Live data from Hacker News

Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

deepdotweb.com

311–320 of 555 posts

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#311
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he were the sort of person that were capable of making this argument without being an ass about it, then this entire thread of discussion would not have been started in the first place. Whether you are a libertarian bitcoin drug dealer, a communist bitcoin drug dealer, or a politically apathetic cold-hard-cash drug dealer, governments don't enter the "I got ripped off, what are my options?" equation. That's just t…

There is quite a bit anarcho capitalist bent to a portion of the Bitcoin community and a number of people are going to be prone to pointing and laughing when something like this happens. Not sure if that makes it right but people will be people.

Sure, anarcho-capitalists are more prevalent in the bitcoin community than in society in general (and I think you correctly identify it as anarcho-capitalist, not libertarian; several commenters here do not seem to understand that there is a difference), but ultimately drug dealers seeking justice outside of the legal system is nothing new at all. The only unique thing that is going on here, as opposed to traditional drug dealing, is that the request is made publicly.

If you rip off drug dealers, you should expect them to call for heads. Using this as the basis for a political flamewar is just straight-up trolling.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers" Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws! And even then, what you're saying is they believe someone should bring this guy to justice...and then do nothing to him. Then it's not justice. You're killing me my friends. Just killing me here.

"Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws!" I'm nearly as far away from libertarian as one can be, but no - it's not the same as not having laws. Example: Old (American) West-style "frontier justice" where a bunch of townspeople form a posse or a lynch mob or whatever to right some (real or perceived) wrong. (edit: I do understand that this is only one possible scenario, and not what all or even many libertari…

You just said "lynch mob" like it was a good thing. Try again.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#314
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

zedshaw being an asshole. I'm shocked, shocked!

How is he being an asshole? He is exactly right. Watching Bitcoin from a detached and neutral position is absolutely pure entertainment. "Hey y'all, let's make a web page for transferring money and drugs!" "But I'm not very good at programming." "No worries, there's CRYPTO!!!!!" "Oh excellent, we'll sure screw over our oppressive government now! Down with the rule of law!!" "Uh boss, someone just untraceably and anon…

>>How is he being an a__h___? He is exactly right.

Being a a__h___ and being right aren't mutually exclusive. :)

Sidenote: BTW, now that we're talking, if you have a coworker at Google who can get this comment[1] removed from my channel, I'd appreciate it. I reported it as hate-speech like a month ago or something.

1. https://www.youtube.com/user/SMTDDR/discussion

For posterity's sake - http://i.imgur.com/6kpYvcM.png

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#315

This is seriously the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time. Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest who run an illegal website devoted to the pure greed of cashing in on contraband, and this is what they write: "I’ve included transaction logs at the bottom of this message. Review the vendor’s dis…

Why is this the top comment? ... Oh, the author.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#316
post #309
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those who are greedy and, say, losing or just not getting what they want from the normal framework, have every incentive to cheat in this competition. This is also clearly the case with centralized government law.

Except that "checks and balances" as designed into systems like the U.S. has worked better at mitigating this than the tribes-and-warlords systems that libertarians would want. It's one thing to complain about the government; I mean, you'd practically not be a red-blooded American if you didn't bitch and moan about the government. But providing options that are actually better should be a precondition for a switch to…

I don't advocate a "tribes-and-warlords" system. I advocate a polycentric legal system which I believe would be better (for the vast majority of people, according to their own judgement of "better") than government systems like the US. I also do not believe that checks and balances work as I presume they were intended to.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#317
post #302
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This libertarian polycentric government system is not like having multiple restaurants to choose from. To me it sounds like you're at one restaurant (the place you live at), and there's multiple cooks, instead of choosing they are going to decide what food is best for you (they all cook different kinds of poison food), and compete with each other over who gets to give you the food. If that's not how the libertarians…

I don't speak for all "libertarians," but the way I envision it is that it's precisely like restaurants. In other words, anyone can start a restaurant anywhere they choose that offers any services they choose with any restrictions (geographical, etc.), and any individuals can choose whether to pay for any services that are made available to them. Certainly some restaurants will only be available in certain regions, e…

(Note, I'm not dismissing libertarianism, I just want to understand this idea)

I understand the public services part of the idea, but the public services is not what I hear libertarians complain about.

What I hear complains about are the public restrictions, and their enforcements.

Suppose I live in Birmingham Alabama, and I do not want to be mugged. I would want to subscribe to the restaurant that offers me protection from muggers. But these muggers are smart, they subscribe to the restaurant that do not do anything to muggers. What happens now? Will my restaurant use force to protect me from them, infringing on the rights of the muggers? Or will they simply not be able to offer such a service? The result of that would be that a mugger simply is an outcast as no restaurant would openly service muggers?

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#318
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mob justice is not law. For an illustration of this, check out the very first scene of the TV series Deadwood. There's a lynch mob outside the sheriff's office, and they want to kill the person in the jail. The sheriff fends them off so he can legally hang him instead. The creator originally wanted to do a series on ancient Rome, about the birthplace of civilization. The studio wanted a Western. He said, oh, perfect,…

And yet mob justice is exactly what we have in US, though sometimes with a legislative session's worth of delay. A constitutional republic protects against mob justice through individual guarantees of property and liberty, and further through strict limitations on the state's power. Our government, of course, has long since managed to rid itself of most of these limitations.

Laws are not perfect. Sometimes you need a revolution (i.e., a mob).

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#319
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt drug dealers care about the distinction between "you stole my money" vs. "you lost my money". Either case SR2 admin better do a good job of hiding.

You think if they didn't do a reasonable job of hiding they wouldn't be caught by say, the government?

The government waits until they have a good case against you before arresting, drug dealers do not.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#320
post #3

Given illegal nature of Silk Road 2, I can't help but be suspicious of this explanation of the hack. If someone's sufficiently willing to flaunt laws as to operate a site devoted to selling contraband, what stops them from taking advantage of their position of power and stealing from their users?

There is a huge moral difference between the sort of victimless-crime-contraband that is on SR (especially since SR1 at least, not sure about SR2, actively filtered out child porn, weapons, assassinations and all of the other truly scary things that you can potentially sell on an anonymous market), and stealing millions of dollars from people at least a few of whom are dependent on substances and desperately need the…

> between the sort of victimless-crime-contraband that is on SR

Are you really that naive, or was that for the sake of your argument?

There's no way the drugs they sell on SR come all from some dude's dorm room, specially if it's not weed, and if they want it to be a profitable business.

Post reply on HN