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

Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 641 posts

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#331

Post by omegaham »

elwell wrote: post #155

Creating a platform that can be used to buy/sell illegal goods shouldn't be against the law IMO. Are car manufacturers thrown in jail when someone drives their product when drunk?

No, because the vast majority of people driving are obeying the law (or at least are committing very minor crimes). In contrast, the vast majority of people on Silk Road were buying and selling illegal goods.

It boils down to intent. If you intend to make a legitimate platform for commerce that also happens to be used for illegal stuff, (Craigslist, for example) you're in the clear as long as you aren't actively aiding them.

In contrast, if you set up your platform with the explicit intention of selling illegal goods, then you're in trouble.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#332

Post by mpyne »

itistoday2 wrote: post #317
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,…

> 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…

Yeah, I remember reading news stories all the time about how Canadians overdose on maple syrup or how Egyptians overdose on water. Truly, all drugs are just as innocuous as air and puppies.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#333

Post by mpyne »

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.

While it's nice that Force is responsible for the theft and not Green, Ulbricht didn't know that and so can't be given any 'credit' for that mistake. He arranged for his own employee to be tortured and murdered, even if his idiocy (and only his idiocy) in choosing hitmen prevented an actual fatality from happening.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#334

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#335

Post by brandon272 »

benihana wrote: post #237
gr8b8m8-88 wrote: post #86

So let's get this straight for the justice system: 1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable 2. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable 3. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster si…

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…

There's plenty of evidence that banks intentionally mislead consumers through predatory lending schemes, signing them for (and misrepresenting the terms of) loans that they knew that the borrower would not be able to pay back. They did so under the explicit premise that the bad mortgages would be lumped in with other investment products and then sold off.

A lot of people were defrauded. The economy is still trying to recover. I don't think people who lost homes or are struggling to find work and make ends meet would consider any of this to be an internet trope.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#336

Post by mpyne »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #238
izacus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So alleged hearsay is now enough to raise the sentence to a life in prison in US? O.o

It's just amazing to me how just alleging something by press release then withdrawing the allegation from the trial is enough to sentence somebody in the mind of the public. Just look at how people here are voting.

It's amazing to me how people can be pointed to literally where in a charging document you can find where the government actually included murder-for-hire as part of the charges against Ulbricht and yet "people here" can still manage to avoid seeing it...

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#337

Post by fleitz »

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…

Also, can you please avoid drinking water for the next 4 days... I think you might be addicted, if you're not addicted you won't show any signs of withdrawl.

Addicts suffering from water withdrawl often drink amounts that are unsafe for their health which is why marathon runners have to be given water adulterated with mind altering metals like sodium and highly toxic chlorine to make it safe for them to drink.

It's kind of insane that water addiction would drive people to ingest water in such vast amounts that you'd have to add chlorine and sodium to make it safer.

If you think places unsafe for swimming are marked I would hazard a guess that you haven't spent much time in the outdoors.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#338

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

I wasn't aware suspecting someone of embezzling (whether or not its the proceeds of your criminal enterprise) was generally an accepted justification, or even significant factor in mitigation, for torture and murder.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#339

Post by mpyne »

jamoes wrote: post #300
Spooky23 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ordered the killings of 6 people. Even by the bloodiest of bleeding heart standards, contract killing isn't some victimless crime.

He was charged with murder-for-hire in a separate jurisdiction, and he hasn't faced trial for those charges yet. Today he was sentenced to life in prison for a number of victimless crimes.

He was also charged in a separate jurisdiction, yes, but murder-for-hire was actually a component of one of the charges he was accused of in this trial.

Either way enough relatives of deceased drug abusers testified at sentencing, and enough heartless chat logs of DPR's were introduced as evidence, to rather eviscerate the idea that Silk Road was completely "victimless".

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#340

Post by drfuchs »

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.

So you agree that Alupis' item is completely false, which was my sole point.

As an aside, you conveniently neglect to mention that Curtis Green feared Ross would have him killed simply because Curtis had been arrested and Ross knew that he might spill the beans. And since Curtis knows Ross better than you or I do, and the fact that he managed to predict that Ross would try to have him killed, brings into question whether the money really made a difference.

Post reply on HN