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

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

#141

Post by GhotiFish »

LukeShu wrote: post #36
GhotiFish wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Silk Road did not have a hitman business. I remember the site laying out explicit rules such that "nothing may be sold that could be used to hurt another human being." I believe that was the phrasing anyway. I that made sense to me, as it was inline with DPR's philosophies. However, my peers have said he had another site for stuff like that. Maybe they're mistaken? Anyway, I know that stuff w…

From Wikipedia: The site's terms of service had said that they prohibited the sale of "anything who's [sic] purpose is to harm or defraud."[15] This included child pornography, stolen credit cards, assassinations and weapons of mass destruction.[22][25] And: A sister site called 'The Armory' sold weapons (primarily guns) during 2012, but was shut down due to a lack of demand.[26][27]

thanks for pointing that out. It seems for a time, the members took it upon themselves to buy and sell guns on the silk road. until it was moved to The Armory, then later shut down.

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

#142

Post by ferdo »

tptacek wrote: post #134
ferdo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's thinking based in classic American political philosophy[1], not a worn-out internet meme. [1] "Vices Are Not Crimes" by Lysander Spooner http://www.lysanderspooner.org/VicesAreNotCrimes.htm

Lysander Spooner is not a mainstream American political philosopher, except to the extent that you consider anarcho-capitalism mainstream. And your citation does the same thing you just tried to do, which was to define away the liberties you don't care to defend as "crimes". Spooner does so more rigorously, and isn't deploying his arguments as a superficial attempt to deflect an argument, but I don't see how your cit…

> Lysander Spooner is not a mainstream American political philosopher

Immaterial. He's been an large influence on American political life[1], alive and dead.

> I'm also going to...duck, and run away.

I always appreciate this response from people with an attachment to the government/State than the more common approach which is to call people names. Many thanks.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner#American_Lette...

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

#143

Post by ferdo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #139
ferdo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> criminals, by definition, commit crimes -- violations of criminal law. This is only true if one takes the State's part in these discussions. The State can claim that certain forms of agriculture are illegal but that doesn't magically make those forms of agriculture criminal endeavors in anyone's eyes but those with an interest in the State's narrative.

> This is only true if one takes the State's part in these discussions. No, the definition of what "criminals" means is independent of the value judgement of the correctness of the state's laws.

> the definition of what "criminals" means is independent of the value judgement of the correctness of the state's laws.

Do you have proof which is not from a State-backed agency on this assertion?

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

#144

Post by ferdo »

manicbovine wrote: post #136
ferdo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you want to live in a world where buying a simple OTC sleep pill at Walgreen's exposes you to the risk of ingesting heroin or some other decidedly narcotic substance? I'd prefer to live in a world where I could choose to use any medicine I wish to use. It's the liberty/security thing all over again. I prefer the insecurity of liberty to the security of having an overseer. My opinion has always been in the minori…

Replace the words "drug" and "medicine" by "chemical" or "bioactive substance". You see, that's what we must talk about if we talk about legalizing "drugs". One person's drug or medicine is another's poison (Datura is a good example, interesting for discussion because it's legal to own as a plant). If you're fine with criminalizing the sale of contaminated meat, then you are implicitly relying on the government to pr…

> If you're fine with criminalizing the sale of contaminated meat

I'm fine with criminalizing any form of fraud. Selling contaminated meat as good meat is fraud. If someone sold aspirin with heroin in it but didn't label it as such, they'd be guilty of fraud also.

> You'd better serve your interests

If my interests aren't in line with my principles, that would make me more of a hypocrite than we're already forced to be at times.

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

#145

Post by MichaelGG »

jlgreco wrote: post #138
MichaelGG wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the cartels would be cleared out in a month. I fear they could coast on their cash reserves longer than that (and would desire to, instead of merely dissolve, to protect their remaining cash and avoid arrest), but otherwise I think you are exactly right. Kidnapping may be profitable, but it is nowhere near profitable enough to feed that beast.

I was sorta hinting that Monsanto would probably be more ruthless than the cartels and bring their end much quicker.

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

#146

Post by jlgreco »

MichaelGG wrote: post #145
jlgreco wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cartels would be cleared out in a month. I fear they could coast on their cash reserves longer than that (and would desire to, instead of merely dissolve, to protect their remaining cash and avoid arrest), but otherwise I think you are exactly right. Kidnapping may be profitable, but it is nowhere near profitable enough to feed that beast.

I was sorta hinting that Monsanto would probably be more ruthless than the cartels and bring their end much quicker.

Ah... that would be interesting to see play out, to say the least. I imagine Monsanto would compete on price and convenience though, not with guns.

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

#147

Post by saraid216 »

samolang wrote: post #91
saraid216 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The concept of "natural rights" is motivated by protection against the government. That's why natural rights are so difficult to defend. Their entire basis is anti-change.

Their basis is against coercion. There are other ways to effect change beside coercion.

Yes, there are. Fires, earthquakes, and tornadoes.

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

#148

Post by pak »

john_b wrote: post #116
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…

> "We aren't born anonymous. In the "state of nature," without government, we are in no way anonymous." Using "natural states of being", however defined, to articulate rights in unnatural states of being (i.e. modern society) is a fallacy. It presumes that a natural state of being naturally endows people with all their rights, and that the arbitrary social systems that have evolved on top of that natural state have s…

> Using "natural states of being", however defined, to articulate rights in unnatural states of being (i.e. modern society) is a fallacy.

You're absolutely right, I'm muddling the concept of natural rights by doing that. (John Locke would be very disappointed.) The point I was trying to make was that many people do not realize that anonymity is something that society has to actually construct infrastructure for and support. To justify doing that, anonymity would either have to be deemed a "natural right" (something society considers every citizen is justly due, like in the US Bill of Rights) or the benefits and disadvantages must be weighed in every circumstance. I'm claiming that it is the latter and questioning why techno-libertarians usually assume the former. Then I'm raising that possibility that the calculus may just work out against allowing anonymity on some common communication mediums like the Internet.

As to your second point, yes, I agree that fear-mongering is unfortunately one of the many ways that minority viewpoints can hold sway over the public debate. I can't see much of a solution to it except time and a more robust democratic system, where you hope that eventually reason and the silent majority will prevail.

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

#149

Post by etherael »

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…

> 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 principles.

Well, if you take liberty as an understandable goal worth pursuing; true free speech is only possible when the speaker is anonymous, that is, free from the repercussions of anything that they have said so they are able to say anything that they desire or believe.

In exactly the same way, true free markets are only possible when the participants are anonymous. Of course, some random anonymous person speaking freely or attempting to engage in commerce with you on the net is extremely suspect at first glance, but just because you can't link a person's speech or market activity to a meatspace identity to point a gun at, doesn't mean that person can't accrue a reputation for accurate analysis in speech or fair dealings in a market.

Look at Bitcoin itself for an example of the reputation of anonymity; Nobody knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but he has a reputation far beyond that of your average random anonymous person if he chose to use his keys again to launch or endorse any other project. Silk road, Black market reloaded and the newly activated proxy stock ownership services on Tor similarly allowed people to accrue market reputations which had real value and were linked to an identity that they controlled, but simultaneously did not paint a target on their backs for people who wanted to sanction or extort them with violence in meatspace.

In both examples, true free speech and true free markets are only enabled by breaking the link between an entity and their meatspace representation which is extremely vulnerable to coercion vs their cryptospace representation which has almost unlimited free reign to do and say what they choose within that cryptospace without vulnerability to coercion.

This is the ideal being pursued by anonymous cryptocurrency denominated markets; freedom from the friction of predatory parasitic elements that prey upon existing semi-free markets coupled with the ability to still hold market actors to account for their actions by way of their building a digital reputation and that reputation being a thing that they value and protect.

So, if you value REAL free markets and REAL free speech, anonymity should be a desirable goal.

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

#150

Post by etherael »

pak wrote: post #92
revelation wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Both of your points are hyperbolic claims with no warrant. > Communication mediums are the safest thing in the whole wide world. Even though this is a strawman, since my arguing to the contrary does nothing to support that anonymity is or isn't a natural right, you're still completely wrong. Perhaps I can't literally shoot someone with a computer, but all kinds of violence is inflicted by communication. You can haras…

> Perhaps you can add up the numbers and claim that more suffering has been inflicted in total by governments (in the course of wars, or whatever, some of which were more justifiable than others) rather than isolated individuals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

His research shows that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government-caused deaths, Rummel estimates that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. According to his figures, six times as many people have died from the actions of people working for governments than have died in battle.

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