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204 sats \ 12 replies \ @elvismercury 5h \ on: What am I missing about Ross Ulbricht and the silk road? Politics_And_Law
I don't have a problem with any of the activities apart from paying for a hit on someone. It's hard to know whether that's real without spending more time digging into this than I want to.
What's interesting to me is that "Ross is innocent" is a point of dogma in the btc community that you're not allowed to challenge and still be in "polite" company; and most people who hold the dogma know as little about it as I do.
Every culture has its unquestionable truths, I guess.
I don't have a problem with any of the activities apart from paying for a hit on someone. It's hard to know whether that's real without spending more time digging into this than I want to.
I know you don't want to spend time digging, but this is what I have learned in digging:
- Ross was charged, but never tried or convicted of the contract murder charge.
- The charge was dismissed with prejudice.
- The primary source of evidence against Ross on the contract killing charge were the two federal agents who later were discovered to have stolen millions in bitcoin from Silk Road. Those agents were tried and convicted of this theft and are serving time.
- The Silk Road member who was allegedly targeted by Ross does not believe it happened, or that if it did, Ross didn't do it.
For me, point #3 is sufficiently compelling to doubt it was real.
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This recent SN item is good context for some of this discussion.
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This is really great context, and consequential for how I think about the issue. Thanks for sharing.
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This actually makes a lot of sense, thanks. Do you think this dogma comes from his early association with Bitcoin, or is it more about making him a symbol of resistance against government overreach?
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"Association" is an understatement. Silk Road was the first time bitcoin was shown to have any kind of real world use-case instead of just being a quirky collectibe for a bunch of nerds. It was a foundational boot-strapping event.
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Good point.
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Both, is my guess. It's hard to have someone who embodies a bunch of things you like, especially when that's rare, and then does something despicable. Easier to deny the despicable thing. Overwhelming evidence on that account.
Again, I don't know what's true. But I know that it doesn't matter what's true for how people are behaving, that's the interesting (and disturbing) thing.
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It's hard to know whether that's real without spending more time digging into this than I want to.
Since this was never even raised during the trial, I don't see why we should be trying to figure out if it was real or not.
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That's not an unreasonable thing to say, but it's also not decisive. My understanding is that things that are harder to prove are often not raised in trial, when a case that is sufficiently strong on other accounts can be made.
I'm willing to be corrected on this by someone who knows better, though.
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I think you're right, but our legal system (at least the 8th grade civics version of it) is predicated on presumptions of innocence.
If all he was convicted of are things we don't think are wrong and there isn't overwhelming evidence of anything else, I don't see the need to sort it all out.
What you might say, that is perfectly reasonable, is that he created a site where that easily could have happened. You'll have to consult your conscience about that one, I suppose.
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If all he was convicted of are things we don't think are wrong and there isn't overwhelming evidence of anything else, I don't see the need to sort it all out.
Fair.
What you might say, that is perfectly reasonable, is that he created a site where that easily could have happened. You'll have to consult your conscience about that one, I suppose.
That would be an interesting discussion that would probe some of the boundaries of libertarian thought.
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Ross was just one of many DPR accounts.
Silk Road was a gov operation from the beginning and they used Ross as a patsy. If he knew it or not... we will see if he will ever reveal that detail (I am sure they put him to sign an NDA).
There's an interview with Curtis Green about his role in Silk Road (see all the videos about Silk Road I've posted on Lightning Video here: https://lightning.video/darthcoin
And he also said this:
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