This article is a bit old so I may only be journaling to myself., but I wanted to chime in here with support for Luke's line of questioning.

It is so difficult to discern truth from lies in this world, to drill down into the info available to get to the bedrock one can base reliable conclusions on. Keeping an open mind and using the Socratic method of questioning is the best way I know of to separate fact from fiction and promotion rhetoric.

Luke's last request for links and more info is very reasonable, so why no reply?

People seem to be so easily triggered these days, including myself at times. It takes introspection to know oneself well enough to recognize our own emotional traps and hard work and persistence to overcome them.

What I don't question is the integrity of Micheal, Stan or Onceuponatime. All of us are early adopters and believers in the potential of blockchain technology. However, our passion can cloud our rational perspective. We become emotionally attached to certain people, and the methods to manifest their ideals.

I was quietly cheering Jared and the words of defiance he often used, tho I felt his brash style was unwise in certain contexts. It lacked diplomacy and was unnecessarily provocative. On the one hand I was inwardly cheering, on the other I was skeptical and waited to see if he may have had a plan and strategy I couldn't see. Similar to the way Trump supporters "believe" he has a plan, tho they cringe at his tweets.

My attitude changed to be more favorable towards Jared as he started to roll out elements of dWeb. They were tangible, and I saw significant progress was being made on each preview release of the tools and infrastructure he was making available. Not enough to warrant a monetary investment, but enough to spend more of a far more valuable asset - my time. I wondered how Jared could spend so much time writing those lengthy messages in Telegram and still crank out these dWeb tools.

When it came to a screeching halt and allegations of no backups, no plan in place to deal with his incarceration, no eminent deployment surfaced, doubts began to creep in about how viable the project was.

Someone very actively involved with Jared in the project stated the issue wasn't a matter of no backups, but rather the FBI confiscation made backups irrelevant, as the seizure included the rights to the IP. My gut reaction to that was what bunk! How could there be a claim of IP? That didn't make sense to me, unless, Jared was forced to sign something that bestowed his IP rights away, but even then it would have been under duress and legally not binding (in a rightful court, but we haven't had those for quite some time). Why would some coerced claim to IP keep its' advocates from deploying it anyway? Let it leak out. That should have been the contingency in place from the start. OK, sure, as the code is rapidly developed the latest version might not make it out, but to loose the entire effort? It just adds up to more questions.

Like you Luke, I will keep an open mind and not presume there aren't good answers to these questions or that Jared is trying to deceive anyone. I recently submitted a statement of support for Jared, in that I felt a strong affinity and sense of inspiration from his defiant attitude.

I also agree with you wrt self policing. Overcoming those who use psychopathic tools of deception to manipulate and twist perceptions to get their agendas pushed forward takes a solid (and proven IMO) due diligence process. Watch the documentary I am Fishead if you doubt that. Effective due diligence is costly and takes time, time few are willing to invest in this face paced blockchain tech field. I've seen several cases where the process proved to be inadequate, and it has become a repeating pattern. I could name explicit examples, and I have in the past, but it doesn't help.

I am very skeptical any foundation or body of people in this space can effectively circumvent the tactics of such evil people when they are so skillful at taking advantage of other's willingness to presume everyone has good intentions until proven otherwise. Unfortunately the otherwise proof is exposed too late. I have come to believe that it's extremely rare to find someone that can't be swayed to acquiesce and compromise their position for the right price, which is not always monetary.

Can we learn from past mistakes or do we just plow forward and "hope" for the best?