61–70 of 161 posts
Did Silk Road even put a slight dent in street drug sellers in the first place? I would be surprised if street level sellers and buyers are internet savvy enough to use a service like this. SR looks more like the ideal system for savvy college students and young techs to specifically avoid the street level market.
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…
> governments are ultimately the overseers that permit networking infrastructure comprising the internet to be built...society depends on accountability There are two conflicting thoughts here. If we're not entitled to the same anonymity that those spying on us have, then we're servants, not members of a just society. We can have a government as overseer of communications or we can have a just society. We can't have…
I hate this false dichotomy. It simply isn't true as we give up a wide range of liberties in order to live in a safer world. That is what laws inherently are, rules that limit an individuals ability for the greater good of society. Whether is it preventing people from driving down a highway at 100 mph, whether they can grow and consume marijuana, or whether they can expect that all their internet communication is 100% private, we simply need to do an analysis of the costs and benefits to figure out if a particular liberty is worth giving up to give us a particular level of safety.
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…
If that were true, which it isn't, why did humanity create governments?
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…
> History is very clear on this: the biggest enemies of justice have been governments and state sponsored entities, every single time. If that were true, which it isn't, why did humanity create governments?
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed,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…
> History is very clear on this: the biggest enemies of justice have been governments and state sponsored entities, every single time. If that were true, which it isn't, why did humanity create governments?
The same reason "humanity" created mafias and gangs -- which is to use violence as a means of economic control.
As the article itself said, successor sites are inevitable (and there are at least two that are thriving right now in SR's fallout). Those who prefer online black markets over physical transactions will simply migrate to the new marketplaces and consequently turn them into the "new Silk Road". The only true effect, perhaps, will be people taking security even more seriously. I read a statistic at some point that appr…
> 80% of SR users didn't use PGP I find this to be dubious. How does PGP relate to SR usage? When people communicated with SR vendors, did they use email (where PGP might matter) or did they use the SR software? Did their forum software allow people to sign their posts? How was this information sourced? Was there just an informal poll on their forums?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> governments are ultimately the overseers that permit networking infrastructure comprising the internet to be built...society depends on accountability There are two conflicting thoughts here. If we're not entitled to the same anonymity that those spying on us have, then we're servants, not members of a just society. We can have a government as overseer of communications or we can have a just society. We can't have…
> We can have Liberty or Security but if we pick Security over Liberty, we'll lose both. I hate this false dichotomy. It simply isn't true as we give up a wide range of liberties in order to live in a safer world. That is what laws inherently are, rules that limit an individuals ability for the greater good of society. Whether is it preventing people from driving down a highway at 100 mph, whether they can grow and c…
Not to be unkind, but this is a simplistic view of law and realpolitiks. As an example, can you honestly say that arresting hundreds of thousands of peaceful weed smokers annually is a "greater good"?
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…
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 most libertarians would agree there is no intrinsic right to anonymity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> History is very clear on this: the biggest enemies of justice have been governments and state sponsored entities, every single time. If that were true, which it isn't, why did humanity create governments?
> why did humanity create governments? The same reason "humanity" created mafias and gangs -- which is to use violence as a means of economic control.