
How Drugs and Paranoia Doomed Silk Road - pmcpinto
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-drugs-murder
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zkms
It'd be nice to read something about Silk Road written by someone who isn't a
drug war fanboy. It gets annoying to read all the paternalistic and
contemptuous banter that the author fires off at anyone who dares defy his
fundamentalist prohibitionist ideology:

> college-aged line of argumentation

> precocious and edgy libertarian.

> that he had been held accountable for his decision to destroy other people’s
> lives in order to protect his business, rather than being able to look the
> other way, as so many successful tech C.E.O.’s do

> If there was one thing that stood out, it was Ulbricht’s inability to see
> how his creation was being used for evil, even when he was the one
> committing the sin

> In the Age of Trump, Silicon Valley’s job is no longer to move fast and
> break things. Instead, it is to consider how its technologies can be used
> for horrendous evil. Sadly, Ross Ulbricht didn’t learn this until he was
> sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

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rsynnott
I mean, they were selling fentanyl. You don't have to be some sort of hard-
line prohibitionist to think that making your living selling fentanyl to kids
over the Internet is not in society's best interest.

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wu-ikkyu
The mass production and overperscription of opiates by Big Pharma is not in
societies best interest either. Where do you think that Fentanyl came from?

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s73ver
No, it's not. But being against Silk Road selling it doesn't mean we also
don't want Rx sales to be more closely scrutinized.

Saying, "But what about Big Pharma, huh?" isn't an effective argument, as many
of us against Silk Road are also against their practices, and we'd like to see
government agents investigating them more, as well.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>being against Silk Road selling it doesn't mean we also don't want Rx sales
to be more closely scrutinized.

Sure, I didn't mean to imply that, I'm just trying to find the root problem
rather than attacking a branch of it that will grow right back - which seems
like a waste of time to me.

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darkr
> But Ulbricht wasn’t simply a precocious and edgy libertarian. He was also a
> gifted, self-taught computer programmer.

Is it just me, or is the word "gifted" thrown around a bit too easily these
days?

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gberger
Right. How can he be both gifted and self-taught at the same time?

~~~
wutbrodo
Wait what? Why are those at all exclusive?

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sushisource
Whoa, that took a weird turn at the end:

> But why would North Korea or Iran build a nuclear weapon when either can
> drive countless cars into one another at 100 miles per hour?

What in the world is that about?

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angry-hacker
I only ask why is it necessary to write that garbage:

... it is a recruiting device for ISIS and undeniably helped elect Donald
Trump. Similarly, Tinder was originally intended to allow unattached college
kids to meet one another and maybe go on a date. The service has since been
used by chauvinists to prey on women. Facebook’s newsfeed, likewise, was
infiltrated by Russian operatives who fabricated stories that were used to
sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

~~~
55555
> [Tinder] has since been used by chauvinists to prey on women.

Um, how about all the women who use it to 'prey' on men? Who writes this
drivel?

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mdb333
This is just a teaser for the book obviously... as all this has already been
written about multiple times over elsewhere. Perhaps the only additive here is
the parallels they draw to SV starups in general and how business itself has
become increasing ruthless and universally corrupting; turning wideeyed
entrepreneurs into ravenous cash-eating beasts. Seems to beg the question to
whether Ross was any different...

