[Arm-netbook] EOMA68 / Libre RISC-V team financing

[Sam Huntress]

We all seem to be talking past each other and I fear we may have some
confusion about what a ponzi scheme actually is.

In a ponzi scheme, money is taken from 'investors' under the false pretense
(lie) that it will be used to fund operations with a positive return on
investment when actually that money is just stashed and given back out to
'investors' as a fake 'return' on their 'investment'. This doesn't have to
just be cash payouts, the con (remember, short for the -confidence- they
are trying to steal from you) may include offices or turbines (or just
pictures of these things) to make everything seem more legitimate.

In this case, the investments they claim to be making are almost 100%
traceable and provable. The Bitcoin ledger can be used to see which wallets
all mined bitcoins have gone to and Bitclub can use standard public/private
key signatures to verify that they own one or more of those wallets.

If Bitclub cannot provide this verification then they may not be
technically competent enough to make good investments.

If Bitclub will not provide this verification then they are most likely
lying to their investors.

Given that they already have your money, the best thing to do is hope that
whatever they are running (legitimate or not) holds up long enough for you
to get back what you put in.

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 8:53 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net
> wrote:

> ---
> crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Julie Marchant <onpon4 at riseup.net> wrote:
> > Ugh, did it again. Sorry.
> >
> > On 2017年12月28日 04:13, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> >> it's
> >> too close to the exploitation i've witnessed - and my friend has
> >> recently uncovered clear and blatant evidence of.  mining however is
> >> *completely* different, not least because it, in no way, *actually*
> >> involves actual cash, and it is not directly related to "exchange
> >> rates" or the trading of currencies, at all.
> >
> > So, you're somehow ethically opposed to trading Bitcoin for money, and
> > yet not ethically opposed to trading it for goods? That doesn't make a
> > lick of sense, Luke.
>
>  :)  my understanding of money is different: i take the *intent* of
> the person into consideration, and i am generous with money - when i
> have it - to those people whose *intentions* i believe are worthwhile
> encouraging.
>
>  so in the case of trading bitcoin, most of the *intentions* that
> people are have are for the purposes of explotation.  blatant,
> outright insider trading and pump-and-dump tactics.  there's *clubs*
> you can join where this is carried out.
>
>  therefore, if you *trade* bitcoin, it's basically exploitation of
> somebody else's misfortune.  therefore, i cannot and will not do it.
>
>
> > Money is just a representation of how many goods
> > and services you have produced for others.
>
>  that's one interpretation, and it's one that serves many people
> extremely well.  however... it misses something very very fundamental.
>
> > Economically, there is *no
> > difference* between giving someone Bitcoin for USD and giving someone
> > Bitcoin for food.
>
>  ok... would you deal with a warlord or a mass murderer, trading them
> bitcoin for USD?  would you give an embezzler bitcoin if they asked
> for it saying that they wanted it to pay for food?
>
> > You know what's unethical? Mining Bitcoin. Because as has already been
> > mentioned, mining Bitcoin uses a *ton* of energy,
>
>  ok there's a few things here:
>
>  (1) the reports on which the calculations were based have been shown
> to be flawed
>
>  (2) bitclub run most of their kit out of rekyavijk, iceland, where
> they are currrently sinking geo-thermal vents to power turbines.  also
> cooling is *LITERALLY* free.
>
>  (3) there are instances of people coming up with extremely ingenious
> plans (one guy is recycling - burning - used car tyres) which
> otherwise would *never have been financially viable*
>
> so not only are the reports based on the wrong info, but bitclub *is*
> doing its best to reduce environmental impact,
>
> > and it doesn't
> > actually produce anything in the end.
>
>  this is equally true of any currency.  you can't eat it.  the only
> exception to that was cocoa beans, which the Mayans used as currency.
> great if there was an economic bust as you could *literally* eat your
> money.
>
>  other than that, to say "it doesn't actually produce anything" is to
> fundamentally misunderstand the nature of money.  money is
> EMPOWERMENT.  it is an ENABLER.
>
>
> > Isn't one of the main features of
> > EOMA68 being environmentally responsible? Well, using Bitcoin mining
> > (through a scheme like this, no less) to fund something that is supposed
> > to be environmentally responsible is the height of hypocrisy.
>
>  not at all: quite the opposite.  what do you imagine that i will be
> doing this?  let's go back to Simon Sinek's Ted Talk, and ask "why how
> what" rather than "what how why".
>
>  so let's ask the question: *why* do you think i am doing this?  *why*
> am i leveraging this abbbsolutely ennormous financial opportunity?
>
>  what would it empower me to do?  maybe fund a truly ethical
> peer-to-peer distributed crypto-currency that's truly eco-conscious
> because it's *not* dependent on proof-of-work, perhaps?
>
>  maybe make an ultra-low-power processor that is designed and
> optimised based around that very same crypto-currency?
>
>  maybe fund every software libre project that i've ever promised that
> i would if i ever had the means to, over the past 20 years?
>
>  take the eco-conscious technological plans that i have to the next
> level that they were *always intended to be*?
>
>  ... or....
>
>  should i... *completely abandon* those plans, forget about them,
> maybe think of them as a pipe dream, *waiting* for someone to go,
> "uhhh that's all very well but you're never going to make it a
> reality, not now, not ever"
>
>  should i leave our fate in the hands of google, microsoft, oracle,
> intel, ARM, facebook, and twitta and that FUCKER elon musk who you can
> TELL clearly, with all his hype and talk of going to Mars, you KNOW
> he's given up on Humanity?
>
>  should i?
>
>  i'm asking you - seriously - should i ignore this opportunity and
> everything it represents, with everything that you know about me and
> the promises and committments that i have made, and leave matters in
> the hands of those.... i don't even want to use any kinds of words to
> describe how angry and disgusted i am with how irresponsible they
> truly are, these... "leaders" of technology.
>
>
> > (And yes,
> > it would be funding EOMA68, regardless of whatever kind of weaseling you
> > might do to say it isn't. If you depend on it to work on EOMA68, it's
> > funding EOMA68.)
>
>  yup.  i have no problem with that.
>
> > Just one question: is canceling support for the CrowdSupply campaign an
> > option if you go through with this?
>
>  i'm already going through with it - it was already in motion.
>
>  ok, the answer's conditional.
>
>  (1) if you're part of the 2nd batch you can at any time send
> crowdsupply your order number, cc me, and i'll authorise a refund.
> they have all the funds, stored in their bank account(s).  also, you
> don't need to read further, below.
>
>  (2) if you're part of the 1st batch, that's much more complex: as
> i've outlined many many times, the reputation of the factory is harmed
> if the suppliers do not get the orders that they've been promised; the
> factory workers are harmed because they don't the get jobs that
> they've been promised; it also does harm to the project if the funds
> are below the critical threshold (that they're already at) for buying
> components and much more.  i therefore have to do an analysis to see
> if there is any harm that you intend to do to the project.  it would
> help in my assessment if you make it absolutely clear if it is your
> intention to *actively* do harm to the project.
>
>  so.
>
>  if you are part of the first batch, do you intend to do *active* harm
> to this project if your request for a refund is not met; please kindly
> answer yes or no, if yes, please outline the extent of the damage that
> would be your intent to carry out, if any,, and i will be able to make
> a fully-informed assessment.
>
>  sorry for being blunt, i feel it's best to be absolutely up-front
> about these things.
>
> l.
>
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