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Who Deserves This? (2018)

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Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he didn't. The prosecutor "addressed the jury and stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire occurred." These charges were dismissed with prejudice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Silk_Road,_arres...

I think you are misreading that. They didn't "occur", because the hits weren't carried out. At least one, if not all the hits were contracted to an undercover FBI agent, which is how they caught him.

I don't think I am. Check the citations [1]

Do you have a citation for your undercover agent claim? I believe you're actually talking about DEA agent Carl Force and/or Shaun Bridges who were caught lying/stealing and charged with crimes [1].

1. https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross...

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These 7-year-old allegations relied solely on anonymous chats NEVER proven to have been authored by Ulbricht. It's well known now there were multiple people behind the DPR accounts AND 2 corrupt agents (now in prison) had admin access too. Never proven, never prosecuted and dismissed "with prejudice" by the govt, meaning they can never be used against him again. Ross was NOT accused of selling drugs or laundering mon…

You're casting vague FUD and not going into the details. The murders-for-hire are absolutely the most critical part of this whole case. >No one deserves this, even if they have to here for the sake of others’ safety. Certainly, the many non-violent drug offenders growing old in here don’t. Pain does not heal pain. A lost soul is not redeemed in a cage. I agree with this part of Ulbricht's letter here. If not for thos…

>> The murders-for-hire are absolutely the most critical part of this whole case.

Well maybe he should have been charged for that.

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that he was never charged with those attempted murders, I’m sympathetic to the argument that it should not have been used against him at sentencing. But practically, it always seemed to me fairly obvious that he did author those messages. Do you not think that’s the case?

Luckily most law systems in the world don't have "seemed to me fairly obvious" as grounds that you can convict someone on. Also, you're missing any sort of source/claim to back that it "seemed fairly obvious".

Meowface’s other reply in this thread said it better than I could. My point is, separate from the legal arguments, whether anyone here genuinely believes he did not order the murders and was framed. Have you read the chat transcripts?

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#54

> Imagine the worst torture you can think of that doesn’t leave the victim disabled, something you can’t deny is cruel: burning, flogging — take your pick. If the victims themselves would prefer this torture to imprisonment, the inescapable conclusion is that prison is worse, even more cruel. I, and every prisoner I have asked, would prefer any amount of pain and cruelty, for a limited duration, to the years and deca…

Philosophically, it's an interesting idea for discussion.

Sentence criminals to a certain amount of pain, and let them choose whether to experience it via decades of low-grade boredom, or hours/minutes/seconds of intense agony.

Personally, in an ideal world that is not this one, I think that prison serves the dual purpose of rehabilitation and removal-from-society, and that the "voluntary torture" approach serves neither end. But in our actual world, prison is only sometimes barely-rehabilitative, and I'm not sure how valuable removal from society is on its own. So... interesting discussion, at least.

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#55

> Imagine the worst torture you can think of that doesn’t leave the victim disabled, something you can’t deny is cruel: burning, flogging — take your pick. If the victims themselves would prefer this torture to imprisonment, the inescapable conclusion is that prison is worse, even more cruel. I, and every prisoner I have asked, would prefer any amount of pain and cruelty, for a limited duration, to the years and deca…

Philosophically, it's an interesting idea for discussion. Sentence criminals to a certain amount of pain, and let them choose whether to experience it via decades of low-grade boredom, or hours/minutes/seconds of intense agony. Personally, in an ideal world that is not this one, I think that prison serves the dual purpose of rehabilitation and removal-from-society, and that the "voluntary torture" approach serves nei…

Philosophically interesting, but I'm not sure it really serves all the purposes prison has. There are four widely recognized ones: retribution, discouragement of crime, protection of society (via isolation of harmful members), and rehabilitation. A short period of intense suffering, even supposing you could inflict an equivalent amount of "pain units", only addresses retribution and discouragement of crime.

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#56

> Imagine the worst torture you can think of that doesn’t leave the victim disabled, something you can’t deny is cruel: burning, flogging — take your pick. If the victims themselves would prefer this torture to imprisonment, the inescapable conclusion is that prison is worse, even more cruel. I, and every prisoner I have asked, would prefer any amount of pain and cruelty, for a limited duration, to the years and deca…

Philosophically, it's an interesting idea for discussion. Sentence criminals to a certain amount of pain, and let them choose whether to experience it via decades of low-grade boredom, or hours/minutes/seconds of intense agony. Personally, in an ideal world that is not this one, I think that prison serves the dual purpose of rehabilitation and removal-from-society, and that the "voluntary torture" approach serves nei…

There are cases where we want to punish some behavior, but it is not necessary to remove them from society.

An example is for example the Enron case. The executives needed to be punished, but I doubt they were an ongoing threat to society after they had been exposed.

Ross Ulbricht is another example. I doubt that he is an ongoing threat to society but still needs some punishment for breaking the law.

Bernie Madoff is another example. I doubt that he is an ongoing threat to society, but he is in prison as punishment and to serve as a deterrent to others.

In cases like these, the "voluntary corporal punishment" might be an option.

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophically, it's an interesting idea for discussion. Sentence criminals to a certain amount of pain, and let them choose whether to experience it via decades of low-grade boredom, or hours/minutes/seconds of intense agony. Personally, in an ideal world that is not this one, I think that prison serves the dual purpose of rehabilitation and removal-from-society, and that the "voluntary torture" approach serves nei…

Philosophically interesting, but I'm not sure it really serves all the purposes prison has. There are four widely recognized ones: retribution, discouragement of crime, protection of society (via isolation of harmful members), and rehabilitation. A short period of intense suffering, even supposing you could inflict an equivalent amount of "pain units", only addresses retribution and discouragement of crime.

As for protection of society, I don't think Ross Ulbricht would be a threat to society if he were released now. He is in prison mainly to serve as an example to others. There are probably a lot of other people like him in prison.

As for rehabilitation, I would think that in most cases it could be better accomplished via a community based program. For example, drug rehab works better in drug treatment facilities than in prison.

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophically interesting, but I'm not sure it really serves all the purposes prison has. There are four widely recognized ones: retribution, discouragement of crime, protection of society (via isolation of harmful members), and rehabilitation. A short period of intense suffering, even supposing you could inflict an equivalent amount of "pain units", only addresses retribution and discouragement of crime.

As for protection of society, I don't think Ross Ulbricht would be a threat to society if he were released now. He is in prison mainly to serve as an example to others. There are probably a lot of other people like him in prison. As for rehabilitation, I would think that in most cases it could be better accomplished via a community based program. For example, drug rehab works better in drug treatment facilities than…

Sure, I'm not speaking specifically of Ross' case, but the general case of prisoners preferring a quick, extreme punishment to a drawn out, mild punishment.

I agree that Ross is not someone who is a serious reoffender risk. OTOH, justice professionals might feel differently based on his lack of contrition (this typically counts against convicts at sentencing, partly because there's a view that it says something about recidivism risk). https://fortune.com/2015/06/01/why-a-judge-threw-the-book-at...

Re: Who Deserves This? (2018)

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you also think that Mark Zuckerberg runs my FB profile? IMHO that is a very unproductive way of thought. Also (on top of absence of practical correctness) most likely formally incorrect, but I'm not a English native speaker. Definitely would be invalid in my language though.

Amazon mingles inventory and delivers counterfeit goods on behalf of legitimate sellers. Your Facebook analogy is broken because Facebook is a completely different industry with completely different operations but to fix it, imagine if Facebook mixed up your posts with content written by spammers and served it to your friends under your name. Then you could say that Zuckerberg is in fact running your profile and ruin…

Okay, that makes sense, I didn't know Amazon does that.
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