What I'm wondering is which country that is, because at least from where I sit things seem to be getting back to some semblance of normal--if you ignore all the protests going on and the fact that part of Seattle has been taken over by the citizenry.  Aside from the social unrest, coronavirus cases are finally going down.

I'm not sure about what's happening in the crazy world of international politics, however.  But I really don't think we're looking at WW3 kicking off anytime soon.  There's always a very definite spark to world wars, and I don't see anything that's happened or is about to happen that would do it.  I could be wrong of course, but people have been predicting doomsday for a long-ass time now and it never seems to arrive.

Same here, but how that relates to what OP is predicting is beyond me.  It's either simply price gouging or simple economics, not impetus for war.

And that's the crazy part of this story, IMO.  I generally don't get all sad when I read stories like this on the internet, but this one is indeed tragic.  Poor kid probably felt like losing that amount of money was the end of the world for him--and even if he had lost that much, it's still only money.  He was young enough that he could easily have had time to start over again.  Many traders have made and lost fortunes before--this reminds me a little of the story of Jesse Livermore who was one of the first TA traders back in the early 1900s.  He blew his brains out later in life, though I can't remember if it was specifically because of losses he suffered.

Ah well, RIP trader dude.  

Uh....yeah, I'd say it's the ultimate way to do it.

Nah, I don't think so either.  The world has seen all sorts of crises since bitcoin was birthed more than a decade ago, and it doesn't seem like world events--even pretty serious ones--tend to affect its value all that much.  And I'm not sure how important this "tension" is in the grand scheme of things.  It could be something that gets de-escalated fairly quickly, but who knows.  The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that it'll have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies.

What a crazy world we're living in.  IMO, this decade is going to go down in history as one of the most interesting ones in the 21st century, and it's barely gotten started.  In any case, I do hope China and India cool off.  I get a bit worried whenever there's a chance that China is going to get involved in a military situation, because who knows what that could spark.  Keeping my fingers crossed for a peaceful resolution.

From my years of reading posts on this forum, I'd say people's preference for a currency when they're buying something isn't bitcoin or any other crypto--it's fiat.  Judging from what members write, I'd say bitcoin serves a function mainly as an investment and not a form of money, though there are certainly people who enjoy spending bitcoin (that always baffled me, though).

And yeah, using altcoins to actually purchase goods/services is practically unheard of, and I doubt that's going to change anytime soon.  Merchants don't want to bother fooling around with some weird internet money that most people won't even use, so if businesses aren't accepting altcoins and people aren't looking to spend them for things....no surprise you're not going to find diddly-squat when it comes to places that accept ETH, Dash, or any of the other big-name altcoins.

Ah, so that's why you requested that I remove the negative feedback I had on you from a ways back.  Well, the vibe has changed here in the past year or so and Theymos has encouraged us to bury our hatchets with each other, so I'm just going to wish you well and hope you're not just here to drop garbage posts to earn money. 

I'm still as cynical as ever, but congrats on having a baby and hopefully the world will become a little less crazy in the upcoming years (knock on wood).

In general, that's how these applications work I agree, but Theymos has also been known to tap people to be merit sources without them even applying, like he did a year or two ago.  That was sort of an unusual case, however.  I think Theymos suddenly realized that he needed way more merit distribution than he was getting and made merit sources out of some members that he handpicked based on his own criteria.  The forum doesn't seem to be in that kind of crisis right now, though, and I would also suggest that OP follow the standard way of applying to be a merit source (and not the lazy way).

Good point about those merits having value and why Theymos shouldn't just hand sMerits out to anyone willy-nilly.  That said, I think OP's intent is probably sincere and I doubt he's looking to abuse the merit system.

This question being asked reminds me of all those threads I've seen asking if bitcoin can eradicate poverty, homelessness, or whatever social ill you can think of--and IMO the answer is no, and bitcoin isn't going to help the global economy recover from the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Why would it?  Bitcoin is either a form of money or an investment, depending on how you look at it, and neither one of those types of things is necessarily going to help anyone if they can't access enough of it.  Sure, if you gave every person a stimulus airdrop of 0.5BTC or something like that, it might be a temporary band-aid....but even that isn't going to happen.

Anyway, I hadn't heard of any food shortages anywhere on my continent (N. America).  Not only haven't shipments been slowed down, but restaurants are starting to reopen.  Hopefully in places where that sort of thing is a problem it'll be temporary.

It might be a little too soon, but we can't be locked up in our houses forever, not working and watching the world come to a stop.  If the virus was deadlier than it is, I'd say it's way too soon to reopen businesses and so forth, but we're not talking about a virus that's as deadly as the one in the movie Contagion.  If people keep their distance from one another, wash their hands, and wear face masks I think it'll work out just fine--or as good as it can be at least.

Everything is a risk in life, and this is no different.  Nor is this the first time in history a global epidemic has occurred; it's just the first one in about 100 years, so most people alive now don't recall the flu outbreak of 1918. 

Exactly.

I don't think this is a question of protests, racism, and police brutality.  Those things won't cause a shutdown, but serious health risks like COVID-19 already did cause one and certainly could again.  Imagine if the mortality rate of the virus was higher and people were absolutely terrified of physical contact with each other.  Imagine if the government had to force people to go back to work.  We'd be in some serious shit at that point, and IMO we lucked out with the coronavirus because it could have been much, much worse.

I find it very interesting that it didn't take long at all for the stock market to recover.  I'm wondering how much of that is shut-ins gambling their stimulus checks away and how much is actually sustainable.  I would imagine earnings for the next couple of quarters at least are going to be lower for a lot of companies than they were at the same time last year.  So we'll see.

I tend to agree, though as a merit source I wouldn't merit any user as a form of saying thanks or showing appreciation or the like.  IMO campaign managers getting merited in the campaign ANN threads is a poor use of merits, and I get the feeling that sometimes that's done with the hope that it'll increase a member's chances of getting accepted, but who knows.

Eh, within limits I'd say.  There are definitely bad uses of the merit system, e.g., selling merits and helping friends/alts rank up regardless of post quality, but as long as there isn't blatant abuse going on you can do what you want with your own sMerits--including giving them to a bounty manager.

Edit:
Doh!  I just wrote almost exactly what you did, but I swear I didn't read your post first.  That's a really bad habit of mine.

And if you're relatively new to the forum and registered after Jan 2018, you might not have a sense of how bad things were before the merit system came about.  Things were so bad in certain sections that you'd probably have been justified in reporting every other post in every single thread--there was no discussion going on, just a free-for-all where idiots plopped down garbage posts as quickly as they could.  And if they were high-ranked accounts, they got paid more and it wasn't difficult to rank up one or more accounts.  All it took was time and posting.

OP, hopefully you've gotten your answer.  The merit sources are volunteer members who get an extra allowance of sMerits, and Theymos puts his trust in them that they'll spread the merits around in a fair manner.  There's no reward for doing so, but for members like me who really appreciate the merits system, it's an honor to be a source (sorta).  Most sources are anonymous anyway--unpaid and unrecognized and behind the sceens, and personally I'm cool with that.

That's not the trouble--even if every citizen read this and other articles like it, nothing would change unless our elected officials stop acting so goddamn recklessly with the money printing, spending, and a lot of other factors.  It isn't the populace that's kicking its own ass; it's the powers that be, and I'm afraid that voting for this one or that one makes very little difference--so we, the people, don't have a hell of a lot of control over this shit.

I'm sure it's been going on for much longer than that, and I think if we got through 2008 alive and intact we can get through this current crisis.  It's not even a crisis yet, IMO.

Agree--and that's one of my pet peeves when displaying information in general.  I see a lot of abbreviations where there's plenty of space to write out exactly what's meant, and IMO there's no excuse not to unless the abbreviation is so standard that the average person wouldn't mistake it for something else.

Also agree with this.

Exactly, and I don't think there's really a better setup than what we already have.  People are still NOT going to read anything before applying and probably wouldn't pay attention to any other changes made.  That's cynical of me to say, but we've both been on the forum long enough to know that it's true when we're talking about signature campaigns.

Sure it does--just because there's a discussion happening instead of a single person/entity who's creating "content" doesn't mean nothing useful is generated.  If that were the case, there's no way I'd have stuck around here for over five years and there would be no need for discussion forums to even exist, since they'd essentially be time-wasters.

I don't see that or anything like that as being helpful or even potentially popular.  If anyone has something to say to Theymos or anyone else, they're free to start a thread--and Theymos himself is pretty responsive to threads directed at him, BTW. 

I don't think bitcointalk even needs a software update, though I know I'm probably in the serious minority by thinking that--but I certainly don't think it needs an overhaul in terms of structure or theme.  What we've got going on is pretty neat IMO.

Not only agricultural land; I wouldn't be selling any kind of real estate right now, especially with the world as crazy as it is at the moment.  IMO now is the time to be land-rich even if you're cash-poor.  But as is usually the case with me personally, I don't have enough dough to buy any land and that's never been my thing anyway.  If I did have some serious extra cash to invest in something, I would likely change my tune and buy a house with acreage (assuming the real estate market isn't inflated, and I plead ignorance on that).

If nothing else, when you own property you've got a place to escape to when SHTF and it obviously would make it much easier to isolate yourself and your family if need be.  Bitcoin is great, but it isn't as if you can mold it into a house--and the same thing goes for stocks, gold, and anything else that isn't real estate.

Good point if true--but I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing since the service (and KYC document submission) is optional.  It isn't as though Ledger is forcing people to buy crypto through their partner.  I see this more as Ledger trying to stay competitive with other HWs that offer similar services.

I haven't tried buying bitcoin through my Ledger, but I could almost guarantee that I'd be ineligible to do so because of where I live anyway.  I'd be interested to hear from people who've done it, though.

Some of them do, I'm sure.  Hilariousandco used to tell me to keep reporting shitposters as I came across them (though that was before the merit system was rolled out).

I tried viewing that member's post history but it looks like I've got whatever sections he posted in on ignore and so I couldn't see anything.  Probably a typical altcoin shitposter, I assume?  And yes, the ignore button works wonders but does nothing to combat the problem.  I would say that it's not going to hurt anything to report shitposters--either the moderator takes action or he doesn't.  True, your reporting accuracy may go down as a result, but I wouldn't worry about that (personally speaking, of course).

I could swear all of this info was listed in the same place ever since the merit system was implemented--but it's not as though I've been paying attention to it. 

Anyway, OP, it is true that you still lack the merits to rank up past Jr. Member, and it only gets harder from there.  This is why most new members don't often rank up past Member to Full Member in a reasonable amount of time, and my guess is that a lot of them just give up or purchase a higher-ranked account (and I don't recommend that).

You earned a few merits already, so maybe it won't be as tough for you--good luck in any case.

That looks like a fad/bubble to me, like when Beanie Babies were going for crazy amounts of money.  The interest (and willingness to spend such outrageous sums of money on trivial things) isn't sustainable IMO.

Coincidentally I was just watching a few documentaries that dealt with these online gaming economies, and I do find it to be fascinating.  I'm not a gamer, so it boggles my mind that people would pay so much money for what amount to cosmetics (if I'm not mistaken).  My mind shouldn't be boggled, however.  I've seen people go crazy for weirder things than CS:GO skins in the course of my lifetime.  

Yep, that's certainly something to beware of--and it's another reason why I don't think the high prices are sustainable.

I was pretty stoked when I got put on DT2 the first time a couple of years ago, which was something I wasn't expecting--and if you consider that an "achievement" I guess it would be my most memorable.

OP, you're on DT now, right?  I'd think that would be far more personally rewarding than making your 10,000th post, but to each his own.  I can't recall when I made that many posts, but I do remember that I thought it was amazing that it was true.  If you think about it, that's a hell of a lot of effort if you're not just a one-line shitposter. 

Oh yeah, when I finally hit Legendary I thought that was pretty cool.  I ranked up right at the last possible activity period in the range, and it was right before the merit system was implemented--so I lucked out big time.