Your right, it is just sad. But it happens to us all at some point.

My real theory is a botched hijacking that ended in the ocean.

I do not support any reversibility other than voluntary return. Any thing like that would surely lead to exploits that make things even worse. Buyer beware is brutal, but fair.

Most of the scamming that I see here is very easy to avoid. People seem to have forgotten how to look out for themselves and think someone else is protecting their financial interest. Welcome to freedom and her bitch of a sister responsibility.

It already is reversible. As long as the counter-party agrees, they can send the money back to you.   

I'm not saying it's aliens...But,... It's aliens. 

Oh yes, we wouldn't want any corruption in the Mexican banking system. 

A world without war would be a better world. I wish we could do that.

Can I guess what you are reading? Is it the Koran?  

I have no real expertise on this, but I don't think you can receive CNY from an exchange unless you have a Chinese bank account. If you went to China and bought a stack of yuan then brought it home it may be very hard to sell outside of China. Depending on how much it appreciates it may still be worth it.
I find it hard to see how China might back it's currency with gold. The problem is that there is not enough gold to do that without radically raising the price of gold. In that case China makes many other countries more wealthy than they make themselves, for example their rival India. So even if it is true you would be better off buying gold, since you can sell it worldwide.

Google "steggo or steganography". For every million dollar security idea there is a $10 countermeasure.   

Those are the things I look at. So many people get sidetracked with "Gox did this or that" or "MOSAD is taking over bitcoin!". Let them play out their fantasy. You and me will clean their clock at the exchanges when they trade on fear and rumor. 
Is bitcoin still the fastest, safest, and cheapest way to send money anywhere? As long as the answer is yes, I'm in!

Do you have a Chinese bank account or a way to get CNY for a private sale? If your not Chinese it may be very hard to do. Unlike dollars it is not really used outside of China. It is also not backed by gold or anything, forget about backed currency. Perhaps in the future CNY will be more desirable than USD, but many Chinese nationals horde dollars.

Well you can't expect them to risk their business over this. I see their point about it being close enough that it might go over the threshold. I also see yours that it apparently did not go over. But if I were in their shoes I might risk loosing a customer to be sure I survive an audit.
Could you cancel and buy less at a few places?

Hi and welcome. Also, sorry for your future loss of investment money.

But seriously. Until you can fully explain Satoshi's white paper follow these principals.
DO NOT buy anything except bitcoin at full market price. Do not buy shares, or alt-coins, don't participate in schemes to double your coins or believe in a promise of big earnings. These things are diversions and are almost always scams.

Perhaps your over thinking this a bit. Why not just move your wallet.dat file to a USB stick and then restart bitcoin-QT? When it restarts it will create a new empty wallet. Use that empty wallet to stay synced with the network. When you want to spend, put your full wallet back and restart qt.
This way your BTC has little exposure to the internet but you are constantly synced. That seems way less risky than downloading a program to help with your bitcoins. There are almost no programs I would trust unless I download the source code and compile it myself.
Lastly, why on Earth would you sell at a loss? That makes no sense whatsoever as you are locking in your losses. Why not put your wallet.dat file in a bank until you have a better plan. The worse that can happen is a loss, which you seem committed to anyway.  It is, IMO, more likely that you will see profits in the future. But it's your money.  And don't sell your coins, spend them. It is a hell of a lot easier and you will get more value for them than a sale for fiat.
Cheers M8

wow, 25% think bitcoin has less than a 10% chance of succeeding? I thought it had succeeded when it reached parity with the dollar.  I'm utterly floored at how far we have come in just a few years. This is happening so much faster than the last time people said "It won't work, It's to complicated and it will be banned by the government."

Glad I didn't listen then either. Instead I went with my gut and started investing in this "silly geek toy". Perhaps you have even heard of the Internet?

EDIT: I see that the numbers are changing.

So much big talk, so little knowledge. Op, don't listen to people who just found out about bitcoin and think they know something.

@Beef Supreme Let me attempt to actually answer your question. There is a lack of diversity in the bitcoin economy and in the foundation. I hope that as it becomes more mainstream and easier that more women and other groups will come in.
But white folks, nor anyone else is in charge of bitcoin. No mater your race, you have to compete on price just like everyone else. It is also not true that this is somehow the rich getting richer. That is what is happening in the world economy and in the US, based on fiat currency. No other currency offers a poor person in Africa the chance to directly compete with the super-rich. Besides. Your only looking at English speakers. In all but a few countries whiteness does not even compute.
If you have any ideas about how to increase bitcoin use by underrepresented groups please post them. It is a solvable problem.

I don't think any of us have to worry. This can be mitigated by the much greater probability that there is pirate gold buried in your backyard. The chances of a treasure chest in your yard from a privateer must be many times greater than an encryption collision. So relax, if your key is generated by another peer you can just start looking for the treasure.

Miners will make their money from fees for transmission by then. They will be more of a payment processor than a miner, but will still keep the network up.

I don't see how it's sensible to replace his unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with another. Why does it have to be a grand secret plan? Cops learn that 99.999% of the time the motive is greed, love or the approval of others. 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Those are all good ones. Right now I carry a Kahr K9 elite. I really don't need another EDC, so I might go for a service pistol size range gun. I have never owned a 1911 but when set up correctly they are such a good gun to shoot. You almost can't beat it for point-ability.
I would love to have a criticism of Glock because they just don't appeal to me. However you can't argue with success. Glocks are a proven gun that just works.
So many choices.
 

1. not sure about bitstamp. It is possible to manipulate the price somewhat. But I don't see how it could be done on all exchanges.
2. Hard to gauge, maybe your right.
3. True that!
4. true that also!
5. Mining may just move to a place where electricity is cheap or shutdown until demand demands it restart at a higher price. Gold mines are like that.
6. Then someone also just bought massive amounts of mining equipment.  

You might notice that I don't totally disagree with some of your claims. I just don't believe any of us can predict the future much.