FBI arrests Silk Road drugs site suspect

[Skepticus]

Here is a very sensible well thought out take on this matter:

Silk Road And The Potential To Disrupt A Truly Evil Industry

"If it had grown large enough, Silk Road, or a collection of similar online services, would have begun to seriously challenge the revenues of local and international mobsters on a scale that the war on drugs has consistently failed to do."

"It's much better to have drug distributors such as Silk Road and competitors fight over Google keywords in online auctions than murder and behead each other."

[JimC]

Here is a very sensible well thought out take on this matter:

Silk Road And The Potential To Disrupt A Truly Evil Industry

"If it had grown large enough, Silk Road, or a collection of similar online services, would have begun to seriously challenge the revenues of local and international mobsters on a scale that the war on drugs has consistently failed to do."

"It's much better to have drug distributors such as Silk Road and competitors fight over Google keywords in online auctions than murder and behead each other."

Better still, legalisation plus a minimum amount of government regulation, then Silk Road can turn itself into a sort of Amazon...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Here is a very sensible well thought out take on this matter:

Silk Road And The Potential To Disrupt A Truly Evil Industry

"If it had grown large enough, Silk Road, or a collection of similar online services, would have begun to seriously challenge the revenues of local and international mobsters on a scale that the war on drugs has consistently failed to do."

"It's much better to have drug distributors such as Silk Road and competitors fight over Google keywords in online auctions than murder and behead each other."

Better still, legalisation plus a minimum amount of government regulation, then Silk Road can turn itself into a sort of Amazon...

Don't be silly! The Silk Road runs from Europe to Asia. The Amazon is in South America! Elementary Geography!

[Skepticus]

Here is a very sensible well thought out take on this matter:

Silk Road And The Potential To Disrupt A Truly Evil Industry

"If it had grown large enough, Silk Road, or a collection of similar online services, would have begun to seriously challenge the revenues of local and international mobsters on a scale that the war on drugs has consistently failed to do."

"It's much better to have drug distributors such as Silk Road and competitors fight over Google keywords in online auctions than murder and behead each other."

Better still, legalisation plus a minimum amount of government regulation, then Silk Road can turn itself into a sort of Amazon...

Maybe now they've seized the server, they'll get it running again as a public service. They have a few million bitcoin to spend on drugs for themselves now, and fuck knows with the economy like it is and the government shut down, looks like a good time for a big coke party to escape reality.

[pErvinalia]

[Jason]

Thank God the FBI is there to protect pharmaceutical corporations' interests. Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentleman.

[Robert_S]

Don't trade drugs on the net. Use a street dealer you know and trust in your local area.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." ~~~ Benjamin Franklin.

When doing good, avoid fame. When doing evil, avoid punishment. -Chuang Tsu

[Skepticus]

Don't trade drugs on the net. Use a street dealer you know and trust in your local area.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." ~~~ Benjamin Franklin.

When doing good, avoid fame. When doing evil, avoid punishment. -Chuang Tsu

Yes but, these days it's harder to avoid punishment when doing good and fame when doing evil.

[Skepticus]

But it's not all bad news today.
Bitcoin Prices Recover After Slump on ‘Silk Road’ Founder Arrest

[Tyrannical]

Funny how the gubment can't access the bitcoins to confiscate them. That makes me think there will be attempts to outlaw it soon.

[Skepticus]

Funny how the gubment can't access the bitcoins to confiscate them. That makes me think there will be attempts to outlaw it soon.

Yep! the bitcoin protocol was designed from the roots up, to be impervious to third party interference (and therefore impropriety). The very same principal that mitigates counter party risk, by solving the double spending problem and liberating a trust-less means of P2P transaction, also precludes the imposition of manipulation, be it intended for oppressive, or pseudo-benevolent regulatory market control purposes. The attempts to outlaw bitcoin or any other crypto-currency derived from this method, will be nothing more than scary words written into documents made of static paper and ink. Anybody with the intellect of a child, who finally discovers the monster under the bed isn't real, but rather a product of their own imagination, can also learn to look past the unwarranted FUD of oppressive bankster overloads, along with their hand-puppets of political and regulatory oppression, to recognize the greedy, devious megalomaniac elitist vanguard, with their vicious, state enlisted and trained guard-dogs of central political control.

The providence of bitcoin has the incidental benefit of offering a comparison, by way of it's concurrent free-market economy, using transacting mechanisms and currency, that depends on egalitarian social consensus and an unfettered market agora. This, just like a childs flashlight aimed under the bed, sheds copious light upon the legacy fiat monetary system, imposed as it is, via hierarchical top-down authoritarianism, predicated on coercion by ultimate threat of violence and marketed for mass consumption, by devious coercion of the morally moribund, self-interested domesticated conformist media spin-doctors as handmaidens of corporate monopoly profiteers and partisans of profligate, unconstrained consumerism. Is that to say all self interest or profit seeking is corrupt or doomed. I think not. But I do think it needs to reflect the consensus.

There are so many ways in which the most disenfranchised of us, currently pay the price for the system we use. Now we can put monetary reform practices, transaction mechanisms and socio-economic currencies also, into the big melting pot of freemarket comodities, so that they themselves can be granted a value that reflects the broadest base of consensus by direct consumer demand. The price we pay will still be for the system we use, but more importantly that system itself, can now be the system we CHOOSE to use. The value when implemented fairly, resides in the choice of individuals not the power of oppressive authorities. What happens going forward, when governments move to legislate and regulate in oppressive ways, depends on our determination to relinquish their authority and demand our own rights. It's not like anybody can stop you using a crypto-currency and the test of our moxie is to do with currency, what we can't seem to do with our votes; that is to control our government. They will run out of ink to write laws, long before they cause bitcoin to evaporate by means of their corrupt authoritarian oppression.

[piscator]

∴ I give the above phracktorial exposition ⇑ by counter-cultural factotum ⇒Skepticus⇐ 1337 stars ∴

[Skepticus]

∴ I give the above phracktorial exposition ⇑ by counter-cultural factotum ⇒Skepticus⇐ 1337 stars ∴

Awww Thanks piscator. I'd give at least as much, if you could just get your avatar to turn around.