I will not yet address any of the evidence about PrimeNumber7. I should examine it later; but frankly, I have thus far avoided it, for reasons that should soon become clear.
I will therefore only address the points raised in this thread thus far—starting with my general observation of a forest that has been missed whilst scrutinizing trees.
For my part, I would be very concerned about PrimeNumber7’s identity if he starts trading under that name, or worse, running an escrow service. I am also concerned any potential use of alts by Quickseller for DT-influence purposes (as, upon information and belief, I suspect that he has done before).
But otherwise...
If Quicksy wants to express his general opinions or engage in technical discussions without weighing his words under the baggage of a deservedly ruined reputation, and if he wants that so much that he’s willing to expend great effort to build a high-reputation account from scratch, then I would not knee-jerk shoot that down. Anonymous or pseudonymous publication is often used exactly for the reason of divorcing an opinion from its author’s reputation—thus encouraging objectivity, and avoiding inappropriate
ad hominem arguments (or avoiding inappropriate appeals to authority, for authors with a high reputation, as was done with “Publius” and the American
Federalist Papers).
That is an important principle, with a long and important political history; the ideals of cypherpunks as to anonymity and identity are only the latest installment in that history. And if I try to think of valid reasons for an undisclosed alt account, that comes up at approximately #2 on an extremely short list. (#1 being for people living under tyrannical régimes to do potentially dangerous political activism, while still maintaining a “normal” identity—and #3 being those
mysterious sock accounts which occasionally bust huge scams.)
I speak mostly as to opinions about technology, society, politics, etc. However, more generally, we also recently saw a concrete example of what happens when Quickseller-stench clouds a discussion about an unrelated topic. Quickseller raised a flag on an odious scam account, and explained his flag with arguments which were objectively correct. Lauda had sufficient objectivity to see this, and supported the flag despite being perhaps Quickseller’s very worst
Evil Nemesis on the forum. A flamewar promptly ensued, wherein smart people whom I otherwise respect were reaching for patently absurd arguments to rationalize opposition to the flag. I cannot imagine any reason for that, other than desire to oppose Quickseller himself. I don’t want to potentially restart that tempest in a teapot by linking the thread; I think everybody posting here knows what I refer to.
If an unknown Quickseller alt had raised that flag, would the reactions have been the same? I think not!
Now, generalize that problem to encompass PrimeNumber7’s involvement in discussions of politics and technology.
If Quicky is trying to get in on a plum signature campaign, I think that’s a matter for the sole discretion of the campaign manager. Bring your evidence to the campaign manager’s attention. I usually have no opinion about how someone else runs his business, as long as it’s not producing spam or promoting scams.
I think the best campaign managers will know how to best weigh any factors that may affect their own reputations and their clients’ reputations, if things go wrong and the whole thing blows up in their faces. They are not newbies; and they should know as well as I do what may happen if a Quickseller alt with a new face turns over a new leaf, then later suddenly reverts to the same old behaviour that made him historically the forum’s most-distrusted user.
Silence is best proof you can get.
Not so. In the general case, “but so-and-so did not deny it!” is a
classic Quickselling fallacy. Although it may not be fallacious
in the face of compelling evidence plus the absence of any possible good-faith motive to ignore a charge, silence
qua silence is weak evidence at best, and certainly not the “best proof”.
This is not to suggest that PrimeNumber7 should not reply; I wish he would. I just can’t help but remember that there are so many accusations I myself have never explicitly denied,
e.g.:Nullius' knowledge about blockchain science and cryptography is a dead giveaway. His arrogance is a dead giveaway. He is an alt-account of a member who was here long before Bitcoin was even talked about in the mainstream. [...]
He could even be Satoshi.
nullius is lauda. That is very clear. Anyone who does not see this is simply closing their eyes.
He moved on. The account he was as posting from was not his first not by a long shot and likely won’t be his last.
There are many potential good-faith reasons for a policy of neither confirming nor denying alt-identity accusations which are actually false. I am
not saying that PrimeNumber7 actually has such a reason: Rather, I simply say that his silence should be discounted, and should not be a factor affecting one’s judgment either way when examining hard evidence.
I was just wondering why this relative noob would care so much about this campaign, and why did they think they knew the forum rules so well?
I also couldn’t help but notice that exactly this form of argument has been thrown at me many times by Quickseller and others. It is not evidence; and smart, meticulous people should not be punished for being smart and meticulous.
In my case, I was on-and-off casually lurking for years before I created an account; and before I started posting, I devoted quality time to reading old threads to find the lay of the land. As a result, as of today, people tend to not even realize that I am still a relative n00b on the forum. (Activity level gives a hint.)
Did PrimeNumber7 do similarly? That is a sincere question, not a rhetorical expression of opinion.
I'm a firm believer in giving people second chances and if my hunch is correct that's what I think QS is trying to accomplish with PN7. [...]
Forgiveness is noble, forgetfulness is foolish.
I disagree with that. I never forget; and I don’t forgive, if somebody’s actions were so despicable that I adjudge him to be
a bad person (
i.e., I judge him personally and not only judge his actions).
Although I am not generally in agreement with him, I think that C. S. Lewis said it best when he argued that “[the] essential act of Mercy was to pardon; and pardon in its very essence involves the recognition of guilt and ill-desert in the recipient.... As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice”. (
The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, 1949.)
Really, please, reframe the question in terms not of “forgiveness”, but of pardon: Is Quickseller worthy of a pardon?
Really!?If you want to be merciful, save your pardons for the
rare instances in which basically good people make errors in judgment that contradict their general characters. Not for someone who was caught red-handed in rank dishonesty, even outright theft (self-escrow is theft by deception of escrow fees!), and then subsequently spent years
remorselessly waging a personal vendetta against those who had the least tolerance for his criminality.
Leopards don’t change their spots. Good people are still fallible mortals, who may occasionally foul up. If they make a serious error in judgment, they will pay
the price of serious consequences; but they still are who they are, and the concept of pardon exists for a reason. Bad people may sometimes put on their best behaviour, after years of getting whipped bloody in their attempts to get revenge for being caught. Either way, all feel-good fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding, it is very rare, arguably impossible, for the character of a person to actually change.
I have recently noticed from Quickseller himself a pattern of behaviour which, at its surface, suggests that he may be trying to “turn over a new leaf”. But of course, it is exactly the same pattern of behaviour which would be shown by a longtime scammer who finally admits to himself that he lost the old game, and thus starts up a new long con to inveigle his way back into people’s good graces. Which is by far more probable?
See above. And Quickseller is certainly shrewd enough to pull off a long con; much though I have sometimes ridiculed him, I do not underestimate him!
If this assessment seems harsh, well—that is the problem with being criminal: You lose people’s trust, and you can never get it back. More importantly, it is the criminal’s problem, not mine or yours. If he suffers the long-term natural consequences of his own dishonesty, then that is his just deserts; and nobody should feel sorry for him. (Interestingly, PrimeNumber7 has made some posts which lead me to think that
he does not approve of bleeding-heart liberal policies; perhaps he may agree with me here?)
At this juncture, I think it’s warranted to point out that the infamous self-escrow scam hasn’t been the only reason to distrust Quickseller. Although he’s an order of magnitude smarter than the typical shill (
a low standard = “faint praise”), he used to spout vicious nonsense as if he just bumbled over here from /r/btc,
e.g.:It looks like Peter Todd maliciously published information about a bug/exploit that had just been fixed in BU.
Very possible.
Now that BU is gaining serious momentum, Core is pulling out all the stops and resorting to dirty tricks. They are terrified of losing control.
When Mike Hern rage-quit Bitcoin development a while ago, there was real momentum to raise the max block size, and get away from what the Blockstream core devs wanted -- the roundtable consensus agreement (or whatever it was called) was designed to pour cold water on that movement. However with it being very clear that blockstream and their core devs had no intentions of following through on their obligations to that agreement, the miners now do not trust the blockstream core devs anymore, and are moving to alternate implementations. It seems that blockstream is trying other tactics to pour cold water on this movement too.
I have not yet read many of PrimeNumber7’s posts. Has he commented on the fork wars and BSV,
i.e. the logical continuation of a long-term attack on Bitcoin that began not later than 2015?
What some of you guys seem to refuse to accept is that a super majority of people are naive, slaves, sheep. This is reality, fact, indisputable. No amount of education and "let them learn the hard way" will fix this inherent nature of most of humanity. Therefore, I choose an active deterrent rather than praying and hoping for the best. Standing by and watching harm that I could have prevented be inflicted to users makes me no better than the perpetrator.
Well said.
I do
not propose to “give a second chance” to Quickseller, much less to attempt the fool’s errand of deterring potential wolves by educating masses of sheep. (I make the obvious metaphor with due apologies to wolves, noble creatures unlike human criminals.)
If (
if) it is adequately proved that PrimeNumber7 is Quickseller, then this is an unusual case that will require wise judgment indeed, to proactively prevent the new account from ever doing what its owner did with the old account—
without preventing the new account from being used merely to engage in rational discussions without
ad hominem attacks where there is no potential for fraud,
if that is what the new account actually does.
Life is complicated, people are complicated, and potentially shutting PrimeNumber7 up on grounds of alleged Quickselliness may be an error in judgment. This is a subtle,
unusually complicated case, and should be treated accordingly.
I must also observe that such handling will not set a dangerous precedent, or make any loopholes for more ordinary cases. How many scammers build a clean Sr. account with high earned merit before anybody even notices? If PrimeNumber7 is Quickseller, I believe that this is the first time such a thing has happened; and it will probably be the last such instance seen for a very long time, perhaps the last ever.
