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152 sats \ 10 replies \ @Cje95 3h \ on: What am I missing about Ross Ulbricht and the silk road? Politics_And_Law
He didn't create the most dangerous he just created the one that sticks in peoples minds. There were plenty of dark web sites before him and plenty more after what he did was create one that became the most popular. When you factor in the name of the site and his name as well it was eye catching and something that the media could run with. His website design was also the best that had up until that point existed.
While people might have died of overdoses we don't throw drug dealers in jail for life plus 40 years for bad pills or for people who abused them causing their death. The murder-for-hire stuff is still super popular on the dark web but even US law enforcement say it is just used as a scam. People just take the money they are sent and disappear.
Did he allow for some laws to be broken on the site? Sure but the punishment was absolutely unjust. The US came in and tried to make an example of him but then never enforced laws like they did to him again.
Also, the application of this legal standard is completely inconsistent.
How many drug deals or other criminal activities are orchestrated over commercial phone services or through ISPs?
In general, we don't hold the creators of products or services liable for criminal activity done with said products/services.
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Interesting points, but don’t you think making a website that allowed so many illegal things to happen makes the creator partly responsible for what happened? If his punishment was unfair, what would be a fair way to deal with cases like this, where someone didn’t directly do the crime but made it possible?
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Had you ever visited the site?
It was very clear what was allowed and what wasnt. For instance, no pedo, rape, killing, snuff, etc...in fact no violence of any kind. There was a banner announcing that on site.
The site was really just like ebay/amazon for drugs, fake ids, cracked video games, etc.
There is a very high probability that your imagination of it is 10x worse then what it really was...
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Nope, I was in second grade when Ross was arrested. Maybe you're right that I'm biased and have a bad image of the website because of what I'm reading now.
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Ross was a fairly principled libertarian, and libertarians generally distinguish between 2 types of laws: "Real Property" and "Statutory"
Real Property laws are things like: theft, rape, murder, arson, etc. All libertarians view these as crimes.
Statutory laws are things that some person wrote on a piece of paper that and says its illegal. Things like: You can't sell this plant, You can't gamble your money, You cant duplicate this document, etc. Most libertarians view Statutory laws as invalid as 95% of them have no victim attached....2 people freely consented to the deal.
Ross ran SilkRoad in accordance with those views. There were no "real property" crimes, only statutory.
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What about the non-aggression principle which is a foundational tenet of libertarianism? How did he uphold that when he allegedly try to hire hitmen for multiple ‘clean’ kills?
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To be completely clear, he was charged but the charges were dropped with prejudice.
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I have no issue about creating a marketplace and consenting adults participating in it. But violence crosses a line that I’m not okay with.