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Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

nytimes.com

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Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#321

Post by pdkl95 »

tomelders wrote: post #307
benihana wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also let's not forget: 5. Apples are red 6. Oranges are orange You're comparing facts: "Ulbricht ran The Silk Road," with your own conjecture: "Banks encouraged 'questionable' risk taking." You're making a lot of extraordinary claims that are very very difficult to prove with no evidence to back them up. And you're using this conjecture as evidence of... something? You don't really make a point. You just repeat popul…

I think the deeper point is that people feel there's a disconnect from the perceived damage an action incurs and the punishment assigned to it. Rightly or wrongly that's how people feel, and what is the law for in the end?

It's called "Rule Of Law". Why the hell should anybody else bother respecting the law, when it is patently clear that the law as written is not actually what the "law" that is used.

When people that have clearly violated the law - like certain people in the CIA, for example - are not even prosecuted, it is hard agree with people that think it is "just" to give someone life in prison for allegedly committing as far lesser crime.

At worst, Ross Ulbricht is accused of an attempted conspiracy of murder. People in the CIA actually killed people, in ways that are always illegal.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#322

Post by logfromblammo »

hebdo wrote: post #234
PopsiclePete wrote: post #5

Murderers get less than that. We are truly an interesting society, aren't we - somehow kids doing LSD, a mostly harmless substance, is causing us more harm, as a society, than, say, violence?

How do you know LSD is mostly harmless?

I read the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy, and wondered if AUM could possibly be made real from a combination of already-known drugs. Following my curiosity taught me a great deal about natural and synthetic psychoactive drugs, and some of what I learned was not completely bogus.

As a result of my "research", LSD remains one of the few recreational drugs that I might ever consider trying in the future, given the correct circumstances.

It is certainly less harmful than nicotine, ethanol, and acetaminophen. But now that marijuana is legal in some states, I expect that it will soon displace LSD-25 as the least harmful recreational drug that I know about.

If you are also curious, my conclusion was that LSD-25 is probably present in AUM at a psychoactive, but non-hallucinogenic, dose, mostly as an adjuvant for the other ingredients. It would help bridge the gap between a drug known to have powerful, positive, short-term effects and one known to cause long-term but very unpredictable changes in behavior.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#323

Post by TeMPOraL »

fleitz wrote: post #308
tzs wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone? Even the most ardent proponent of full legalization usually acknowledges that many drugs are very harmful--they just believe the people should be free to do things even if they are harmful to themselves. I generally support decriminalization or even legalization, but I would be reluctant to allow internet sales. I'd require sales to be through licensed dealers and in person,…

No more than water does. Even as a proponent of full legalization I know that as little as a few minutes spent in water can kill someone, and often does. Why people are allowed to casually dive into this toxic substance is beyond me. No licenses, no regulations, practically any body of water you can find you're allowed to jump into totally unsupervised. Most places don't even have signs warning people of the danger,…

There's a difference in degree and in kind. Water does not create addiction that forces you to consume it in amounts that are seriously harmful to your health.

It's not true that areas unsafe for swimming are not marked - they are; moreover, there's both infrastructure in place to increase safety (e.g. lifeguards) and a significant amount of effort put towards educating people about the dangers of things like jumping into the water in a potentially unsafe place.

But that's all beside the point. Laws and rules do not exist in vacuum, and humans are not spherical cows of uniform density. Time and again history has proven that most people can handle exposure to water safely, while they can't handle being exposed to hard drugs. You can blame this on individual stupidity, but people don't have perfectly free will, and if this stupidity predictably touches big fractions of a population, it's time to mitigate it.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#324

Post by omegaham »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #266
hebdo wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of rationalizations may ruin your entire life one day. You cannot and do not know where will any experimentation with drugs bring you to. Remember that the first step of the twelve steps is "admitting that one cannot control one's alcoholism, addiction or compulsion". Finding reasons why you are more privileged than others makes this step even harder.

12 steps has a pretty poor record.

I was given the impression that all therapy for addiction has a pretty poor record. If there was something that actually got good results, everyone would be using it. Unfortunately, brains are complicated, and everyone's brain is different.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#325

Post by Adlai »

shit_parade2 wrote: post #299
hebdo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, you are right. But just the fact that something is difficult to overdose does not imply long-term safety of use. And as far as I know there are know connections between certain psychiatric issues and LSD usage. This is why I do not believe that "LSD is basically harmless".

Any credible studies to link? The LD50 was extensively document, your claim is essentially vodoo.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Conclusion: We did not find use of psychedelics to be an independent risk factor for mental health problems.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#326

Post by itistoday2 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #323
fleitz wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more than water does. Even as a proponent of full legalization I know that as little as a few minutes spent in water can kill someone, and often does. Why people are allowed to casually dive into this toxic substance is beyond me. No licenses, no regulations, practically any body of water you can find you're allowed to jump into totally unsupervised. Most places don't even have signs warning people of the danger,…

There's a difference in degree and in kind. Water does not create addiction that forces you to consume it in amounts that are seriously harmful to your health. It's not true that areas unsafe for swimming are not marked - they are; moreover, there's both infrastructure in place to increase safety (e.g. lifeguards) and a significant amount of effort put towards educating people about the dangers of things like jumping…

> There's a difference in degree and in kind. Water does not create addiction that forces you to consume it in amounts that are seriously harmful to your health.

Neither do most drugs, especially most illegal drugs.

Many legal drugs do (the most addictive of all being nicotine), but that also doesn't matter and is besides the point.

These are health issues, not criminal issues.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#327

Post by omegaham »

iaw wrote: post #43
PopsiclePete wrote: post #5

Murderers get less than that. We are truly an interesting society, aren't we - somehow kids doing LSD, a mostly harmless substance, is causing us more harm, as a society, than, say, violence?

I suspect that law enforcement's embarrassment over how long it took them to find him also had something to do with it. The equivalent of running from the police in a foot chase, they're going to punish you for it.

"If the police have to come get you, they're bringing an ass-kicking with 'em."

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#328

Post by hebdo »

shit_parade2 wrote: post #299
hebdo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, you are right. But just the fact that something is difficult to overdose does not imply long-term safety of use. And as far as I know there are know connections between certain psychiatric issues and LSD usage. This is why I do not believe that "LSD is basically harmless".

Any credible studies to link? The LD50 was extensively document, your claim is essentially vodoo.

Yes, of course. I just thought that flashbacks and other LSD complications are common knowledge. Take a look at this Wikipedia section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Adv...

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#329

Post by joelwilliamson »

psykovsky wrote: post #302
drfuchs wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curtis Green is a real person, who really worked for Ross, who really was afraid Ross would have him killed, and who in fact Ross did try to have killed. See the very beginning of Joshuah Bearman's "The Rise and Fall of Silk Road" in Wired.

You forgot the part where he wanted Curtis Green dead because of a theft of USD$350,000.00 in Bitcoin commited by the dirty undercover DEA agent who he then hired to murder Curtis Green.

If he thought Curtis had robbed him, I suppose it was okay to hire someone to murder him.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#330

Post by baddox »

earlyresort wrote: post #311
tshaddox wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't just about the effects of addictive drugs. I think most people agree they can be devastating to people and families. The trouble is that you seem to be suggesting that US drug policy in any way helps people and families affected by addictive drugs. I can't look at the war on drugs and see any remotely feasible interpretation where it's helping people affected by addictive drugs.

For me, it doesn't seem like a massive logical leap to suggest that shutting down a particularly convenient and unique part of the supply chain will have an effect on consumption and therefore the negative effects of consumption. Shutting down The Silk Road isn't quite the same thing as arresting the corner dealer. Aside from that - let's posit that Ross Ulbricht's arrest and punishment and the shutdown of The Silk R…

> it doesn't seem like a massive logical leap to suggest that shutting down a particularly convenient and unique part of the supply chain will have an effect on consumption and therefore the negative effects of consumption.

It seems quite likely that Silk Road was one of the safest ways to acquire these drugs. It seems likely to me that shutting down Silk Road would have two effects: reducing consumption by casual (non-addicted) recreational users who will not bother with less convenient and safe sources, and driving addicted users to less convenient and safe sources. You might argue that the first effect is slightly beneficial, but I think it is far outweighed by the harmfulness of the second effect.

> I've still got no real moral qualms about punishing someone who enriches themselves off so much harm to others.

This is just another way to rephrase the claim that Silk Road did net harm to others, which we were just debating.

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