Silk Road 2.0 Launches • Hacker News Board

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#201

Post by daughart » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 1:01 AM UTC

consonants wrote: post #193

daughart wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

32 pounds of marijuana in that case. If you were going to do a test run in this way, you could send a single schedule IV Xanax or something. I'm not saying it's a good idea but the likelihood of putting your neighbors in danger is probably smaller than many common actions. It's probably less dangerous statistically than giving them baked goods with nuts. All I was responding to is your statement, "One of the most irr…

Maybe I should clarify: it's one of the most directly irresponsible things I've seen unironically suggested here. If you don't see the irresponsibility of implicating an unknowing third-party in a serious life ruining felony, I don't know what to tell you. Given that this is most likely filled with vendors who are either agents or guys who have been popped and are now confidential informants, your statistics are way…

If you want to see really un-ironic irresponsible ideas, go read the post on the anarchist solution to healthcare. I'll give you the tl;dr: anonymous healthcare for bitcoins.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#202

Post by vbuterin » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 1:13 AM UTC

tslathrow wrote: post #121

corin_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying heroin specifically because you do buy it but not from websites, or because some drugs you'd trust to a website (regardless of whether you personally buy them or not) but heroin not, or were you just naming a random drug?

I will never understand why Silk Road is easier than just hitting up your dealer

Your situation may be different, but I personally would not even know where to start looking for a local dealer. Being a sheltered upper middle class youth has its disadvantages :)

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#203

Post by oofabz » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 1:16 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #169

nekopa wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honest question: Why not?

1. I am against illegal drugs. It is up to the society to have a consent whether x drug should be legal or not. For example, marijuana. 2. Liability and safety. It's safer to assume your pharmacist is giving the right drug and the right amount and the right quality. I am all for reducing the cost and I think we should lower the cost whenever possible, but getting through silk road because it's cheaper/easier to get d…

I, too am against illegal drugs like heroin, but I believe legalizing all drugs would help everyone, both the addicts and normal people. Taking away the black market would reduce crime and stop the flow of money into powerful crime organizations. The addict would benefit from cleaner drugs and would not have to break the law to get their fix.

I have seen heroin ruin people's lives and I wish with all my heart that it could be eradicated. However, this is just not possible, and we have to figure out how to live in a world that includes such terrible things. The only people who benefit from criminalization are law enforcement and prison owners.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#204

Post by DanBC » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 1:25 AM UTC

dobbsbob wrote: post #199

DanBC wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

{I am strongly in favour of legalising all drugs} There are problems with some of the manufacture of cannabis. Criminal gangs use trafficked workers, forcing them to work in cannabis farms. If I was a criminal gang using slaves to grow cannabis I think I'd market it as some home grown organic low yield crop with images of open fields and nice trees. Just like eggs from caged hens don't show battery farms, but happy c…

Maybe in Mexico they do this. Here there are investors who buy up a dozen houses through shell corps and hire one grower who sets everything up, and is paid a lot of money. The grower then hires people to maintain and protect the grow usually for pretty good money as well. http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3268.html

> Maybe in Mexico they do this.

It happens in England.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#205

Post by lfmb » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 1:39 AM UTC

dobbsbob wrote: post #198

miguelrochefort wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd never buy heroin from a website I'd rather buy heroin from Silk Road (where it's peer-reviewed and often tested by third-parties) than on the street. Buying online is just overall less risky.

Used to be less risky now they slam you with interstate trafficking charges which can climb to 10+yrs whereas getting jacked on the street and losing $50 doesn't sound too bad in comparison.

Maybe if you are a USA resident.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#206

Post by lallysingh » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 1:58 AM UTC

dcposch wrote: post #171

gasull wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current DPR is allegedly the third one, and the one in jail is the second, as he said in an interview with Forbes.

This one's the Fed Pirate Roberts :p The way this site launched so soon after the original was shut down--with the same name, same styling, even the same "Dread Pirate Roberts" moniker--makes me very suspicious.

Meh, nothing more than a recursive wget will do that.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#207

Post by dobbsbob » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 2:03 AM UTC

ds9 wrote: post #144

OvidNaso wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your analysis specifically excluded the source of all of this violence, the wholesale procurement of the drugs by the end user dealers. None of that is different with the Silk Road.

That's the locus of the violence. The source of the violence (and of most of the other harms) is the prohibition. Alcohol and tobbacco dealers aren't involved in shootings in the streets - instead we find them in their shops, carefully following laws and doing business peacefully. Nor are their customers suffering from adulterated goods, or committing robberies to afford black-market prices.

Yep, exactly. The Zetas cartel for example, do not necessarily import & export themselves. They are simply a gang of thugs who move into an area already teeming with drug smugglers/dealers, and extort them for taxes. Since these drug dealers can't go to the police for protection since they are doing something illegal they either pay up or the streets turn into a bloodbath. If you notice the Zetas are mainly concentrated in Northern Mexico where the major smuggling routes into the US are. By controlling those they can siphon off 20-30% of all drug shipments from every other cartel into the US and never have to touch drugs themselves, so are unlikely to be caught. They are just parasites off other people's hard work of manufacturing, smuggling and building sales networks. This business model will only work under prohibition.

Zetas do not hold up trucks full of tequilla and beer going into the US for extortion because they would be arrested. When your business is legal the solution for dealing with thugs is simple: call the cops or sue them. When you are gray area/illegal your only negotiation is to pay them or pick up a gun creating an all out war.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#208

Post by carbocation » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 2:07 AM UTC

chris11 wrote: post #192

jeffbr13 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reports indicate that the original DPR retired to Patagonia 15 years ago, and has been living like a king ever since.

How does work? Wikipedia says that the silk road started in February of 2011. And if that was months, it would still only give him around a year and a half on the site.

Princess Bride joke.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#209

Post by tedks » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 2:38 AM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #44

andrewljohnson wrote: post #3

I'd never buy heroin from a website, but I see the Silk Road as cyber-civil-disobedience, and I hope the persona of DPR and the site itself are as unsinkable as they claim. The drug war is a ghastly thing, and the number of people we lock up in the US is more shameful than our foreign policy. You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, but he's the product of our…

I don't see the Silk Roads of the world making much difference with regard to the drug war. Right now Silk Road is the eBay of drugs, where convenience is it's competitive advantage. I can get some drug without visiting a shady person in some shady place, but the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US the bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. A huge part of the US war on drugs takes place amo…

IIRC, the biggest drug on the Silk Road was marijuana, which was probably not cartel grown. There are plenty of places in the US where it's effectively legal to grow marijuana, and the growers who have a legal enterprise almost certainly produce plenty on the side for the black market.

Cocaine and heroin are different stories, but are probably the exception compared to marijuana, various drugs that need to be lab-synthesized, and prescription pills being resold.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#210

Post by tedks » Thu, Nov 07, 2013, 2:51 AM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #123

gwern wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can leave bad feedback, and take it to the dispute center to force the seller to defend themselves to the SR admins. This is more recourse than you have in practice against a grocery store if they refuse to give you a refund - what are you going to do, sue them?

If a grocery store harms you in an illegal way you they can be punished by the force of the state in a variety of ways. The same is not true of a anonymous person on an inbound tor site.

If someone sold bad shit on the silk road, they'd lose all of their rep and stop making money.

On the original silk road, it cost a very large amount to get a vendor account. So if you decided to start selling bad shit, you'd have to play nice for a while to break even, a while longer to build trust, and then go out in a blaze of bad shit.

I don't really see why anyone would do that. If you have good enough connections to get a good rep on the Silk Road (or similar site), you have good enough connections to never need to sell bad shit. As Stringer Bell would say, it's all about the product. If you have better product than your competition, you'll win in the end.