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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

#561

Post by timsally »

rascul wrote: post #541
timsally wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those. The following applies only to the US. Since 1968 you need a license granted by the federal government to sell guns ( https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/who-can-obtain-federal-firea... ). The law allowing you to carry a firearm was passed in 1791. Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one. When thinkin…

> Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one. You most certainly can. And it's completely legal. Driver's licenses have nothing to do with buying and selling vehicles. Some (all?) dealers might not do it, but there's other reasons besides legality for them to worry about.

Interesting, I stand corrected. That said, to legally carry out the act with a car that might actually hurt someone else (driving it), you need to be both licensed by the government and compliant with a suite of regulation (insurance, etc). So I think the point still stands.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#562

Post by timsally »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #416
timsally wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those. The following applies only to the US. Since 1968 you need a license granted by the federal government to sell guns ( https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/who-can-obtain-federal-firea... ). The law allowing you to carry a firearm was passed in 1791. Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one. When thinkin…

That dichotomy is clever, almost convincing, and plainly obvious in its manipulative structure.

How about we both draw out our positions more explicitly? I present two scenarios where someone is selling a harmful product to people-- one in which someone is selling a product that US citizens have an unassailable right to in an illegal fashion and one in which someone is selling a product that people have a weaker claim to in a legal fashion. I support jail for the former and not the latter simply because my position is that the peoples' right to have product is irrelevant, it's whether you are selling it legally or not. If you're selling someone harmful in an illegal manner and you do multi-million dollars of business per year you should go to jail for a long time, even if the people have a right to said product.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#564

Post by vegedor »

tzs wrote: post #285
zanny wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the key point. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, pretty much, for running a website. Not for hurting anyone, not for even threatening to kill anyone - those charges weren't a part of his conviction - but simply by enabling the exchange of drugs he apparently should be locked away forever. Go Team 'Murica....

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,…

Guns don't kill people, people do. The place wasn't only used for drugs, but mostly, sure.

The drugs aren't harmful, harm is an abstract term for a process that hurts. The process in question is the abuse of drugs. The selling of drugs by itself doesn't cause direct harm.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#565

Post by vegedor »

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…

> If people want to take drugs, even take too much drugs their going to get it somewhere

It's akin to the tragedy of the commons and it's not true.

If I don't murder you, you're going to die eventually anyway. Is that legitimate reason for you to let me kill you? This is a pretty good example because death is indeed inevitable, in contrast to the availability of drugs, and also, death is the ultimate problem concerning drug abuse.

BTW: It's they're, not their.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#566

Post by Flimm »

wz1000 wrote: post #532
rtpg wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

What would you say the impact of the prohibition and the war on drugs have had on the number of people who are negatively affected by drugs? That must be considered too.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#567

Post by jsprogrammer »

foobar2020 wrote: post #510
jsprogrammer wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, there are many compounds/experiences that seem to be highly effective (even to the point of eliminating withdrawl symptoms): cannabis, ayhuasca/DMT, ibogaine, and other psychedelics.

Anecdotally? Where does that come from, do you have any sources? Also, withdrawal is not the major problem when combating addiction.

I have not experienced it personally, nor do I personally know anyone who has experienced it.

I do personally know someone whom personally knows others who have directly experienced (high dose cannabis edibles for alcohol addiction). There are many claimed first, second, and third hand reports out on the Internet. There are also quite a few professional documentaries about the topic, many amatuer videos (directly capturing the experience and the people involved). I have also come across some peer reviewed literature as well.

I don't maintain a list of such reports and can't look for them at the moment, but they shouldn't be too difficult to find if you are interested.

It is not 100% effective. Some will definitly not change their behavior much, even though they claimed to want to.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#568

Post by Retra »

shit_parade2 wrote: post #473
tptacek wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed "overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted. Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder-for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.

Why are you riding this belief so hard? It's like a one man fan group trying desperately to make an untruth truth. Was he convicted of this charge you speak of? No. And who really cares what the legal system decides, it is an utter farce.

Yes, he was convicted on all counts, and murder-for-hire was part of count one.

So why are you convinced he wasn't convicted of this charge?

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#569

Post by LyndsySimon »

my-bullshit-job wrote: post #496
TylerE wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was lots of sleazy stuff going down on SR totally unrelated to drugs...stolen credit cards, weapons, etc.

Weapons were never on silk road, iirc.

Weapons were on SR in the early days, but were removed with the launch of "The Armory", a weapons-specific site. That site didn't last long, and eventually died for lack of interest.
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