Fool me once is alright, but fool me > 100 times is what we're playing now? He could/should/would have at the very least stopped what he was doing years ago were there any intent for honesty in him at any point in time.
OK... But
what if PrimeNumber7 is not Quickseller?I don’t care about the whole argument over whether Quickseller can be forgiven, or by how much.
I
do care about the question of whether an innocent man is being accused here. I want him to have his say, I am trying to tell him that he can clear this up if it’s just a terrible misunderstanding—and it is
not helpful to just repeat the case against Quickseller, which I damn well know. That may not be the case at all here!
Above, I told PrimeNumber7 that you are
rarely mistaken; but “rarely” is not “never”.
Agree to disagree?
Of course. I don't know if it's out of choice or necessity, but it's simultaneously my mantra and my survival mechanism. I am a conservative in
☭ California, after all.
Symbolism and colour are added with my condolences.
I don't think there's any answer that will help PN7: if he says yes, he gets tagged to pieces, and if he says no, people won't believe it. So there's nothing to win and only things to lose.
I don't want to come off like I'm excusing QuickSeller, but I think LoyceLight makes a very valid point.
Actually there is a bit of false equivalence in LoyceV's statement, a rare feat for our resident AI. The possibility that people won't believe a "no" is merely a status quo, no net gain or loss for PN7 as far as I can see. So if that was the truth PN7 should just go ahead and say it.
Unfortunately, it is not merely the status quo: To answer a false charge dignifies it with the credibility of needing an answer; and worse, as I mentioned, there is the danger that innocent words may be twisted and misquoted for “proof” of guilt. For the Americans, “...anything you say can
and will be used against you.”
But this is the Bitcoin Forum, not a police station or courtroom. I will go out on a limb and suggest discounting those factors here.
In so saying, I will speak from experience. As you may
(cough) remember, the anonymous scam_detector initially accused me together with alia. It was a very bad situation for me: I was falsely accused; but due to admittedly less-cautious judgment than I usually exercise, I had unknowningly, almost literally fallen into bed with a scammer. There I was, intimately entangled with a very bad character against whom evidence was rapidly piling up from multiple credible sources—including theymos himself. I knew that I
looked quite guilty.
There was in that case no question of “dignifying” the charge: It was objectively credible, not
proved, but certainly a reasonable suspicion. So I answered the accusations against me, openly and honestly. Nobody coerced me to, or could have. I thought it was the right thing to do.
As a result, a few dozen forum pages later, scam_detector actually
apologized to me for having accused me. I thought that was unnecessary, but I dearly appreciated the courtesy after such a bad day. He did nothing wrong to me; and moreover, the thoroughness of the investigation had the beneficial side effect of dispelling any suspicions which otherwise may have lingered about me.
Although this is in some degree an apples to oranges comparison of very different situations, it is based on this experience that I don’t think I am too naïve in expecting that people here will be
fair. If PrimeNumber7 is
actually innocent, it is to his own benefit to speak up; the problem is to persuade him of that, when it does sound a bit naïve for me to say so. Of course, if he is
actually Quickseller, eh—I probably don’t need to restate my opinion on that point.
In America, the accused is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.
Well, this is not America, much less an American courtroom—much less an American
criminal-law courtroom, where the presumption is innocence until proven guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt (
i.e. “moral certainty”).
I think a reasonable standard is the preponderance of the evidence: A more or less simple balance scale, where one side need only to weigh at least a bit more than the other. If you want to think of it in American legal terms, consider it as if you are being sued in civil court on accusation of Quickselliness—or, to the flipside, you are sick and tired of rumours that you are Quickseller, and you are suing for a declaratory judgment clearing your reputation.
An American civil court has no presumption of innocence, although it does, of course, put the initial burden on the plaintiff to bring a
prima facie case. If you want to think of it in those terms, I do suggest as a practical matter that, given that many high-reputation forum members think you’re guilty, you should step up to affirmatively clear your good name. Although it is very difficult to prove a negative, a “preponderance of the evidence” standard means that for my part, I will be satisfied if you show that you are
more probably than not not-Quickseller (with the understanding that moral certainty either way is practically impossible here, and I will also be satisfied of your guilt if others show you are
more probably than not Quickseller).
Silence is not evidence of guilt,
Agreed. It is zero evidence either way.
eddie13, ok, so you did obliquely refer to Quickseller’s longtime disrepution of the forum to make it revolve around his petty spite.
Thanks for raising this quote; I forgot to address it earlier, in and of itself:
I am unaware of any seriously heinous crimes committed by QS other than not knowing when to put down the shovel to stop one's self from digging a deeper hole..
That implies that the reason to not do wrong is to avoid negative consequences, rather than
because it’s wrong—whereas it’s a “seriously heinous crime” to make
yourself trouble by doing bad things. Although I realize it is a cold reality that
many people avoid wrongdoing only to avoid the consequences (wherefore “deterrence”), it is an exceedingly low standard. Please recalibrate your moral compass.
You were already forgiven long ago.
Thanks for admitting in substantial essence that the hate-Lauda crowd hates Lauda for the sake of hating Lauda, and not because of any past transgressions (real and/or imaginary) which were all “forgiven”.
