Re: Ripple is not a scam - and you may be making yourself vulnerable to actual scams
Ah, so they don't pay you. Somehow, I'm not surprised by that. However, I'm confident you have invested in Ripple, which is the only reason you spent your time trying to prop up this 'investment'.
I am invested in XRP. I said above that looking for a long term investment kept bringing me back to it. I value my investment, and also what Ripple offers to the community directly and in ideas that can be adapted to other systems. Alternatives like eMunie, NXT, Monetas, and MasterCoin are important. BTC and Alts in general are facing severe centralization threats.
Tell me, when did you gain the ability to run a trust node?
If ripple decides to modify their code in a way that the majority disagrees with, how exactly do you think you're going to prevent the 'community' from being forced over?
If ripple decides to modify their code in a way that the majority disagrees with, how exactly do you think you're going to prevent the 'community' from being forced over?
Ripple is open source. Users can reject the changes and push back or fork, just like any crypto currency. Validation is decentralized. If someone wanted to start a modified system, they are able to do so. I actually hope that people spin off portions of the code and general concepts to make other systems more robust.
Allow me to answer my own questions so we don't have to deal with your rambling attempts at deflecting from the real issues: The community does not control trusted nodes (servers, hosts, whatever you want to call them, it's the same damned concept) and you have no power to decide the direction of development.
I think you may be confused. Anyone can become a Validator. Is that what you are referring to?
It may be worthwhile reading this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867324
The fact that you even pretend that the source they have released is of much significance is laughably ridiculous. By your own admission, you must have gotten involved with ripple before you ever even attempted to understand it and looking at the source was apparently the last thing you did.... 
I am not sure what this comment is based on. My knowledge of the code base is growing, and I have acknowledged that. I have been impressed so far. I started investing in Ripple based on the concepts, as well as general interest in crypto currencies. My interest in it has grown more recently, following negative experience with exchanges. After reading about it more, and starting to dig into the source code, I have continued investing.
Oh, I wasn't aware that every proposed change on github is automatically merged... The fact that it can obviously be forked is neither here nor there, simply a statement that the code and basic concept is indeed interesting.
You do not know who is actually running as a public 'validator'. It's still simple consensus, and the majority is most likely represented by those who have something to gain by following the direction set by those who used to be known as 'opencoin'. I still consider that dubious, but the process is not significantly different from bitcoin and the rest.
However, it's true that I was not aware of the release of the rippled source specifically, that seems to be a fairly recent development. https://github.com/ripple/rippled/ (also included by proxy in your original post but I consider it to be the most significant part by far)
Anyways, I hope someone will make use of the provided code and concepts without the mostly unnecessary 'premine' (I understand that XRP does not exist solely to line the devs pockets). I expect it would gain significant interest on it's own merit, no bribes necessary.