(I asked Poker Player to unlock this thread so that I could post in it. I drafted a reply that grew much larger than I meant for it to, and basically didn't want it to go to waste. Even though it's written in a way that suggests that I might be expecting a response to it, I'm not; I'm just sharing some long-winded thoughts, is all, in the hope that some of them might be found to be interesting.)

Hmm... Probably I expressed myself poorly which led to you misunderstanding me. The problem is, my thoughts on the trust system are scattered across more than a few posts (and probably even more PMs), and it's not really practical for me to try to share my complete perspective on it each time I write something concerning it.

A lot of my perspective on the trust system can be understood as an argument formed in terms of expected value. Judging by your handle, I'm guessing that you already understand that principle well, but, as a refresher for the people that don't understand it, let's ask ourselves whether or not it makes mathematical sense to accept a gambling offer like the following:

"Flip a fair coin 5 times. If all 5 flips come up as heads, then you win $100. If at least one of your flips comes up as tails, then you lose $5."

One way to analyze an offer like that is to multiply the probability of a successful outcome (which is: 0.5**5, or 3.125%) by the amount you will gain in that case ($100), and then subtract from that the probability of an unsuccessful outcome (which is: 1 - 0.5**5, or 96.875%) multiplied by the amount you will lose in that case ($5).

So, 0.03125 * 100 - 0.96875 * 5 = −1.71875. In other words, you'll lose ~$1.72 (that's a tilde, not a minus sign, BTW) each time you try that game.

[1] Since I think it's typically DT members that feel the need to leave the kind of feedback we've been talking about, here's an interesting thought experiment: Imagine Bitcointalk implemented a policy of dissolving DT for the first three months of every year. What do you predict the consequences of that would be? Personally, I find the "doomsday" prediction that during the first quarter of each year Bitcointalk would temporarily devolve into some kind of shitshow with people getting scammed left and right to be an extremely silly one.