Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 161 posts

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#101

Post by VladRussian2 »

revelation wrote: post #51
pak wrote: post #35

Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road. Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet? Life, liberty, freedom from discrimination, due process--these things I understand, and there are well supported philosophical frameworks (rule utilitarian, Kantian, libertarian etc.) for deriving them from first…

People seem to forget this is just the internet. It's a communications medium . Anonymity in communications are certainly not a unique feature of the internet, you can hide your caller id, and a letter will still arrive without a return address. The basic idea being that you can't shoot someone in the face by merely communicating, and I'm pretty sure you can still not commit a violent crime over the internet alone. C…

>The concept of "natural rights" is motivated by protection against the government.

yes, there is no natural rights in Nature, except may be the right to run as fast as one able to away from the next up in the food chain.

The current stage of human society is akin to a situation when a pack of predators and a herd of prey make an agreement that the prey willn't be hunted as long as it stays withing specified bounds. The pack will also protect the herd there from other predators. It is a win-win for both parties - the prey get relaxed and spend all its energy grazing and procreating and thus becomes fatter and the herd's headcount grows tremendously (the bounds were extended several times and now it is a pretty complicated patchwork), while predators hunt smaller percentage (the ones who can't keep themselves inside the bounds) of the much bigger herd of much fatter/slower/tastier prey with total amount of meat consumed by predators being higher than before the agreement.

The herd with time starts to believe that not being hunted down while inside the bounds is the natural right.

The predators sometimes can't resist and snatch some very tasty prey from inside the bounds - as long as such transgressions are kept below some low percentage, the herd wouldn't make big fuss of it to avoid risk of destabilizing of the agreement that works so great for the herd (true story, some members of the herd even have time and energy now to develop various theories about the thing they call Universe and why a prey and a predator got created(or evolved?)) .

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#102

Post by pak »

betterunix wrote: post #96
pak wrote: post #35

Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road. Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet? Life, liberty, freedom from discrimination, due process--these things I understand, and there are well supported philosophical frameworks (rule utilitarian, Kantian, libertarian etc.) for deriving them from first…

"Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet?" From the natural right to free speech. Anonymity systems rely on people transmitting particular messages in particular ways, whether online or offline. When someone makes an anonymous statement to a newspaper, they do so with the assistance of the reporter who writes the article -- that reporter is repeating what someone else said, and n…

> From the natural right to free speech.

Hmm, I like where you started with this, particularly in suggesting that a free press requires anonymous sources and authors. It is really interesting to see how the Supreme Court has historically balanced this societal interest against individual rights in cases on e.g. libel, slander, whistleblowers, and so on. The tricky part is in claiming that all of this applies to the extent that you believe to communication specifically on the internet. One could argue, and this is the justification for the earliest wiretapping laws for phone systems, that electronic communications increase convenience but also the potential for abuse, and if people need sacrosanct anonymity there is nothing preventing them from sticking to meatspace communication methods.

This is kind of like the conflict between rights granted for free movement within the U.S. and the security requirements for travelers to show ID before boarding planes, etc. Is plane travel a natural extension of the right to free movement, or can you safely tell such people they need to walk, drive, etc.? It is a tricky call.

> we could have built an Internet of point-to-point wireless links... The government could outlaw such things, but that does not mean that the lack of such laws is an allowance, unless you think that all your rights are things the government allows

Also an interesting point, but within a certain context, isn't it hard to separate what I'm allowed to do from the government's protection of my doing so? This is the problem that less-government people face when waving their hands and claiming that everything could still work. It is hard to comprehend how much the collective safety and regulation of common goods provided by the current system affects what we currently do. For instance, if everybody started making microwave dishes that burned each other's pets and gave people cancer, I think we would begin to regulate those ISM bands more tightly. When I breath, am I not breathing clean air because the government won't let the factory down the street burn rubber tires out in the open and my neighbors from building or buying cars that spew fumes? I'm getting kind of hyperbolic here, but I guess my point is that the Internet that would exist with ZERO government support, and that includes eliminating all the transactions of currency for goods that keep those net-meshed wireless routers and computers running, creates a very different picture of the Internet from the one that exists now, if it would even function at all.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#103

Post by MichaelGG »

GhotiFish wrote: post #22
venus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is anyone who believes - really believes - it has not. The war on drugs is kind of this diorama encapsulation of everything that is wrong with our politics, media, and society.

Well. I'm not convinced it did, myself. If prohibition didn't happen 1920s for the americans, would Al Capone never of being born? Really these prohibition laws give lowlifes something to fight over, and the fightings dangerous, but who says they wouldn't be fighting anyway? Does it make life more dangerous. Maybe not. Does it make it more dangerous for me? Maybe. edit: Ouch. Looking forward to that rebuttal.

Seriously? Giving monopolies to cartels drives massive profits. Cartels maintain actual military troops. It's hard to believe they'd have any source of crime remotely as lucrative without artificial monopolies making huge margins. Sure, they would do kidnapping, extortion, and so on, but that's not anywhere nearly the amount of easy money.

If the government granted Monsanto a license for weed, cocaine and poppy, the cartels would be cleared out in a month.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#104

Post by chc »

ferdo wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have also traded the liberty of selling contaminated meat for the security of minimizing deaths due to foodborne pathogens. That trade seems to have worked out well. People have also traded the liberty of people able to discard carcinogenic industrial waste wherever they please for the security of the world's most reliable potable water delivery systems. That trade seems to have worked out well. He's right, an…

> the liberty of selling contaminated meat That's not liberty. That's criminal behavior that stems from criminal thinking. If government has any legitimate function at all, it's to prevent injustice from criminals and other predators. When government becomes the seat of criminality and predation, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? > He's right, and you're wrong. I parse this as, "I agree with him, not you" as these are a…

> That's not liberty. That's criminal behavior that stems from criminal thinking.

You seem to be using an idiosyncratic definition of either "liberty" or "criminal," because this seems to be tautological by the normal definitions. Something being criminal means your liberty to indulge in that thing has been taken away. So you could say this about any behavior — if you are at liberty to do it, it's not criminal, and if it's a crime, you are not at liberty to do it.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#105

Post by tptacek »

ferdo wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have also traded the liberty of selling contaminated meat for the security of minimizing deaths due to foodborne pathogens. That trade seems to have worked out well. People have also traded the liberty of people able to discard carcinogenic industrial waste wherever they please for the security of the world's most reliable potable water delivery systems. That trade seems to have worked out well. He's right, an…

> the liberty of selling contaminated meat That's not liberty. That's criminal behavior that stems from criminal thinking. If government has any legitimate function at all, it's to prevent injustice from criminals and other predators. When government becomes the seat of criminality and predation, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? > He's right, and you're wrong. I parse this as, "I agree with him, not you" as these are a…

"That's not liberty, that's criminal behavior" is a no-true-scotsman argument.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#106

Post by manicbovine »

quadrangle wrote: post #83
smokeyj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why did humanity create governments? The same reason "humanity" created mafias and gangs -- which is to use violence as a means of economic control.

It's as or more reasonable to say that governments evolved out of the need to mediate conflicts between people living in groups.

This is also a more reasonable explanation for organized crime, seeing as how criminals cannot rely on the government to mediate criminal disputes.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#107

Post by return0 »

pak wrote: post #35

Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road. Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet? Life, liberty, freedom from discrimination, due process--these things I understand, and there are well supported philosophical frameworks (rule utilitarian, Kantian, libertarian etc.) for deriving them from first…

Is there such a thing as "natural right"? Isn't everything that can exist natural?

'Accountability' is sort of relative though: Nobody would disagree that a hit man should be held accountable for murder, but what about the random person who bought some recreational drugs? In this case , one could claim that anonymity protects the person from unjustified but lawful prosecution. What would be the reaction if if silk road had restricted itself to sale of recreational drugs only? Would it be just to shut it down?

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#108

Post by john_b »

macspoofing wrote: post #68
pak wrote: post #35

Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road. Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet? Life, liberty, freedom from discrimination, due process--these things I understand, and there are well supported philosophical frameworks (rule utilitarian, Kantian, libertarian etc.) for deriving them from first…

>Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road...Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet Techno-libertarians would care more about the right of individuals to freely trade with each other. Anonymity is merely a necessary component of trading controlled substances under an oppressive regime. I think m…

> "I think most libertarians would agree there is no intrinsic right to anonymity."

As a libertarian, I disagree. The ability to converse, trade, and move about privately is intrinsically necessary to support other fundamental rights. In my view, anonymity (which is just a special case of privacy where a person chooses to reveal no personal information) as an intrinsic right is derived from this necessity.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#109

Post by fjabre »

pak wrote: post #35

Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road. Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet? Life, liberty, freedom from discrimination, due process--these things I understand, and there are well supported philosophical frameworks (rule utilitarian, Kantian, libertarian etc.) for deriving them from first…

I think we're off topic. This is more about the war on drugs and how it's an epic fail and continues to be.

I'm a techno-libertarian and I hope that one day all drugs will be legal again, albeit highly regulated and taxed so we can all reap the benefits of that market instead of wasting trillions trying to suppress it.

Re: Did Shutting Down Silk Road Make the World a More Dangerous Place?

#110

Post by karzeem »

pak wrote: post #35

Here's a question for the techno-libertarians stepping up to say the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road. Where do you derive this supposed natural right for anonymity on the internet? Life, liberty, freedom from discrimination, due process--these things I understand, and there are well supported philosophical frameworks (rule utilitarian, Kantian, libertarian etc.) for deriving them from first…

The other responses to this would probably be agreeable to most "techno-libertarians", but I don't think they're quite correct as to how this natural right is derived.

They don't actually posit a natural right to anonymity specifically. The core idea is that the only moral use of force is self-defense. Therefore, it would be immoral for people to use force against you (in this system, laws are considered force because the government backs them with the threat of arrest) if you're not using force against them.

"Anonymous communication being a non-violent act, it is immoral to use force to suppress anonymous communication" ~= "the government has no right to shut down sites like Silk Road"

Post reply on HN