Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison • Hacker News Board

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#531

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, May 30, 2015, 9:58 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #502

jononor wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90+% of American households own cars. Approximately 30'000 die in car crashes every year. I'd say the US is addicted to cars.

Under a nonsense 'definition' that nobody uses. Sure I can make any point if I get to redefine words any way I want.

FWIW "addicted to cars" has results with headline in major news outlets - it's a common trope.

In human geography terms it simply means that giving up cars is a supremely difficult thing for society to do - particularly in some Western areas that are designed around the idea that all people have cars available [cheaply].

This has enough similarity to addiction that people use "addicted" commonly like this - "I'm addicted to coffee" or "I'm addicted to chocolate" usually just means you'd find it hard to give it up. [I don't know if clinically those statements are true for some though.]

As it happens I've given up alcohol, chocolate, coffee, videogames, and cars at various points and the car was definitely the hardest requiring the most change in my lifestyle.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#532

Post by wz1000 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:04 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #526

itistoday2 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone? Drugs, like spoons, hurt people. Some other items that kill people include: Cars. Motorcycles. Trees. Water. Too much air. Too little air. People. Dogs. Sticks. Bath tubs. Guns. In the end, drugs are no more inherently harmful than any of the items listed above. What usually kills people, however, is not drugs, but things associated with drugs that exist only because we hav…

Do you seriously think people wouldn't OD on drugs if there were legal sources? People ruin their lives pretty well currently with highly addictive drugs, and I don't see how increasing supply would stop that from happening. You can be clever that sticks kill people all you want, but that's completely sidestepping why people are worried about drug legalization: many drugs have extremely well documented negative effec…

> People ruin their lives pretty well currently with highly addictive drugs, and I don't see how increasing supply would stop that from happening.

I don't see how prohibition and the War on Drugs prevented them from happening too. All that was achieved by the War on Drugs was a massive waste of taxpayer money[0], the creation of a large, organised, violent and powerful criminal underground[1], filling up of prisons with non-violent offenders[2], denying treatment to millions of addicts and treating them like criminals, and the violation of the rights, freedoms and liberties of large numbers of innocent people[3].

[0]-

1) http://cdn.thewire.com/img/upload/2012/10/12/drug-spending-v...

2) http://www.drugpolicy.org/wasted-tax-dollars

3) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on...

[1]- http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Crime-brief...

[2]- http://www.ibtimes.com/drug-offenses-not-violent-crime-filli...

[3]-

1) http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/balko_w...

2) http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/26290903/police-militariz...

3) http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10826084.2015.1...

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#533

Post by jensen123 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:13 AM UTC

rat87 wrote: post #525

jensen123 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition?? The average IQ of most western countries, including the US, is around 100. That's probably significantly lower than the average reader here on Hacker News. I'm not sure if a person with an IQ of 100 ever asks themselves intelligent questions like yours...

May I reccomend http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/ to you? Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

IQ basically measures the speed of the brain, so it seems likely that there is some correlation between IQ and good political judgement. High IQ people basically have a greater capacity for thought.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#534

Post by wz1000 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:22 AM UTC

hebdo wrote: post #309

ebspelman wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate this comment, even though I personally don't agree with it. You can't take drugs 100% safely, but their safety level does vary, and it definitely varies with wealth. Amphetamines, for example. Rich Americans get prescriptions for Adderall. Poor Americans make meth. Or take opiates. Vicodin vs. heroin.

The amount of prescription opioids being sold in the US is insane, this is my opinion on the subject. It cannot end well in the long run. There are already millions of Americans that started their opioid adventure with oxycodone or hydrocodone, often coming from the "upper spheres". Addiction does not discriminate. Changing the name from amphetamine to Adderal will not give you more control over your addiction. You w…

If you have a decent income, it is possible to live with a oxycodone addiction. You know that the substance is free of adulterants and is consistently dosed. Pure oxycodone should have limited side effects.

However, if you are not in such a good financial position, a heroin addiction will almost certainly ruin your life. From the financial burden of the substance itself, to side effects from adulterants and the impredictability of a dose, you roll the dice every time you shoot up.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#535

Post by wz1000 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

hebdo wrote: post #268

shit_parade2 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least physically it one the safest known chemicals when comparing the amount needed to notice an effect and the LD50 rating.

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".

It is harmless compared to many other substances, including aspirin and acetaminophen. Pretty much everything when taken in excessive quantities is harmful.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#536

Post by rat87 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:40 AM UTC

jensen123 wrote: post #533

rat87 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I reccomend http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/ to you? Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

IQ basically measures the speed of the brain, so it seems likely that there is some correlation between IQ and good political judgement. High IQ people basically have a greater capacity for thought.

> so it seems likely that there is some correlation between IQ and good political judgement

Considering that many smart people believe in opposing ideologies, many of those being extreme and some which I think are really stupid, I can't believe that. I'd consider empathy and open-mindedness much more likely to correlate with support for good policies. Also people tend to disagree on what policies are good. People disagree on what good basic principles are, what the likely outcomes are, and whether those outcomes are good or not. There is disagreement even among smart people, even after the stupidity of much of the drug war.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#537

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:50 AM UTC

drcode wrote: post #32

smhenderson wrote: post #13

That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go "global" with everything. I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit the cr…

You have to understand that the "murder for hire" evidence was introduced as part of the trial (at which point Ross' lawyer could have disputed it, but didn't) so it could be used as part of the sentencing decision... and that kind of takes the luster off of the "non-violent crime" argument.

[deleted]

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#538

Post by wz1000 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:51 AM UTC

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?

Yes, the Pickard bust[0] was an interesting example of this. A highly productive, extremely smart and insightful researcher was given two(!) life sentences(something even most violent criminals, rapists and murderers don't get) at a high security prison. His crime was manufacturing LSD, which has no recorded overdoses, is not addictive, and reports of it harming users are extremely rare. Here[1] is a brief account of his heartbreaking story, and here[2] is more information about him, also containing links to recent papers that he published.

[0]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard

[1]- http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/William-Pickard-s-long-s...

[2]- https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/pickard_leonard/

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#539

Post by tracker1 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:02 AM UTC

rat87 wrote: post #525

jensen123 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition?? The average IQ of most western countries, including the US, is around 100. That's probably significantly lower than the average reader here on Hacker News. I'm not sure if a person with an IQ of 100 ever asks themselves intelligent questions like yours...

May I reccomend http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/ to you? Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

I was recently in a conversation where it was pointed out that my rather cold analytic nature when it comes to these kinds of things puts me at odds with more emotionally driven decisions. Even without agreeing, I can see the point.

That said, in my mind short of violent action, I find it hard to see how having to serve more than two decades in prison is any kind of justice for any kind of non-violent crime. I also find that seeing the U.S. prison population at near 1% is rather depressing, and that most drugs probably shouldn't be criminalized and their use are more representative of other social issues at hand.

When black markets exist to the extent that the drug trade does, it usually indicates that the law is probably wrong. A black market for anything will always exist, but when you're starting to see it affect even 1% of the population as it does in this case, that should indicate that legally, the position should change in a way that reduces the need for such markets. However, time and time again governments try to push in the other direction, the U.S. revolution from England is in a large part based on this.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#540

Post by mirimir » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:06 AM UTC

jhildings wrote: post #523

omegaham wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it might be possible to set up a dark market (and even then, it's unlikely). The problem is making money off of it. You have to spend the money somewhere, after all. And unlike cash, which is very difficult to trace, spending Bitcoins can be tracked. "Gee, the wallet that everyone pays money to is spending it on X, Y, and Z! I wonder whom that's for!"

Well you could create a new wallet for each transaction that is still controlled by the owner right ?

That's not enough, because the blockchain contains the transaction history. It is possible to anonymize Bitcoins via Tor. You would anonymously create many wallets, and transfer through mixing services. Then, using https://blockchain.info/, you would check for taint among your adddresses.

However, that would not be so easy for hundreds or thousands of Bitcoins. It's hard for a snake to discreetly swallow a pig. Numerous wallets and small transactions would be prudent. But the process could probably be automated.