211–220 of 641 posts
My condolences go to the mutual friends Ross and I share. Honestly, I don't have much sympathy for him directly (due to his complete and utter stupidity and lack of opsec), but I know this is going to hurt some people I care about, people who were good friends with Ross back in college, and I feel bad for them .
So let's get this straight for the justice system: 1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable 2. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable 3. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster si…
1. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when. 2. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the s…
Guillotine, probably not, but I'm okay with punishing every "founder" of a "company" that errantly spends billions of tax dollars on weaponry and uses it to kill tens of thousands of innocent people.
It's interesting. On one hand, if a leader of a traditional drug distribution network landed a life in prison sentence, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. With Silkroad though, I'm actually convinced by the defendants argument: that it provided safer, more trustworthy drugs to users. I've had friends who've died from purchasing bad drugs at raves from people who were looking to make money and run. In one situati…
Harm reduction is a reasonable argument for a Country to make for changing its drug policies, or for a person to make in an effort to advocate for a change to a Country's laws. It is not a reasonable argument for an individual to make to try to justify their illegal get-rich scheme.
If the law is hurting people, and breaking the law helps people, it's completely reasonable to use that argument to morally justify your illegal behavior. I'd be interested to hear your argument why it is not.
Edit: Though to be clear that wouldn't work to justify all your illegal behavior, if that included like hypothetically trying to have someone killed.
An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and usually get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences.
People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resilient. Should they get addicted to hard drugs and screw up their lives, they usually don't bounce back from it - their lives are ruined forever.
Since HN is full of intelligent, wealthy, employable people, the comments on this thread don't surprise me a bit. And yes, I agree that drug policy in the United States could stand to be reformed a little. But when evaluating the harm a person's actions can cause to society, I wish people would think a little more about not just themselves, but that vast chunk of society that's not lucky enough to not be as privileged as we are.
Black markets exist because demand exists, whether we like it or not, whether we think it's good or bad. Black markets are self regulated and that is why you see so much violence in the illegal drug market. Restricting supply drives up prices and profit and increases incentives to increase supply. This is a vicious never ending cycle. Ross was tempted by helping to increase supply. Maybe if we had a legal and regulat…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus, it happened multiple times. Even if no one was actually killed the guy still tried to have multiple people killed.
The person Ross hired as a hitman was an undercover agent who had been befriending Ross online for over a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He allegedly hired someone to kill multiple people, by the way. http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss... I agree with you that drug trafficking is way overprosecuted, but...
What is really interesting about this transcript is the people are named in full, with some addresses and other details (married, etc.) The hits, I'm assuming, were fake because the contact was undercover, but what happened with the targets? Did the one threatening him have to play along and no longer send the threatening e-mails once the undercover told him the job was done? Were they prosecuted in any way?
They staged torture and murder to satiate Ulbricht's need to clean up loose ends.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
allegedly tried to have multiple people killed. The prosecution brought this up at trial but he was not charged or convicted of this in the criminal trial.
The people supposedly "murdered" never existed... the names did not belong to real people, nor did the photo id's match anyone of record, etc. It's a rumor that they were Fed baiting him... and likely why the Fed never tried to charge him on the murder-for-hire counts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman. edit: this is something that vice news [0] reported that is apparently wrong. > But despite these setbacks, Ulbricht was ultimately convicted in February on a raft of charges, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, and hiring assassins to take out members of Silk Road. [0]: https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-master...
He was not. He was convicted of the following- Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics by Means of the Internet Conspiracy to Distribute Narcotics Continuing Criminal Enterprise Conspiracy to Commit or Aid and Abet Computer Hacking Conspiracy to Traffic in Fraudulent Identity Documents Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering EDIT. Nea…
> Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics by Means of the Internet
Good ol' US justice system: Where you get charged with the same crime twice so they can double the sentence.
“I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not created Silk Road,” said the man, who was identified in court only as Richard. Such an ignorant comment it doesn't even deserve to be commented.