Thank you everyone for all the input, I think there's a lot of good input here.

I will make a few bulletpoints to clarify my position:

- I don't think MtGox is 'too big to fail'.
- I agree personal responsibility is #1, and I see it's very common in society today for many not to realize this.
- I'm not asking for anyone to 'bail' MtGox out.
- I'm not asking for a blockchain fork or otherwise a technical solution involving the blockchain/bitcoin.

And I'm pretty sure everyone that has been burnt by holding any significant amount of money at MtGox by now pretty well understand that what they did was foolish..

While all your input makes logical sense, how do you expect all people to become sharp and sophisticated? Do we want Bitcoin to become mainstream, or do we want it to be some kind of niche thing?

Most inventions that has become mainstream has been made so that you do not need to know the underlying technology, and you don't need to be sophisticated to use it. Although most people in 'Development & Technical Discussion' at bitcointalk.org probably are rather smart and intelligent, that's not true for the majority of the population. And it never will be.

Sure, education is good, but at what cost? Although I'm leaning to the camp of personal responsibility, and I'm not emotionally involved in MtGox because my losses were negligible (I saw the MtGox demise coming like a boat drifting towards a river fall for a long time - and that's without trying to sound like a smart ass), I don't think those naive enough to invest with MtGox deserves their huge losses.

I am not sure about all the rest of you, technical minded males are not often the ones with the most amount of compassion, but I genuinely feel sorry for those that have their lifes affected to a serious degree. There might be suicides, relations that are ruined, opportunities that will be lost. Cynically if anyone kills themselves over this, or if their relationship shatters to pieces, ultimately they do have themselves to blame. And a cynic could point to someone killing him self for whatever reason that this is only nature cleaning up the gene pool, that person failed and will not bring forward his genes.

It's easy not to care about someone you don't know. They're distant, their lifes doesn't affect you. What if it was your friend, what if it was your spouse, your daughter or your son? Maybe you would've been so involved in their lives already that you advise them in all matters, and help them not make mistakes, and what if there was a major mistake on their part - and you would suffer yourself. Then shit just got real.

I'm not saying that we should have a society where we need to lead everybody by the hand at that all errors should be wiped out without pain, what I'm saying is that we should have a society where those having the knowledge, resources and wisdom to help those less fortunate.

For instance, once there was a small girl coming knocking on the window of our living room. My wife opened the door and wondered what it was all about. This girl was terrified and frozen up. It was icy cold outside. She had originally been on a trip with a horse, the horse had bolted away, and she was confused to as where she was, she had agreed to meet her father at a designated meeting point, but now she was emotionally upset, didn't think clearly, was hungry and tired and desperate.

The cynic could've closed the door and said: Well, people who are not smart enough to take responsibility for their own actions deserve to face the consequences.

Her father did an error for letting her be alone out in the cold weather like that, she might've done an error making the horse get away and so on. There were a whole line of fuckups, but this girl was young and inexperienced, and the father probably didn't think this would happen.. Call them stupid, deserving or whatever..

But we took our car, and drove the girl to the designated meeting point. The father was a total wreck, and there was also a police car there, and they thanked us, and we went home. We did the right thing. We acted in a morally and ethically right way, although we did not have a legal obligation to help that girl. We were simply humans. Humans mostly operates in groups and helps each other.

Now, turning this to Bitcoin. While people need to be aware of their personal responsibilities, a lot of people trust in authority. In the bitcoin world, people who have prominent positions, or make themselves into prominent persons have a larger responsibility than others. If you vouch for a bitcoin business, people will trust you and put their money there.

When the Bitcoin Foundation has MtGox as a gold member, and does not kick them out before far too late, that's also one way to give them credibility and instill trust in normal people, or the sheep, as many would call them.

One could say that every person investing with MtGox is 100% responsible for what they do, and they are. And the fuckup of MtGox's part, be it incompetence, fraud or both is 100% MtGox's responsibility.

In the same breath I think it's the foundations responsibility, and likewise the responsibility of all other known persons in the bitcoin community to not vouch for or to prop up MtGox when they simply don't can't know that they're solvent and running well. At best, when the Bitcoin Foundation does not set up a big warning and kick them out for being Gold Members when problems keep surfacing, and they (Gox) show no sign to improve their act even after repeated requests, negligence is the only word that I can think to come by.

This is not a blame game. It's not The foundations fault that people invested with MtGox, it's not the fault of prominent bitcoin people that customers invested with MtGox, but it is surely the fault of these people embracing MtGox when they KNEW that everything was not well.

A Bitcoin Foundation seeking to protect and promote bitcoin should be on the ball in events like this, ask very hard questions, and be persistent, and demand answers and proof. If this does not happen, then any membership association with the foundation should be removed, and there should be put up a warning about that company.

But perhaps I'm just being naive, and that the foundation is merely a place for business interests to discuss and further their own agenda. But - and this is the truth - although the Foundation is not an entity that has the legal mean of regulating the bitcoin industry, the demise of MtGox also affexts Bitcoin negatively as a whole. A lot of people have now lost their faith in bitcoin, and they will surely tell their friends and complain to everybody that will listen. If this is irresponsible and stupid, that's kind of irrelevant, as it will happen anyway.

So it's important to raise your eyes, and see around you. Although you're isolated speaking a smart, intelligent and sophisticated investor - most people are not and never will be. And thus I stand by "it is the responsibility of those able to help those less fortunate".

I'm sure you all get my point here. While we must cherish and embrace personal responsibility, and instill this in our children and in everyone around us, we should also help people that have ended up in a bad situation. Although a lot of those people are stupid and naive, I'm sure none of them wished to end up in that situation, and I'm sure that a lot of them learn from it and will never end up there again.

So what I thought those at the top of the foodchain in the bitcoin community could do was to establish a task force, and not just offering, but insisting on helping MtGox, and leveraging everything that they could to have MtGox accept this help. I'm not saying they should bail MtGox out. I think the best might as well be to help them clean up the mess as well as possible, and then dissolve MtGox after customers have gotten back as much funds as possible.

Currently, what the sharks and wolfes in this community is doing is to stand next to a train wreck and not helping the crying and injuried people. They're not legally obliged to help, but if they wanted to, they could at least try to the best of their abilities, as it would be in their own interest. And also by not accting, the Bitcoin Foundation is essentially making themselves irrelevant.

As a last word: Words are cheap and easy, and if I really wanted change, I should start some organization myself that did the things that I'm complaining about in this post, but the truth is that any such organization would take a lot of time to get on its feet, and in the case of MtGox - action needs to happen right now.

My thoughts go out to all those sheep, naive and dumb as they are, but still they lost a lot, and does not deserve that loss.