

Cyber-libertarianism: Silk Road battleground individualism vs authority - CPAhem
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-04/stilgherrian-silk-road/4998476

======
gum_ina_package
Is it just me, or does anyone else see not buy into the idea that the Internet
is something that's dramatically altering the course of human evolution?

The author seems to think that with so many people being online that humans
are evolving into something else and thus the way our society organizes itself
is also due for a dramatic change. Personally I don't see things that way,
instead I just see the Internet as a logical progression of our communication
tools. It's existence, to me, doesn't mean anything more than it makes human's
true nature more apparent.

~~~
rayiner
I'm in total concurrence with you. I think the major advance was the telegraph
or maybe the telephone. Reducing communications latency from 3-5 days to
milliseconds.

Technology is great, but people dramatically overestimate how much impact it
has on social organization. Look at cities. Cities are the archetypal
expression of civilization. How long have cities been built in more or less
the same way? They have been recognizably modern for a century (people were
coming down from Westchester to work in midtown Manhattan on electric trains
100 years ago), and have been structurally similar for hundreds if not
thousands of years.

People were sitting around complaining about taxes and oligarchs during the
Roman Republic 2500 years ago.

~~~
FBT
While you make a solid point, I will point out that the newest, hottest
technology _can_ make a difference, as in this very case. Silk Road was
something new, and different from anything one could do with a telegraph or
telephone. For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a
effectivly a independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound
by any lawmakers whatsoever. It was true anarchy, the kind libertarians dream
of, and it _worked_. The medium of the internet allowed it to run in that
fashion, and still be a civil place. For the first time ever, Hobbes was
wrong. In the state of nature as it is on the internet life is _not_ nasty,
brutish, and short. No one died in horrible fighting and murder on Silk Road,
_unlike_ in unregulated areas in real life. (Such as real-world drug dealers.)

~~~
rayiner
> Silk Road was something new, and different from anything one could do with a
> telegraph or telephone.

I fail to see how Silk Road was anything other than a way to buy and sell
goods, something that has been done via telegraph and telephone and other
communications mediums for centuries.

> For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a effectivly a
> independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound by any
> lawmakers whatsoever.

It wasn't anything of the sort. All of the costs and benefits of Silk Road
were externalized to the offline world. It was less like an "independent
country" than even say Hacker News, where the online interaction is valuable
on its own merits. Silk Road was in contrast not valuable on its own merits,
but just a way to exchange things of value in the real world (drugs and
money).

More to the point, while I don't agree that drug laws are a good idea, I can
see what motivated the legislation. Drug use isn't cost-free. It's not just
high-functioning professionals using a little pot on the weekends. It is that,
but it's also addicted pregnant women and mothers injuring their babies. It's
addicted fathers unable to provide for their families. It's rural communities
ripped apart by addiction.

The fact that the cost of the drug war may be worse than the costs of drug use
does not mean that there are no costs to drug use. You can't accidentally step
on a used syringe on a city street and fail to see what might motivate people
to outlaw the use of drugs.

That's where the "independent country" analogy totally falls down. A country
must deal with the ramifications of its policies, good and bad. Texas chooses
to let oil and chemical companies operate relatively freely within its
borders, and it enjoys the economic benefits of that and suffers the
environmental and health consequences of that. But on Silk Road, all of the
costs of those illegal products sold on the site were not felt internally.
They were externalized to the real world. It's easy to construct a utopia when
all of the consequences happen elsewhere.

------
MarcusVorenus
I'm not an individualist and I'm a strong supporter of the Silk Road. Drug
prohibition is just dumb policy; it doesn't work, it's expensive, it makes
drugs more desirable for teenagers and it ends up causing more suffering than
if they were completely legal. I'm hoping these anonymous marketplaces go
mainstream to force politicians to start thinking about better ways to reduce
drug use, such as education and rehab.

~~~
atmosx
It's still an illegal non-taxed market-place. The fact that we don't agree
with a set laws, doesn't make _ethical_ overnight to overstep, break or elude
them.

Of course his applies to the financial market also, regulating Wall Street
would be a far better good (morally and financially) for the US than any SR
clone out there.

The right way to go, is to fight for your policies and vote for them when time
comes. Not evading the law or hoping that illegality will reach a scale where
the government will be forced to accept it.

On a positive note though, in countries like Netherlands iirc where many drugs
are legal, people don't die on the street and drug (as in heroin) addicts have
proper med-care if they chose to do so.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
Moderation in the pursuit of a better world is no virtue. As a
consequentialist, I disagree with your premise that subverting bad laws is
unethical behavior.

~~~
atmosx
Weirdly enough, or maybe not so weirdly enough, I agree with most of the
assertions made here: It's unethical to subdue to a bad law. Ghandi and Marx
supported this Thesis too.

But then, we need to define what is a _bad law_. In this case I don't
considering _selling drugs, guns and illegal substances_ online _ethical_ by
any means. Not to mention the tax evasion which hurts all of us.

So, what does "unethical" mean in this context? Can be universally measured
somehow?

------
circlefavshape
"as long as we've gathered together in groups to organise ourselves into herds
and packs and tribes and villages and nations, as opposed to streaming
mindlessly through the oceans like shoals of mackerel"

What? Mackerel? "Streaming mindlessly through the ocean"?

Argument-from-assways-understanding-of-evolution is the new argument from
authority, it seems

~~~
VMG
FTA:

> Silk Road and its like must not only be defeated, they must be crushed out
> of existence and deter anyone from attempting anything similar.

I'm hoping this is satire

Edit: Apparently this is not the opinion of the author. From the comments:

 _Just to be clear, the sentence you 're quoting is not my belief. It's my
description of the obvious [?] strategic imperative from the viewpoint of
centralist forces should they feel a threat from emerging individualist
forces._

------
otikik
Words don't make libertarians – actions do. The Dread Pirate Roberts may have
talked like a libertarian, but he acted like a thug.

Don't call it "Cyber-libertarianism" when it's only "cyber-drug-dealing".

~~~
lmm
A group is judged by the actions of its members. You don't get to say that a
libertarian who does bad things must have been "not a real libertarian", any
more than e.g. a $religion can say their terrorists must've been "not real
$religionists".

~~~
flycaliguy
Yeah, but isn't taking a hit out on somebody considered an initiation of
force? Which if I remember correctly is a distinctly non-libertarian thing to
do.

~~~
Nursie
It's an interesting debate I suppose. Most 'communist' regimes don't really
end up being anything like communist philosophy, yet we still call them
communist and draw the conclusion that practical communism degenerates quickly
from the ideal to totalitarian dystopia.

I'm not saying libertarianism has the same flaw (though personally I think
it's a recipe for neo-feudalism) but it does rather complicate the idea of a
strict definition for a political group.

------
Nursie
Silk Road did not represent a threat to centralism. If we had legal,
government-regulated or government-operated drug sales then SR might have been
more in line with what the author thinks.

In reality the government took down a large criminal enterprise headed by an
individual who seems to have been engaged in other criminal activity (hiring
contract killers).

~~~
noarchy
Silk Road was criminal because the drug warriors decided that it was. I don't
think the only alternative to the punitive system of fines & jails should be a
bureaucracy of regulation. The latter is the likely outcome, of course, since
legislators have a tough time making changes that don't keep them firmly in
charge (or...pretending to be, in the case of the drug war).

~~~
Nursie
That's not really the argument I was making but it is one I will make.

Where drugs are concerned, hell yes we want regulation and bureaucracy. I want
to buy from a store (maybe even a pharmacist) who sells products from a well
known, traceable and accountable chemical/pharmaceutical company. I want
guarantees from the manufacturer that any contaminants are known, non-toxic
and biologically inert. I want someone to sue if it's not the case.

I don't buy alcohol from some forum member with half a dozen good reviews, who
claims there's no methanol in his moonshine. I buy it from a store that's well
run and well regulated.

Edit: tl;dr - SR, to me, is not even close to a good model for legalised drug
sales.

~~~
marknutter
All of those guarantees and checks can be facilitated by a private third
party, and probably more efficiently.

~~~
Nursie
Yay! Libertarian talking points!

I don't want to get into this, suffice to say I disagree.

~~~
etherael
I don't want to get into this either, suffice to say you're wrong.

~~~
Nursie
No, I do actually disagree.

~~~
etherael
Of course, _which is why_ you are wrong.

It is not a matter of opinion or a political talking point, it is a statement
of fact; all of those guarantees and checks can be facilitated by a private
third party.

The "probably better" part is at least up for debate but the simple truth of
the statement that private third parties provide facilities as described is
simply factual.

~~~
Nursie
I don't believe that guarantees can be provided in the same way by private
third parties, sorry. Not with the same strength as can be provided by
statute, not with the same consequences for those that deliberately
transgress.

Better/more efficient is also up for argument, but the main statement is not
simply true. Sorry.

Edit- by "not simply true" I mean up for debate and open to argument, not
"false"

~~~
marknutter
I can see your point about the teeth government regulation has over 3rd party
regulation, but you do have to concede that for many benign products and
services (that don't involve danger to life and limb) 3rd party rating
services work quite well. The debate should be about whether or not the
consumer has any teeth when it comes to rejecting unsafe or inferior products
and services, and if those teeth are as sharp as the Government's.

~~~
Nursie
I agree, many things can be done this way. I think that with drugs the dangers
from contamination and fraud are serious enough to have some proper
regulation. Slip-ups or profit-motivated cuts and substitutions cost lives,
many lives.

Of course some of this would be mitigated by removing the unnecessary
anonymity factor from a legal silk road. I also like the idea of going to a
shop and buying recognised brands of chemicals from well known companies.
Total normalisation of the drug trade rather than sketchy, rep base forums.

"Hullo pharmacist, I'd like a quarter gram of DiPT crystal please" "Certainly
sir. Now you're not going to be mixing that with MDMA or other serotonergica
are you? Nasty interactions I'm afraid. That'll be £12"

