mainstream appeal. Sure, with the added disadvantage of bitcoin disapearing the moment society goes broken. Metals don't do that. Traveling from a broken country to a non-broken country with your assets in tow may prove quite dangerous. However, my Bitcoins will be waiting patiently on the block chain wherever in the world I may end up. Guess again. If the bills are not payed a country goes down. If that country carries some essential infrastructure or commerce component of the world economy it can affect the rest of the world heavily. If, for instance, the USA would go down the euro will go down, china will go down, etc, etc, etc. It would be more likely that the destruction of the governments would allow anarchocapitalist communities to flourish. there would be a period of instability, but it seems to me that theres enough nowhow for people to start generating their own electricity again and networking their computers relatively quickly, and having seen how vulnerable fiat "wealth" is to inflationary manipulation, people would be ready to turn to a truly stable deflationary currency. |
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And so bitcoin is usefull internet money but not per se usefull pay-yer-local-shop money. Not now, but that could change if it rises in perceived value to the rapidly crapping out fiat. The world runs on fiat. If fiat craps out the western world will go off like a row of dominoes. Society as we know it would collapse and large parts of the world would become dysfunctional. For one, you will have no electricity to use bitcoin. The network companies that sell you a network connection will have no electricity to run the network that you need to use bitcoin. If you do have the electricity to run your client (maybe solar) you would have to rely on ad-hoc networks to distribute the chain. In such a situation, why the hell would you want to know about transactions happening on the other side of the network? It would be a huge waste of energy while achieving very little. Bitcoin would be the least of your worries. Yeah, see , I thought so. You don't really believe in bitcoin do you? Youre just here to troll |
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The realy realy COOL thing about bitcoin is that it can operate over distance.
It acts, effectively, as a currency for the internet community.
That is what is special about it.
See, I feel differently. The really COOL thing about Bitcoin is that it's decentralized, that there is a known number of total coins, and that no "authority" can ever confiscate or "freeze" my coins. That I can send it over a distance is just icing on the cake. Yeah, but that has no mainstream po-ten-tial. Bender said it. Oh? I think it does. So when normal (mainstream) people go to their local community shop all they think about is "Damnit, now the central government will fuck my monies up and how many fuking monies are there anyway and shit, what if the mothafuckers come and freeze my monies omg" ? Realy?.. Most people don't think that now, but with the government printing more and more money whenever they want to "save the economy LOL" its only a matter of time before fiat money is so worthless that people will look for an alternative. |
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As a new user, it is certainly demoralizaing to see so many threads about scams all the time. Why don't the mods just ban the discussion of these problems from the forums? Obviously, it is still important for these issues to be dealt with in private, but it is overall bad for bitcoin for this site to be filled with so many topics that talk about negative things all the time.
Get out. While you still can. Don't listen to him. I've been using Bitcoin for over a year and a half and haven't lost a single satoshi. If you treat it like real cash money, better yet, gold, you will be fine. Think to yourself before sending someone Bitcoins, "Would I send a gold coin to this person?" Yes, see this is good advice and good advice should be encouraged . But all of these threads where people are complaining and talking about how everything is a scam all the time is very upsetting. Perhaps the mods should think of bitcoin as a brand and this forum as a sort of company website. Yes, it is important to address the negative things, but after they have been dealt with with a statement from the forum staff or something maybe it would be best to say that there will be no more discussion of the matter. The goal here is, after all, to make bitcoin a mainstream currency and spreading FUD is counterproductive to that. edit: or maybe make it so that such talk is restricted to an area visible for forum users above a certain post count? But would you want bitcoin to become mainstream in its current state? I think that bitcoin is not mature enough to hit mainstream for several reasons. Just one of those reasons is the increasing scams and robberies. At the moment a large part of the bitcoin community consists of immature gamblers and that is also why you read so many negative things. There are a lot of negative things going on and everyone seems to want to make a quick buck. And it needs to be discussed and it needs to be fixed for bitcoin to grow further. I just don't see bitcoin being used by the mainstream with exchanges being hacked left and right and 7% per week schemes rising from the ground without being dealt with. But if we can help bitcoin become bigger, the freemarket will act to suppress the scams. People will learn to avoid them and become more responsible. |
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As a new user, it is certainly demoralizaing to see so many threads about scams all the time. Why don't the mods just ban the discussion of these problems from the forums? Obviously, it is still important for these issues to be dealt with in private, but it is overall bad for bitcoin for this site to be filled with so many topics that talk about negative things all the time.
Get out. While you still can. Don't listen to him. I've been using Bitcoin for over a year and a half and haven't lost a single satoshi. If you treat it like real cash money, better yet, gold, you will be fine. Think to yourself before sending someone Bitcoins, "Would I send a gold coin to this person?" Yes, see this is good advice and good advice should be encouraged . But all of these threads where people are complaining and talking about how everything is a scam all the time is very upsetting. Perhaps the mods should think of bitcoin as a brand and this forum as a sort of company website. Yes, it is important to address the negative things, but after they have been dealt with with a statement from the forum staff or something maybe it would be best to say that there will be no more discussion of the matter. The goal here is, after all, to make bitcoin a mainstream currency and spreading FUD is counterproductive to that. edit: or maybe make it so that such talk is restricted to an area visible for forum users above a certain post count? |
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As a new user, it is certainly demoralizaing to see so many threads about scams all the time. Why don't the mods just ban the discussion of these problems from the forums? Obviously, it is still important for these issues to be dealt with in private, but it is overall bad for bitcoin for this site to be filled with so many topics that talk about negative things all the time.
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Well, I'm pretty new around here, but I've been reading up and it seems to me that Matthew said, in his very first post on the bet, that the purpose was to teach you guys a lesson. And so you took the bet and now he's taught you a lesson that you shouldn't be so quick to call everyone a scammer because sometimes if you do that you'll just make the guy mad and he'll wind up scamming you because you ticked him off. So maybe everyone here should just consider this a lesson learned and the next time you think someone might be a scammer you should just keep your mouth shut.
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Four hours is a loooooooong time to wait  |
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I don't know much about mining, but would I be able to get anywhere just using a regular old macbook? My processor is 2.4 Ghz Intel Core Duo. And how do you mine anyway? Do you just use the bitcoin client?
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Honestly, though, it's a good idea to approach each situation with an open heart and mind. I believe that people tend to be good, and we should treat them as though their intentions are sound. WHILE PROTECTING YOURSELF, it must be said. Don't be stupid, but don't assume that everyone is out to get you either.
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Well, it's a little annoying, but just because I'm so excited to join the community and talk about all things bitcoin. But I guess the rule is here for a reason.
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Hey everyone, I'm a guy out in the mid-west just starting to learn about bitcoin and wondering what all the fuss is about! I'm something of a writer and hope that somehow I can turn my bitknowledge into maybe a book or something someday! Pleased t'mee'cha!
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