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Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

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Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#761

Post by the__alchemist »

rescripting wrote: post #741
constantcrying wrote: post #722

Here is what the discussion looked like almost a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985 Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in how this issue is seen on here.

I'd be wary of drawing correlations like this. The people who commented on that thread are not going to be the same people commenting on this one. The topic isn't even the same; in the first thread the topic is his sentencing, and in this its his pardon. The attraction for people to post on Hacker News is mainly to complain, and so in the first you get complaints the sentencing is too harsh, and in this one you get c…

Making a distinction of whether individuals have changed perspective on the topic, and whether a community has are different levels of examination, and both may provide insights. In this case, Hacker news is an emergent phenomenon of individuals; it's OK to examine its evolution as whole.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#762

Post by cpursley »

immibis wrote: post #737
constantcrying wrote: post #722

Here is what the discussion looked like almost a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985 Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in how this issue is seen on here.

What I don't understand is why Donald Trump , of all people, is being lenient on drug traffickers.

Trump has never been a big drug warrior (against drug users). His social views are basically late 80's 1990s Democrat and not out of line with Clinton, etc.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#763

Post by mardifoufs »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #706

Non-USian here. I'm interested in why . Given that Trump didn't pardon Ulbricht during his first presidential term, why now? What does Trump, who is notoriously transactional, get in return for this? Alternatively, what signal is he sending and to who?

To be honest if Trump would've pardoned him in his first term it would've been way too short of a sentence for what he did. Though I hate the usual libertarian defense that makes him out to be an innocent martyr, I think that 10 years is somewhat enough for what he did. It would have been a normal sentence in a lot of countries outside the US.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#764

Post by Thorrez »

maxlin wrote: post #709
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #679

I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover, during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other hand, I…

Ridiculous? He was in prison for 10 years.

Then commute his sentence to time served. Don't pardon him, which says he wasn't guilty to begin with.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#765

Post by tasty_freeze »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #688
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #679

I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover, during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other hand, I…

Actual murderers get out in the time that Ross served. The concept of justice must include an element of proportionality, I would argue that Ross's sentence, for a first time non-violent criminal, was over the top. Without proportionality justice becomes arbitrary, based more on luck and your connections to power. We punish those we can punish: the little guy. Whilst those running governments, corporations and networ…

If a Mafia boss never strong armed a merchant, never busted any kneecaps, and never pulled a trigger but simply paid other people to carry out various crimes, should the law give him a short sentence because he was non-violent?

I don't know what the appropriate sentence for Ulbrecht, but I think your claims about proportionality are missing the fact he didn't just direct commit a few crimes, such as trying (unsuccessfully) to hire a hitman, but he facilitated hundreds of thousands of crimes. Maybe you think selling drugs and guns to randos should not be illegal, but that is a separate question of whether or not he broke the laws as written.

As for your last point, I don't disagree that the wealthy/powerful/connected live under a different justice system than everyone else.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#766

Post by Projectiboga »

rhatsgf wrote: post #756
constantcrying wrote: post #722

Here is what the discussion looked like almost a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985 Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in how this issue is seen on here.

The facts are: Trump now does NTF and coinschemes himself and got talked into this by his new entourage. That is what most people here complain about. And he does this to distract from the fact that he will not stop the Ukraine war, not stop H1B etc. Many of the same people also complain about the Biden laptop and Biden's pardons.

He just fired or transfered everyone government involved in supporting Ukraine in their defensive war.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#767

Post by HWR_14 »

maxlin wrote: post #709
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #679

I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover, during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other hand, I…

Ridiculous? He was in prison for 10 years.

A pardon is not used when you think the crime occurred but the punishment is too harsh. That's a commutation (which the president also has the power to do). It can replace the punishment with a lighter one or none at all.

A pardon is used when you want to erase the criminal record on top of that.

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#768

Post by dbspin »

golly_ned wrote: post #352
zanek wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading the comments on this thread. Multiple teenagers (one in Australia) died from the drugs distributed on Silk Road. Ross was ok with selling grenades, body parts, etc on there. But everyone is saying he served his time ???

He wasn't dealing them. He's not exactly culpable for the effects of his platform any more than Zuckerberg is responsible for mass hate speech coordinated by third-world dictators or Evan Spiegel for facilitating millions of nude images of children and teenagers.

Hard disagree - Zuckerberg absolutely is responsible for inadequately policing calls for genocide on his platform. Just as every social network is responsible for policing child abuse materials. Should they be punished for such content being uploaded? Of course not. They should face punishment where their wilful failure to police such content results in active harm. Facebook's utterly irresponsible behaviour in Myanmar is a great example - https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-ho...

In the case of the Silk Road of course, it's much worse, since the platform specifically existed to facilitate illegal behaviour. I couldn't care less about the drug dealing aspect per say, but absolutely facilitating sale in these quantities with no protection from outright poisoning from contaminants is immoral. But he also sold weapons via 'the armory' https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/not-ready-silk-roads-the...

He also directly attempted to have someone murdered, which is a very serious crime in any country. The guy is not a hero. - https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-bos...

Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

#769

Post by [deleted] »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #688
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #679

I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover, during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other hand, I…

Actual murderers get out in the time that Ross served. The concept of justice must include an element of proportionality, I would argue that Ross's sentence, for a first time non-violent criminal, was over the top. Without proportionality justice becomes arbitrary, based more on luck and your connections to power. We punish those we can punish: the little guy. Whilst those running governments, corporations and networ…

[deleted]
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