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Shedding light on the dark web

economist.com

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Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#151

Post by dwaltrip »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #68
dopamean wrote: post #11

Any time I read anything about the illegal drug trade I am struck by how much the industry would change if all drugs were legalized everywhere. So much effort is expended to keep things hidden from law enforcement and other criminals that it adds an incredible amount of friction to the purchasing process for the purchaser and the seller. From the buyer's perspective you now have to go into business with some often un…

Take a look at this short overview of research on addiction and the futility of the drug war. http://youtu.be/wJUXLqNHCaI The Drug War approach is built on a few axioms: - people who take drugs would not do so if drugs are unavailable - making something illegal prevents it from happening - people who take drugs are somehow less moral or weaker or "bad" and deserve to be persecuted All of these have been disproven. Ad…

Another premise: all drugs on the controlled substance list are entirely harmful.

Numerous well-regarded medical professionals & researchers have been shown this to be false.

Here is an short article discussing David Nutt's (former chief drug adviser to the UK government) work in this area: http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#152

Post by placeybordeaux »

Cshelton wrote: post #31

Sellers of drugs, will ALWAYS sell drugs, both illegal and legal. Buyers/Users of drugs will ALWAYS buy/use drugs, illegal or legal. It is an interaction between humans of Earth, no government or entity, no system or blocks will ever stop it. Shut down the internet, it will continue. Short of a massive purge of life, drugs will never go away. If you somehow...were able to shut down the "darkweb", it would move into s…

There are places in the world where most drugs are fairly unkown. Japan and Korea come to mind as places where largely only prescription drugs, cigarettes and alcohol are used, it seems like some club drugs are becoming more popular, but many drugs are so hard to come by it's easy to write them off.

It is not as inevitable as you make it out to be, but in a country like the US it is basically impossible to get rid of drugs. So much of the population already has contact with it. There is so much space to produce them and the borders are so large it is near impossible to secure them.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#153

Post by tremendo »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #110
themartorana wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority of Americans support marijuana legalization: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/25/suppo... The original banning of marijuana is ridiculous and riddled with racism and xenophobia: http://www.salon.com/2015/07/02/the_real_reason_marijuana_is... This is just marijuana. Drug legality and policy is mired in racism and money politics. It is just as conspiracy-theory as it sounds.

>> This is just marijuana. I would hasten to say this. I totally support a lot of the legalization for medicinal purposes but there's still way too much of this happening: Driving while high on marijuana causing spike in fatal accidents - http://www.today.com/health/driving-while-high-marijuana-cau... Police: Driver Was High Before Crash That Killed Massachusetts State Trooper - http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/D…

There are already laws covering DUI cases, but still some substances are legal and others not.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#154

Post by jshevek »

PeCaN wrote: post #144
jshevek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your criticism of the war on drugs, but I'm surprised at this hyperbole: > Sellers of drugs, will ALWAYS sell drugs, both illegal and legal. Are you saying that 3,000 years from now, neohumans will be using addictive chemicals that damage their body in order to modify their brain chemistry and induce related experiences? Can't we illustrate the uselessness of the war on drugs without resorting to stateme…

> Are you saying that 3,000 years from now, neohumans will be using addictive chemicals that damage their body in order to modify their brain chemistry and induce related experiences? s/chemicals/electric currents/g or s/chemicals/embedded microprocessors/g or whatever and then you're just debating what semantically constitutes a ‘drug’. So… yeah, I can get behind drugs being a thing 3000 years from now. They were a…

> you're just debating what semantically constitutes a ‘drug’

No, I wasn't at all. I simply introduced a bit of specificity into the language used, but the point I sought to clarify was related to your lack of allowance for the importance of culture and for the ability of culture to change. There is an extensive list of human behaviors whose prevalence has changed dramatically over the last 1,000 years as cultural values have changed. There is no reason to assume that its impossible to have similarly changing cultural views (species wide) of drug use.

Its simply absurd to say that drug use will always be with us. It may, it may not. What do you know of our future culture? Especially if we start to more aggressively genetically engineer ourselves?

The semantic argument you've raised trivializes important issues. There are substances and behaviors which alter mood which no serious person has suggested be made illegal (such as aromatherapy, or going for a jog). Surely you aren't assuming that future experience altering technology would necessarily be illegal, physically addictive, or damaging to the body?

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#155

Post by at-fates-hands »

hrehhf wrote: post #116
at-fates-hands wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is just marijuana. I would hasten to say this. I totally support a lot of the legalization for medicinal purposes but there's still way too much of this happening: Driving while high on marijuana causing spike in fatal accidents - http://www.today.com/health/driving-while-high-marijuana-cau... Police: Driver Was High Before Crash That Killed Massachusetts State Trooper - http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/D…

Then logically texting must also be made illegal at all times. These are not simple accidents, these are people texting, driving and killing people, and its happening a LOT more frequently. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/06/tennessee-bus-drive... http://www.thedailyjournal.com/story/news/2016/07/11/driver-... http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/boone-county/2015... https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/d…

Totally agree. Not sure if you thought I would be against it, but I'm all for keeping the roads safer. And clearly, this is also a major issue.

This type of an argument, "Sure that's bad, but this is WAY worse!" is a horrible argument. The point is, they're both bad and need to be addressed. Saying its ok for something to be legal since there are worst alternatives is a poor argument IMHO.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#156

Post by PhantomGremlin »

sremani wrote: post #3

Darknet markets are like Hydra with 10 heads, when Silk Road is taken down, more players entered and when one other dark-market owners closed shop and jumped with vendors bit-coins, new ones with multi-escrow showed up. Again, with each take down people are improvising and making the system a bit more resilient.

This whole result was fascinating to me.

Ross Ulbricht gets life in federal prison, no possibility of parole, and yet people are tripping all over themselves to take his place.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#157

Post by brokenmachine »

hasenj wrote: post #121
mistermann wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really a shitty experience for everyone involved. However, it creates many thousands of very well paid jobs for police, lawyers, prison employees, etc. - you know, the people that create the laws. Long ago I might have considered that there might be some justification for these laws (or anywhere there's rules really), but nowadays when you wonder why "the way something is" is, it's easier to just assume someon…

It's way more plausible to assume that the average person (the average family person, not the average hippy) doesn't like to live in a neighbourhood where his children see prostitutes and drug users day in and day out.

I assume you meant to say illegal drug users, because there would be literally zero neighbourhoods where people are not using drugs. Alcohol, coffee, and cigarettes for example, which have all been illegal in some countries at points in time.

There are also literally zero neighbourhoods where people are not using illegal drugs, because the truth that you don't hear about from the police and jail workers unions is that there are many high functioning productive members of society who are also illegal drug users.

This might blow your mind, but not everyone who takes illegal drugs is a junky sucking dick for crack.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#158

Post by liveshops_ »

skylark wrote: post #53
mistermann wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really a shitty experience for everyone involved. However, it creates many thousands of very well paid jobs for police, lawyers, prison employees, etc. - you know, the people that create the laws. Long ago I might have considered that there might be some justification for these laws (or anywhere there's rules really), but nowadays when you wonder why "the way something is" is, it's easier to just assume someon…

I find it hard to believe that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep police, lawyers, and prisons funded via laws against selling drugs. Have you considered that these laws are still in place simply because it's the status quo? Politicians voting on laws and drafting new ones must ultimately answer to their constituents. While the vast majority of things fly under the radar, "pro-drug" support is enough of a charge…

I totally agree with the status quo comment.

Change and innovation are so hard with these huge issues.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#159

Post by brokenmachine »

hasenj wrote: post #142
Tiksi wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a lot of them. Sure, it deters one chunk of people, but at the same time encourages a large amount of, arguably more risk prone (think teenagers rebelling) , people due to the allure of forbidden fruit. The people you manage to discourage are likely the people that wouldn't have had issues with drugs in the firs…

It's not just kids rebelling. It has all to do with communities breaking down and social relations deteriorating. Teenagers in say, Japan, wouldn't so much rebel by using drugs. There are tons of less dangerous ways for teenagers to rebel. If kids in your community are rebelling by using dangerous drugs, you have a much more deeper problem.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you implying that teenagers in Japan don't do drugs, or just that they don't rebel by using drugs?

Because teenagers in Japan most certainly do do drugs, both legal and illegal, dangerous or not.

It's interesting that you use the phrase "dangerous drugs", I assume you meant to write "illegal drugs". I would argue that making any drug illegal immediately makes it 1000x more dangerous than it is inherently. You seem to be ignoring the fact that many legal drugs are very very dangerous, and the statistics certainly agree with that. Alcohol? Cigarettes? Society definitely tolerates a certain level of danger in their legal drugs. It seems almost totally arbitrary which drugs are legal and which are not, certainly not correlated with a level of "danger".

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#160

Post by m82labs »

dopamean wrote: post #11

Any time I read anything about the illegal drug trade I am struck by how much the industry would change if all drugs were legalized everywhere. So much effort is expended to keep things hidden from law enforcement and other criminals that it adds an incredible amount of friction to the purchasing process for the purchaser and the seller. From the buyer's perspective you now have to go into business with some often un…

Flash Forward: The Altered State https://overcast.fm/+EmxPZFzWE
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