It doesn't matter whether it was impossible to fully determine the risk - what matters is that Patrick is responsible for shouldering the risk because nothing in writing stated otherwise. And because Patrick did not fully disclose all of the information that would have made the extent of the risk "common" knowledge, it cannot fall under the "common mistake" rules that you keep coming back to.
I find it particularly telling that he repeats ceaselessly that 1% a week is "the impossible" but completely ignored the obvious point that
the MPBOR is twice that atm.
This is much like saying that paying half the LIBOR is "the impossible" in fiat. BS.
Was Patrick's business model sound or not, in your view? Why do you think his business collapsed?
I mean, heck, payday lenders charge upwards of 900% APR on a one week loan. Which, broken down to a week, equates to what, 2.5% weekly interest rate or so?
They take huge risks, and they know it. And they have the force of law to go after people who don't pay them.
Well yeah. That's why they charge a high interest rate. No one is disputing that high interest rates generally correlate with risky investments. What people are disputing is your insistence that a relatively high interest rate made it obvious that the funds Patrick invested in were investing in Pirate. That is simply not true. If I would have looked at a 1% weekly payout investment prior to the whole pirate debacle, I might have suspected that it was invested in Pirate, but it would have not been at all "obvious" as you claim.
Perhaps you are simply more insightful than the rest of us. But just because something is obvious to you and a handful of other outspoken forum members does not make it obvious to everyone, nor does it make it "common knowledge" of any sort.