JUSTIN SUN & OUR TOP 20 - My thoughts...

I was not sure whether I should even worry to put this in a post, but considering that at this point we seem to be exploring all possible avenues and potential solutions, I figured I may as well just share a few of my thoughts. I do not profess to know the in’s, out’s and technicalities of all the variants that may or may not work "and why" but nonetheless… This morning I listened to the witness chat with Justin Sun on Youtube and I was not in any way surprised by how it all unfolded. Firstly I want to say this - **In my opinion** this man is an absolute master manipulator – although, most of us have gathered that already. He is not in ANY way interested in the well-being nor the future of this blockchain long term, he simply wants to see profits. He stated this himself in that chat and as a “business man” this is perfectly acceptable. No investor steps into an arena with the intention of losing money. If he can achieve both then great... but he will do it HIS way. However, you get businessmen who are sticklers and then you get businessmen who are a lot more pliable in terms of what rules they are willing to bend and which circumstance they are willing to turn a blind eye to. Justin, to my mind, is the latter. And this is the thing… the further up the food chain you climb, the more ruthless, unpredictable, unethical and egotistical they *potentially* become *(as a rule of thumb at any rate)*. Justin is all of the aforementioned. This man came into a meeting with his sidekick who - right from the intro, gave us the subliminal “heads up” of just how “important” Justin is because he is “very difficult to get hold of”. He didn’t do that without reason. It is called tactics and subliminal manipulation. Without the listeners even realising it, Justin had already thrown down the “golden carpet” for himself. He is arrogant, self-absorbed and has absolutely no respect for a single one of us – witnesses included. Yes, he kept his tone very palatable and he said all the “right” things without actually saying anything at all. He had no intentions of giving any answers or direction in that meeting – he was simply placing all the attendees under silent scrutiny – observing, listening and documenting. The mere fact that the guy would actually have the nerve to sit in a business meeting, talking to those present with a mouth full of food so obvious that you could actually hear him chewing as he spoke, should be indication of just how much he respects any of you/us and how little he cares about this – because he doesn’t… care – AT ALL! Justin has a legally binding document that gives him rights to that stake. It does not include ANY of the previously promised agenda. To him, it is as simple as that – and if you want to look at it from a business perspective it really IS as simple as that… UNLESS there is A) Obtainable legal documentation from Steemit inc. that verifies what that stake is or is not permitted for, or B) a way of proving that the stake was never Ned’s property to sell in the first place, thus rendering the sale itself invalid (I would assume). Unless one of those two things can happen here – then we are grasping at straws because Justin is not interested in “good faith” or “handshake” business deals. Rest assured that every transaction that he makes is iron clad tight with paperwork and he will stick to those guns no matter what. For every move we make, he is going to make ten. Money is no object for this man and whilst his investments are important to him – I can promise you that his ego is even more so and he will stop at no lengths to make his “status” known – whether he is loved or hated for it. Essentially, nothing was achieved in that meeting because… neither party will budge – and he was not willing to put anything on the table. He refused to withdraw his witness votes and has now added to them. He refused to retract his slanderous lie of a tweet. He completely side swiped several of the questions with “grey” answers. All we got from him in that meeting was that they would take notes, they don’t want any involvement in governance, he wants his investment released and that he wants to make money. And this is not going to change. I do not believe that he has ANY positive long term plans for Steem – he simply wants to make a buck and he is not going to let anybody get in his way of doing that, especially now. He keeps saying that he only voted in those witnesses because we froze his stake. So, what if we give it back to him…. No, not like that! ### *So I was thinking - we want our top 20 witnesses back, or rather... all consensus witnesses re-instated and sock puppets gone - so why not divide his stake into 20 equal portions (and begin a trade. One vote removed for one portion of his stake. He will not go first… we know this – but, it would only be one of 20 portions that he would be receiving and then he will either play the game amicably and remove one vote in return for that stake or he won’t - but either way, we will know better where we stand after that because either he really does have sinister plans for the lot of us in which case he doesn’t remove the one vote required… or, he behaves himself, removes the vote and we then move to the next stage of exchanging the second portion for a second vote removal. Obviously the legal details of this exchange will need to be documented and agreed on by both parties prior... and him not using his stake to vote for witnesses would have to be one of those conditions.* He says he is not interested in governance, had intended to remove those votes and simply wants to make money - then perhaps he would be receptive to moving into a simplistic and straightforward trade deal like this? However - what happens to that stake once it is back in his possession is going to jump back to the legalities I mentioned above. I am not sure if there are any technical aspects or matters into this approach that would make it impractical or unworthy of consideration... perhaps it has gotten too messy already with the Korean votes now added, I don't know – but Justin is going to play this out “tit for tat” right to the finish line and I fear that his resources will outlast and outweigh ours as a community. This man is not going to back down because that is not how he plays the game! A move for a move right to the end. Anyway… those are my thoughts. Use them, don’t use them – either way there they are, lol!