Re: Mattew N. Wright still passing off a scam in the past as just a "prank"
How this guy isn't banned is beyond me. The community is asking for it.
You contradicted yourself there. The community *was* asking for it, and they got it (albeit not a smart thing to do). The level of scams and trust to strangers at that time in the forum was insane. The stunt that I pulled was to show that no matter who you trust, an escrowless bet with an internet stranger is the epitomy of stupid. I went out of my way to make it painfully clear to everyone that "I cannot tell a lie", and other textbook scammer claims, and people still went on blind faith. I even raised the maximum bets allowed to give the same people a chance and it backfired because they only took it more seriously. What I did was stupid, the *wrong* way to "teach a lesson" (which TradeFortress is now learning as well) and I regret having gone down that path.
As for being banned, I've been banned many times, for many reasons, never created a sock puppet account to subvert the ban and always took it seriously as a reflection of myself, corrected myself, and came back to work harder, troll less, and do more "good". My intention is to have a net positive effect on the community and to get these ideas out of my head and working before I die. If my childish games have taught me a lesson to be more serious, and I understand what is expected of me, why would you attempt to rob me of the chance to make up for my mistakes by banning and ignoring? Have you never made a mistake? Do you not believe in reform? Do you think anyone who has been to jail before should be forced to stay there forever? Do you not realize that sometimes people's biggest mistakes are the defining point in their life before they go on to do great things? How about instead of mocking the person I was, you inquire as to the person I strive to be? Or, you and a few others on this forum could just post your life history as I have always done openly and let's see what petty, superficial criticisms we can come up with to make blanket judgements on your character.
I'm not the same person I was when I posted that bet. I was completely disconnected from reality. Thanks everyone here who has had their share of mistakes for cluing me into the real world, and to everyone else who wastes a breath trying to slow me down, I'll be happy to drive you crazy by simply continuing on a path of learning and experience. Enjoy the show I guess.
What is beyond me is how you can still say that your bet was a "prank" to "show people a lesson about escrow". That point should be enough for you to keep indefinitely your scammer tag.
Why? Because it's BS. You thought Pirate was legit, and in fact you said many times that "he may be doing something we do not understand, but I think he is legit", I remember that. Thus, you really thought that Pirate was not a ponzi (you said it in many posts), so there's no way you were going "to teach the community a lesson", because you really thought you had chances to win that bet. If you wished to "teach a lesson", you would have created a bet that you had no chances to win (and with a complete different wording and terms), and this is not the case at all.
Your post history proves that you really thought Trendon was legit, so you are either lying to yourself to maintain the delusion that you are smarter than everybody else, or you are just laughing at us all. Honestly, I think it's the first option, which is a pity, because the real step forward for you would be to admit your real mistake: you thought you would have made big money because you thought you were much smarter than everybody else, but when you realized you were going to lose you just decided to chicken out because you did not want to spend the rest of your life paying people what you owe them.
Saying over and over yours was just a "prank" to "teach a lesson" just proves you are not really sorry about what you did, and that you are avoiding to really face the gravity of your default (because it was so obvious it was a prank... Right?).
That's what makes me mad at you, not the fact that you defaulted, but that you are looking for shortcuts to avoid facing the harsh truth - and doing that in front of yourself is more important than doing it in front of the community.
Until you don't do that, for me you will still be an untrustworthy, mentally unbalanced child.