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An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

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Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#51

Post by bjourne »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #17
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #10

The operators of Silk Road were mafioso's that ordered hits on competitors and people they didn't like. The whole, "we're just a bunch of gentle hippie libertarians and the evil police state can't handle how chill and peaceful we are" is both factually and morally false. Please stop repeating it. http://www.businessinsider.com/silk-road-boss-ordered-6-assa... I also support 90% of the drug laws out there. The argumen…

> He's empowering others to destroy their lives, which very often leads to more crime as addicts will steal or even kill for their next fix. What about alcohol? Cigarettes? Poker? Penny stocks? All of these things have contributed to people blowing their savings, futures, and ruining their own lives and their families' lives. By criminalizing drugs, people who want to fix their behavior are unable to because they're…

What's this argument that if N vices are legal, then N+1 vices should be legal too? Yes, it's true that alcohol can ruin your life, but that fact is not a good argument for legalizing heroin.

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#52

Post by [deleted] »

samatman wrote: post #44
Retric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try and launder a 1Billion to 10 Billion dollor transaction with bitcoin and that's going to fall flat. PS: For comparison you can fedex ~170,000$ worth of gold in a vary inconspicious 15 LB box. Shipping ~60,000 lb of gold (1Billion$) is much easier to track and more risky.

There is no possible way to make gold inconspicuous. The density simply prohibits it: gold reflects easy-to-send parts of the EM spectrum that most anything else will pass.

[deleted]

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#53

Post by [deleted] »

samatman wrote: post #44
Retric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try and launder a 1Billion to 10 Billion dollor transaction with bitcoin and that's going to fall flat. PS: For comparison you can fedex ~170,000$ worth of gold in a vary inconspicious 15 LB box. Shipping ~60,000 lb of gold (1Billion$) is much easier to track and more risky.

There is no possible way to make gold inconspicuous. The density simply prohibits it: gold reflects easy-to-send parts of the EM spectrum that most anything else will pass.

[deleted]

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#54

Post by razster »

donpdonp wrote: post #30

A formerly respected tech publication has been making life hell for hackernews readers by resorting to sensationalist link-bait headlines.

And this is why I always hit the comments before clicking on the link. I've seen a flux of these bait headlines, only if I know the URL will I click otherwise I will go to comments.

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#55

Post by Retric »

samatman wrote: post #44
Retric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try and launder a 1Billion to 10 Billion dollor transaction with bitcoin and that's going to fall flat. PS: For comparison you can fedex ~170,000$ worth of gold in a vary inconspicious 15 LB box. Shipping ~60,000 lb of gold (1Billion$) is much easier to track and more risky.

There is no possible way to make gold inconspicuous. The density simply prohibits it: gold reflects easy-to-send parts of the EM spectrum that most anything else will pass.

Your assuming there is a test in place to detect gold in FedEx packages. That's not acutally a hard thing to test and I would be interested in the results.

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#56

Post by asocial »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #25
asocial wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is completely true. But the police don't arrest people for breaking ethical principles, they arrest people for breaking laws. So also, in context, not entirely relevant.

Last time I checked extortion and making a false police report was against the law. I think context was that the police are participating in the SWATings while not putting in any effort to track down the perpetrators and at the same time they're putting a disproportionate amount of effort into shutting down otherwise peaceful markets.

What proof is there that the police are not putting any effort into tracking down the perpetrators?

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#57

Post by unreal37 »

jmuguy wrote: post #32
donpdonp wrote: post #30

A formerly respected tech publication has been making life hell for hackernews readers by resorting to sensationalist link-bait headlines.

This article also seems to just abruptly end. Been seeing that more frequently lately with stuff posted online. Not sure if its just lazy or poor writing but no closing paragraph makes for a poor reading experience.

Makes you scroll down and see the ads at the bottom...

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#58

Post by nullc »

Pretty sad that all hacker news can find to talk about here is debate about the legalities of drug trade and the ethics of the people involved in them that was inspired by a somewhat trollish one-liner quote in the article, with little to no relation with the actual subject of the article.

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#59

Post by jessaustin »

[deleted] wrote: post #36
josh2600 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor point but one that I think is valuable. Decimating something is to reduce it by 1/10th. You are thinking of it as an analogy for destroy which it is not.

[deleted]

Have you read that link? Do you know what is under discussion here? The actual misunderstanding is between reducing something by a tenth and reducing it by a great deal. In that context, "decimate" does indeed mean to reduce by a tenth. Even the most pessimistic legalization forecasts see greater changes in trafficking than a reduction of a tenth.

Maybe you're not a churchgoer, but the additional meaning of "tithe" discussed in your link confirms even further that a tenth is what "decimate" is about, because those who tithe, typically tithe a tenth of their incomes.

[EDIT:] Language changes, and attempts to avert such changes, are both part of what "language" means. Don't even get me started on "penultimate". b^) I wouldn't have commented, except that parent (since deleted) was a fairly aggressive, specific, and substantially incorrect ("nuh-uh! decimation can also refer to tithing!") criticism of josh2600's comment.

Re: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters

#60

Post by ObviousScience »

modeless wrote: post #42
EpicEng wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the police do not decide which laws to ignore and which to enforce. They are the enforcement arm, not the legislative. No one should be alarmed that people when people are arrested for peddling illegal drugs.

> the police do not decide which laws to ignore and which to enforce They absolutely do. For example, police in Seattle explicitly made marijuana enforcement the lowest possible priority years before Washington legalized it. It was a common sight to see policemen standing right next to people openly smoking pot on the street and completely ignoring them. The police actually have a huge amount of leeway, and it can be…

Actually, in 2003, the voters passed an initiative mandating that police lower their enforcement of marijuana in Seattle[1].

[1] http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Two-years-later-littl...

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