The following points in relation to all of the PPT operators (and GLBSE operators too) shall be considered:
- have they managed a proxy for an opaque investment that has exhibited all the classical signs of a ponzi scheme?
- have they profited from prolongation and proliferation of a ponzi scheme?
- have they owed a duty of care and fiduciary duty to anyone who gave them money?
- have they provided adequate risk disclosures?
- have they implied at any time that pirate is not operating a ponzi scheme?
- have they implied at any time that they know some magical/secret biz model behind pirate operation?
- have they implied at any time that they know true identity of pirate?
- have they promoted investment into and lent credibity (or false credibility) to a ponzi scheme in any way?
- ought they to know better?

I personally have ALL PPT operators on my shit list permanently. Which means that I will do my best to avoid doing any business with those people myself and will encourage all my associates to avoid doing any business with those people and I will refuse to be a member of any organisation or association which also has any of those people as members.

But that's just me, your mileage may vary.

for what it worth:

Theoretically even while it could have been a ponzi all along, it is possible to convert it into some sort of securities fraud (devaluing and buying own debt by proxy) and/or coming up with money needed to pay out and roll it over into even bigger ponzi scam.

That would be a logical fallacy of bifurcation to suggest that there are only two possibilities: either ponzi OR paying out all debts now.

Vladimir drops everything else and resumes work on proper digital edition. No seriously.

in response to sails, ships and printed magazines: http://bitcoinmagazine.net/advertise-with-us/

Shill Management 101

@BinaryMage: all good points.



I understand it was mostly use of Occam's razor and "celectial teapot" argument that effectively shifted burden of proof to pirate et al. Until such proof is provided it seems to be reasonable to treat the scheme as a poinzi.


This obviously spices up the thread and takes away some purity. On the other hand, simply quoting usual examples, would make my post a trivial restatement of usual sources. The post itself was based on argument posted elsewhere about the pirate affair, and we can squarely blame my laziness and corners cutting for not coming up with pure and abstract post.

google "world's ugliest bitcoin rig"

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=241961,00.html
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4684.pdf

Silver lining and all that....

It appears that US residents can claim ponzi scheme losses as theft and get it written off taxes.

png images were a bit too fancy perhaps, simplified now. I cannot reproduce the error unfortunately.

Hmm I might have been mistaken there. It is supposed to actually be not a giant teapot but a regular sized or maybe even a tiny one. Giant teapot we would have likely spotted somehow.

This is based on my post on page 57 of some obscure thread and I am reposting it here as it was suggested in hope that someone will find it useful.

The level of discussion in this forum is appalling. It seems most people are either unable or unwilling to hold a civil and reasonable discussion. Let me give you some details and examples. Some of those are based on recent massive pirate related trolling campaign which I will use in my examples. Please note that even while my examples may refer mostly to the pirate affair (a popular topic at this time) the same low quality of argument is endemic. Perhaps we are indeed entering "eternal september" state.

Brief background is that user pirateat40 made an extraordinary claim that he has some kind of biz model that is producing >3400% APR AND that it is reasonable for him to buy capital at ~3400 APR% AND that his biz model is not a ponzi. Moreover he has taken deposits/money in rather significant amounts based on that claim directly and via intermediaries/partners/employees/etc.

The pirateat40's opponents have called this BS and reasonably  asserted that pirate is running a ponzi scheme based on logical reasoning and common sense.

Pirate and his shills, supporters, lieutenants and captives went on offensive employing every logical fallacy in the book (many of them anyway).

Let's just list some of fallacies that have been routinely used and/or likely will be used shortly by team "pirate, the miracle worker" (and by other community members on other topics too, of course):

Ad hoc:
  "pirate paid 1 account, hence he will pay all accounts", "pirate paid N weeks on time, hence he will continue paying on time" etc...

Anecdotal evidence:
  "we had a dinner with pirate, therefore he is not anonymous"

Argumentum ad baculum:
  "you say something against pirate, you get paid last"

Argumentum ad crumenam:
  "pirate has NNNNNN BTC, therefore he is right", "I bet NNNNNNN BTC, therefore I am right (or ballsy), you did not bet therefore you shut up"

Argumentum ad hominem:
  attacking opponents personally and on various unrelated matters, like their own businesses, bets they have or not have placed etc...

Argumentum ad ignorantiam:
  "Of course the Bible is true. Nobody can prove otherwise.", "pirate is not a ponzi because nobody can prove otherwise", "there is a giant teapot orbiting the sun, because nobody can prove otherwise". This also includes "shifting the burden of proof", btw.

Argumentum ad misericordiam:
  "I did not murder my mother and father with an axe! Please don't find me guilty; I'm suffering enough through being an orphan.", "I lost so much money on ponzi and stupid bets, I am suffering enough, do not tell me that I am guilty of promoting and conspiring in a ponzi scheme and a scammer"

Argumentum ad nauseam:
  ohh yea repeat utter BS until any reasonable person tells you "nuff off, no point to talking to you", nauseating it is indeed.

Argumentum ad numerum:
  "so many people invested in that, they cannot be all wrong"

Argumentum ad verecundiam:
  (Appeal to authority, false authority in this case): "Pirates's lieutenants and shills say they know him, and he has a magical biz model and it is not a ponzi, it must be so then"

Bifurcation:
  "if pirate pays all accounts now, he is not running a ponzi" (That is an interesting one, think about it)

Fallacy of presupposition:
  demanding an explanation of something that is not true or has not been established

Ignoratio elenchi:
  illogically concluding that some set of usually fallacious arguments support the desired conclusion

Non causa pro causa:
  "pirate has defaulted because his opponents were posting that he is running a ponzi"

Non sequitur:
  "pirate pays 7%, therefore he has some miracle biz model making lots of money and it is totally possible"

Petitio principii:
  "pirate is not running a ponzi, because he pays dividends, and must have some underlying biz model, and therefore he is not running a ponzi"

Plurium interrogationum:
  demanding a simple answer to a complex question.

Red herring:
  "some copies of bitcoin magazine were delivered late, therefore pirate is not running a ponzi"

Shifting the burden of proof (again):
  "pirate has claimed that he is not running a ponzi and that he needs to buy capital at 3000% APR and that he has some underlying biz model other than paying capital back as dividend and asked and received lots of money, now you need to prove that he is not running a ponzi."

Straw man:
  (happens ~10 times in every thread.) miscquote your opponent than attack his, taken out of context or misrepresented, opinion. Works especially well with typos and grammar/spelling mistakes.

Tu quoque:
  "you attacked me ad hominem, I will respond with ad hominem too."

I might have misunderstood some logical fallacies, missed some or gave not reasonably good examples. You are more than welcome to post in this thread and improve on what I have said above.

Persistent and pervasive abuse of all the logical fallacies is so annoying that continuing any serious discussion amounts to utter waste of time, not intellectually stimulating and often simply aggravating.

May I respectfully suggest the community to gently ostracise any member who blatantly abuses logical fallacies either intentionally or due to ignorance. No need to do anything harsh but maybe ignoring such a member or replying by citing the logical fallacies that were abused and, if feeling generous, including an appropriate wikipedia link to educate ignorant ones. Or just place link to this thread in your reply and let em figure out on their own what went wrong.

There is no point whatsoever to continue any discussion with anyone after a logical fallacy has been deployed by this person. The argument is invalid and should be discarded simply because it is utter nonsense.

Some logical fallacies are considered to be more abusive than others, specifically such as ad hominem, tu quoque, ad baculum, straw man, red herring, ad nauseam. These ones probably deserve more harsh reaction than others.


For your reference:

Just google name of any logical fallacy and you will get plenty of resources explaining it in depth. Wikipedia is particularly great with this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_teapot
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

example of an excellent retort:

to what ends?

http://gavintech.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/neutralizing-51-attack.html
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Attacks#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power


Basically 51% attack is going to be a buying opportunity of a lifetime. Even I under such circumstances would likely get some dry power into exchanges and buy me some bitcoins (for the first time ever).

This is simply a result of sudden silence (almost) of shills. They are not paid for working weekends or something? Or not paid anymore at all maybe?

51% attack is not that trivial. We all would just patch our clients and abandon his block chain fork.

For comparison at this time only about 7200 BTC is produced per day by all miners combined.

Can your mining rigs do this?


sorry could not help myself.
 

IANAL and depends on jurisdiction obviously. But there is case law suggesting that  posts on forums like this are more likely to be slander than libel and that one cannot libel against an anonymous or even semi-anonymous forum nick.

Tentatively, pub tour will be organised in the evening on 17th.