SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the convert-it-to-libra-coin-if-course dept.
The bitcoin scam worked — almost too well. In 2012, back when almost no one had heard of the digital coin, he’d started modestly, asking people he found on the dark web for $200 or $300 worth of bitcoin as a way to test out his investment scheme. He told them he could exploit the then huge price differences between various bitcoin exchanges and promised huge rewards. But once they sent the funds, he vanished into the ether to find his next stooge.
There was a certain genius criminal irony to it: He would hype an untraceable anonymous digital currency, then get paid in it.
[...] But he had a problem. It was getting harder to turn the most overhyped currency since the tulip into actual cash.
[...] All of this means that people like our guy who are very rich on paper (or, more accurately, on the blockchain) must devise highly complex methods to convert their ill-gotten gains, or risk losing quite a bit of value, said Tom Robinson, co-founder of the blockchain analytics company Elliptic. “Funds from illicit activities are just lying dormant, and they are waiting to find effective means of cashing out,” he said.
Yet if we know anything about criminals, it’s that they’re resourceful. As financial institutions and regulators the world over grapple with bitcoin’s adaptation to mainstream use, some of these criminals have devised ingenious hacks for converting their money; still others are turning to alternative coins as they seek greater privacy for their transactions and to stay ahead of the law.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:21PM (8 children)
Dude.
Look, I'm gonna get real here, as part of the old dude club that's been around for at least a few centuries.
I'm going to be honest with you, Aristarchus -- you were one of the original reasons I actually stuck around on this site, started reading it, and started contributing in comments and sometimes submissions (though I haven't done the last one in a while). In the midst of right-wing lunatics and trolls, you were a voice of occasional reason and insight, as well as lot of humor and wackiness (some of which tended to go so "meta" or get so random that I didn't bother to engage).
But you were one of the few foils to the predominant voices here. And now you've gone on this crusade for god knows how long of submitting insane rants that you KNOW will NOT be accepted, because they barely make sense (due to your attempts at randomness) and generally contain a huge amount of personal rant.
Look, I appreciate the kind of "aesthetic" you're going for. Sincerely. And there's a lot of smart stuff in what you say too. Unfortunately, it's being lost and neglected because you don't want to write vaguely reasonable submissions. Let the alt-right BS speak for itself. You can link to it and point it out, and many reasonable people will see the insanity there without your unhinged commentary. And if you even want to put your unhinged commentary in, submit a reasonable story, and then post an unhinged comment. I'd actually find that amusing sometimes. But what you're doing now is actually getting your message suppressed -- and for good reason. I don't want to read your bullshit in a submitted story anymore than I want to hear Khallow's or Mr. Buzzard's bullshit commentary. The submission is for drawing attention to news (or published professional commentary on news or whatever) -- then you get to spew whatever you want in comments.
I truly, truly would like to hear more from you. I want to see more of the kinds of things you sometimes submit. But the tone of a majority of your submissions is just not appropriate. I'm not an editor, but even though I'm often sympathetic to your rants, I too would reject your submissions on most occasions. And it's too much to ask volunteer editors here to edit out your nonsense just to get down to the relatively reasonable core of the submission.
I'll sympathize with you and say that sometimes people on this site make me incredibly angry. And on rare occasions, I have vented outrage at them, usually feeling very bad about it afterward. I try to keep things relatively civil and to keep rhetorical BS to places where it's appropriate (usually only in responding to other comments that already are using rhetorical BS).
You can choose what you want to do with your life. But be aware that there are some of us who appreciate your wit and intellect and would actually like to see you try to "behave" a bit so we could see your thoughts and submissions brought to the community's attention more often. But your current strategy isn't working, nor do I approve of it.
And I'll admit that I don't generally pay much attention to the subs queue, and I've only recently started really reading people's journals. If there's actual evidence that you've submitted reasonable submissions and they've been repeatedly rejected, show me -- because I want to know that, and I'll go to bat for you if you are being unfairly bullied. But right now, you are coming across as senile and unhinged.
I'll just leave you with some words of one of your elders (Heraclitus): σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαΐοντας.
Cheers, my friend.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:48PM (7 children)
Just a taste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:36PM (4 children)
"Right" socialists vs "left" socialists. It is the same socialist shit that assumes the government is on your side.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:57PM (3 children)
In America, they have this document. It begins, "We, the people, ". In America the government is the people. Who are you and what country do you live in, where your government is so anti-social?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:01PM (2 children)
I am Donald Trump, I live in the White House, USA.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:16PM (1 child)
Ah, that would explain your lack of knowledge of the structure of American Constitutional Government. Truly, Sir, is there nothing that you do not not know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:22PM
Yes, I do not know how the Clinton r
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:55PM (1 child)
Well, I obviously can't see the rejected ones. I just looked in the subs queue, and the only one I saw sitting there was the one on Pepe, which contains an offensive statement in quotation marks that's inserted as editorial commentary (not from the cited article), at least one misspelling, and then concludes with some random BS rambling.
If I were a volunteer editor, I wouldn't want to have clean up that crap. Sorry, man, but act like an adult and write reasonably (or just leave the personal commentary out completely), and I bet more of your submissions will get published.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21 2019, @08:20PM
Not ari but I submitted a few stories about the alt-right with no vitriol and just a copy of the intro paragraphs for the summary. Always rejected. This is about political bias more than anything, and besides it would be quite simple for editors to actually, you know, edit?
I will acknowledge that recently the main stories have been much more neutral. I also maintain that the front page could be easily updated to be more customizable by users and allow more submissions by having groupings, hidden summaries, all sorts of possibilities. Update submission rules a bit, kind of like a Code of Conduct *tweak the beak*, and then most stories could be published.
No one wants to discuss ways of making the site more community oriented though, just more deflecting criticisms.