Tangentially related: I had the disconcerting experience of reading a Wired article about his arrest[1] while unknowingly sitting about six feet from the spot where he was apprehended. When I read that the FBI agents had stopped at Bello Coffee while preparing their stakeout, I thought, huh, interesting coincidence, I just had a coffee there.
Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me, and suddenly as I was reading I could look up and see exactly the chair he had been in, where the plainclothes police had positioned themselves, how they had arranged a distraction.
Having this tableau unexpectedly unfold right in front of my eyes was a fascinating experience, and it certainly made the article suddenly get a lot more immersive!
EDIT: to be clear, I was not present for the arrest. I was reading the magazine, some years after the arrest, but in the same place as the arrest. (I didn’t qualify the events with “I read that...” since I thought the narrative ellipsis would be obvious from context; evidently not.)
He was being arrested in the article, not IRL. When I say “Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me” I mean that I read
> He went... past the periodicals and reference desk, beyond the romance novels, and settled in at a circular table near science fiction, on the second floor... in a corner, with a view out the window and his back toward the wall.
and realized that I was in the Glen Park public library, at a circular table near science fiction on the second floor, in a corner with my back to the window, and facing directly towards where the article had just said he had sat.
I had the same confusion initially, interestingly chat GPT gets it:
So while wolfgang42 wasn't there when Ulbricht was actually arrested, their realization created a vivid mental image of the event unfolding in that space, which made the story feel more immersive.
In short: they were reading about an old event, but it happened to occur in the same spot they were sitting at that moment. Hope that clears it up!
> their realization created a vivid mental image of the event unfolding in that space, which made the story feel more immersive.
Glad that ChatGPT, probably like GP themselves, is a visualizer and actually can create a "vivid mental image" of something. For those of us with aphantasia, that is not a thing. Myself, I too was mighty confused by the text, which read literally like a time travel story, and was only missing a cat and tomorrow's newspaper.
Legitimately and I say this was absolutely no shade intended. This is a reading comprehension problem, nothing to do with aphantasia.
He clearly states that he was reading an article, he uses past tense verbs when referring to Ross, and to the events spelled out in the article. If you somehow thought that he could be reading an article that ostensibly has to be describing a past event as he was seeing it in real time that is a logic flaw on you.
It has nothing to do with what you can or cannot visualize. All you have to do is ask yourself could he have been reading an article about Ross’s arrest while watching it? Since nobody can violate the causality of space time the answer is no.
This isn’t just you this is everybody in this thread who is reading this and going this is a little confusing. No it’s very clearly him speaking about a past experience reading an article about a past event.
I realised what was going on, but I did a double-take at:
> Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me
The problem is that two past events are being described, so tense alone cannot distinguish them. Cut the readers some slack; the writing could have been better.
Done for effect: it felt to the OP as if it was the present so the writing conveys that, while elsewhere making it clear the arrest was not the present.
I am as baffled at the responses and appreciated this explanation as it was helpful to me to work on my communication style and expresses a lot of similar frustrations I have. Like what is actually going on here? this isn’t shade at anyone, I just feel like people are losing some fundamental ability to deduce from context what they are reading. it’s doubly concerning because people immediately reach to an AI/LLM to explain it for them, which cannot possibly be helping the first problem.
Agree. This entire thread is weird. How do so many people in this thread have such obvious reading comprehension issues?
On a similar note--I've noticed that HN comments are often overwrought, like the commenter is trying to sound smarter than they actually are but just end up muddling what they're trying to say.
I wonder what is going on? I’ve noticed this getting worse for a long time to the point I’m not sure it’s my imagination anymore. I usually like to lambast whole word reading as a complete failure in the american school system that contributes to this, but I think it’s likely something else. Shorter attention spans?
We have a multitude of immediate distractions now.
Books build richer worlds & ideas. But without learning to love books very early in life, which takes a lot of uninterrupted time, they don’t come naturally to most.
I used to read a few books a week, virtually every week. Sometimes two or three in a long day and some night. I still read a lot daily, interesting and useful things in short form. But finding time to read books seems to have become more difficult.
I do think the comment had something about how it was written that made it hard to follow. I understood the first sentence. But then I got to
> Having this tableau unexpectedly unfold right in front of my eyes
And the metaphor / tense shift caught me by surprise and made my eyes retrace to the beginning. I still got it, but there was a little bit of comprehension whiplash as I hit that bump in the road.
In some ways, we're treated to an experience like the author's as we hit that sentence, so in that sense it's clever writing. On the other hand, maybe too clever for a casual web forum instead of, say, a letter.
Right. I'm not claiming the LLM has visual imagination - I suspect that OP has it, and that ChatGPT was trained on enough text from visual thinkers implicitly conveying their experience of the world, that it's now able to correctly interpret writing like that of OP's.
It's a strange feeling, watching the AI get better at language comprehension than me.
I made a similar mistake on the original comment as you (I read it as "Ulbricht returned to the cafe, he actually sat down right in front of me while I was reading the story about his previous arrest here, and that's when I realised it was the same place"), and also thought you were saying that you think ChatGPT has a visual "imagination" inside.
(I don't know if it does or doesn't, but given the "o" in "4o" is supposed to make it multi-modal, my default assumption is that 4o can visualise things… but then, that's also my default assumption about humans, and you being aphantasic shows this is not necessarily so).
You could also say that ChatGPT erred similarly to the original writer, who was unclear and misleading about events.
We needn't act like they share some grand enlightenment. It's just not well expressed. ChatGPT's output is also frequently not well expressed and not well thought out.
There's many more ways to err than to get something right. ChatGPT getting OP right where many people here didn't tells us it's more likely that there is a particular style of writing/thinking that is not obvious to everyone, but ChatGPT can identify and understand, rather than just both OP and ChatGPT accidentally making exactly the same error.
Why would that be more likely? Seems like OP and ChatGPT (which is just many people of different skill levels) might easily make the same failure to communicate. Many failures of ChatGPT are failures to communicate or to convey structured thinking.
Because out of all possible communication failures OP and ChatGPT could make, them both making the exact same error, in a way that makes the two errors cancel out, is extremely unlikely.
Reducing any judgment out of your comment, you have to admit that the commenter's action was a successful comprehension strategy they learned from and can use in the future without chatgpt.
Okay, that's actually pretty wild. I totally misunderstood too, but the response from the "AI" does indeed "clear it up" for me. A bit surprised actually, but then again, I suppose I shouldn't be, since language is what those "large language models" are all about after all... :)
Indeed. But their is something surprising here, however. people like chomsky would present examples like this for decades as untracktable by any algorithm, and as a proof that language is a uniquely human thing. they went as far as to claim that humans have a special language organ, somewhere in their brain perhaps. turns out, a formula exists, it is just very very large.
> chomsky would present examples like this for decades as untracktable by any algorithm, and as a proof that language is a uniquely human thing
Generatove AI has all but solved the Frame Problem.
Those expressions where intractable bc of the impossibility to represent in logic all the background knowledge that is required to understand the context.
It turns out, it is possible to represent all that knowledge in compressed form, with statistical summarisation applied to humongous amounts of data and processing power, unimaginable back then; this puts the knowledge in reach of the algorithm processing the sentence, which is thus capable of understanding the context.
Which should be expected, because since human brain is finite, it follows that it's either possible to do it, or the brain is some magic piece of divine substrate to which laws of physics do not apply.
The problem turned out to be that some people got so fixated on formal logic they apparently couldn't spot that their own mind does not do any kind of symbolic reasoning unless forced to by lots of training and willpower.
That’s not what it means at all. You threw a monkey in your own wrench.
The brain has infinite potentials, however only finite resolves. So you can only play a finite number of moves in a game of infinite infinities.
Individual minds have varying mental technology, our mental technologies change and adapt to challenges (not always in real time.) thus these infinite configurations create new potentials that previously didn’t exist in the realm of potential without some serious mental vectoring.
Get it? You were just so sure of yourself you canceled your own infinite potentials!
Remember, it’s only finite after it happens. Until then it’s potential.
No, it doesn't. The brain has a finite number of possible states to be in. It's an absurdly large amount of states, but it is finite. And, out of those absurd but finite number of possible states, only a tiny fraction correspond to possible states potentially reachable by a functioning brain. The rest of them are noise.
You are wrong! Confidently wrong at that. Distribution of potential, not number of available states. Brain capacity and capability is scalar and can retune itself at the most fundamental levels.
As far as we know, universe is discrete at the very bottom, continuity is illusory, so that's still finite.
Not to mention, it's highly unlikely anything at that low a level matters to the functioning of a brain - at a functional level, physical states have to be quantized hard to ensure reliability and resistance against environmental noise.
Potential is resolving into state in the moment of now!
Be grateful, not scornful that it all collapses into state (don’t we all like consistency?), that is not however what it “is”. It “is” potential continuously resolving. The masterwork that is the mind is a hyoerdimensional and extradimentional supercomputer (that gets us by yet goes mostly squandered). Our minds and peripherals can manipulate, break down, and remake existential reality in the likeness of our own images. You seem to complain your own image is soiled by your other inputs or predispositions.
Sure, it’s a lot of work yet that’s what this whole universe thing runs on. Potential. State is what it collapses into in the moment of “now”.
And you’re right, continuity is an illusion. Oops.
I never bought into Searle's argument with the Chinese room.
The rules for translation are themselves the result of intelligence; when the thought experiment is made real (I've seen an example on TV once), these rules are written down by humans, using human intelligence.
A machine which itself generates these rules from observation has at least the intelligence* that humans applied specifically in the creation of documents expressing the same rules.
That a human can mechanically follow those same rules without understanding them, says as much and as little as the fact that the DNA sequences within the neurones in our brains are not themselves directly conscious of higher level concepts such as "why is it so hard to type 'why' rather than 'wju' today?" despite being the foundation of the intelligence process of natural selection and evolution.
* well, the capability — I'm open to the argument that AI are thick due to the need for so many more examples than humans need, and are simply making up for it by being very very fast and squeezing the equivalent of several million years of experiences for a human into a month of wall-clock time.
Minds shuffle information. Including about themselves.
Paper with information being shuffled by rules exhibiting intelligence and awareness of “self” is just ridiculously inefficient. Not inherently less capable.
I don’t think I understand this entirely. The point of the thought experiment is to assume the possibility of the room and consider the consequences. How it might be achievable in practice doesn’t alter this
The room is possible because there's someone inside with a big list of rules of what Chinese characters to reply with. This represents the huge amount of data processing and statistical power. When the thought expt was created, you could argue that the room was impossible, so the experiment was meaningless. But that's no longer the case.
I'm not sure I'm following you. My comment re Chinese room was that parent said the data processing we now have was unimaginable back in the day. In fact, it was imaginable - the Chinese room imagined it.
Just as an additional datapoint, since I’m confused by fellow commenters’ confusion—I thought your narrative was clear, colorful, and entertaining, and I hope you’ll keep things so literary and engaging in your future contributions too :)
As with so many matters of crime, punishment, and high dudgeon, the physical reality of the situation always feels so banal. Dread Pirate Roberts’ lawless dark kingdom, where he commissions trans-national assassinations… looks a lot like a nerdy dude’s laptop on a municipal library table.
Yes, I thought it was an interesting blend of past and present. If this were a scene in a show or movie it could be edited beautifully - the reader, sitting alone in a corner, looks up and in a lucid, almost psychedelic way, the past comes to life with Ulbrict sitting in front of him, that unfold as he continues reading.
Regarding your edit. The first paragraph kind of lines up with you reading about it. But the second one is kind of confusing, and I think it's because "then" can mean two different things here. You meant "at the time of his arrest". If you casually read it without cross referencing the first paragraphs context, you might think it means "as I was sitting there".
And there's nothing in the following sentences that corrects this garden path assumption.
>Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me
Would not confuse as many if you wrote
>At the time of his arrest Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me
Or even clearer
>At the time of his arrest Ulbricht had walked into the public library and sat down at the table which was now directly in front of me
His writing employs a little bit of poetry in order to capture his feeling. Not all writing benefits from being as clear and bland as possible. HN should probably read some non-fiction books from time to time
Not sure which novels you’re picking but in my experience novels are frequently more ambiguous and harder to parse than the parent comment, often on purpose. If you’ve really ’never had a single issue’ maybe you’re not choosing challenging texts
Wow, you've totally cracked the mystery. This explains why all the commenters are at each other's throats - half of them are reading it one way and half are reading the other way, and only one of the two ways makes any sense.
Yes, it took three reads before I worked out what the story was trying to say.
Even just adding one word "Then Ulbricht had walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me" would be enough of a clue.
Exactly, that was my point about then being a word that can be interpreted in two ways, and the following sentence does not error correct this assumption.
If you read it one way, it's almost impossible to not be misdirected, because the following sentence works with both meanings.
If you include the had this would be enough of a clue to correct the incorrect assumption. Although it still might make for slightly bumpy reading.
I used to live in Glen Park at that time and I vividly remember seeing Ross working as a cashier at the Canyon Market, helping me bag my groceries. It was probably around the time he was starting the Silk Road. The place where he was arrested was also my favorite table at the Public Library, where I used to go work. It is incredible to be that close to history.
I believe they are suggesting an experience of imaginatively visualising the events of the arrest linearly as they were narrated in their read-through of the article, serendipitously aided by being physically present at the same location, and are referencing the article's narration partially in the present tense to similarly immerse us in medias res as we follow their remark.
Alternatively, they are themselves Ross Ulbricht, describing an out-of-body fever dream or post-traumatic flashback. This seems ... somewhat less likely.
Singular "they" dates at least back as far as the 14th century, and I've yet to meet a person who objects to it but does not use it themselves now and again without even noticing if you observe them speak enough. It's entirely integral to English.
The interlude during which some pushed for "they" to be exclusively plural, was a mere brief blip in the history of the language.
It's also a couple of centuries older than singular "you", so if you want to complain about a pronoun changing between singular and plural, that's a better candidate.
I’ve been writing they to refer to individuals in the third person for five decades. Usage of they as a neutral singular pronoun began in the 14th century. Stercus alibi iace, outrage monkey.
It's so funny how outrage poisoned partisans have such crushing issues with pronouns. The word 'They' has been used to refer to individuals for hundreds of years. Get a life
I dont know, ask the commenter - he who reads OPs story and comments on it, projects himself into it when commenting on it.. there is no fixed answer to this.
I thought that starting my story in media res would make for a better dramatic effect, but it seems I overestimated my audience and went a little too heavy on the narrative ellipsis.
> Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me, and suddenly as I was reading I could look up and see exactly the chair he had been in, where the plainclothes police had positioned themselves, how they had arranged a distraction.
Alternately:
> Ulbricht had walked into the public library
gives the game away.
If you still want to play around a bit:
> I could see where Ulbricht walked into the public library. The table he sat at. I looked up and saw where the plainclothes police had positioned themselves, how they had arranged a distraction.
That way you are leaving some ambiguity, but are not directly lying with the tenses.
Well, a lot of times the audience is to blame... There are many people that are stupid, aren't trained in style figures of writing or just not trained in reading in a way that allows for complex conceptual frameworks. It also happens in software: someone writes great code, it's very complex and some people don't understand it and blame the author of writing unreadable code. Its easy to call something unreadable if you don't understand what it's saying. Let me bring it differently: it takes two to tango. I found his story interesting and engaging.
Let me bring it in another way:
Sometimes the joke is brilliant, but the audience just doesn't understand it. It's not a bad joke or a bad comedian. It's a bad audience.
To go into the meat of this: he is imagining it while reading in the same location as the incident happened. This is a style of writing. It's definitely not wrong.
To paraphrase the asshole quote: "if one person misunderstands you, that's their fault; if everyone does, it's yours". The same goes for your comedian analogy: sure, you can tell a brilliant joke in French to a Chinese audience, but why?
I think you could have told it as experiencing the events without making your post confusing, but you'd have to redo your first paragraph. Your first paragraph is external, meta, and places his arrest in your past, which throws off the effect when that suddenly changes in the next sentence. It's not the audience's fault that that is hard to parse.
Many of us can't. Personally, for nearly three decades I thought the ability to vividly experience a book this way was just some overused and extremely exaggerated metaphor - and then I discovered aphantasia is a thing, and I score close to top of its severity scale.
So perhaps it's less about your starting point, and more about describing a frame of mind some in the audience don't have, and can't relate to.
Curiously, I don't recall ever seeing this particular style of writing before, in any of the books I ever read.
I found it interesting and could visualize you as you were visualizing it while reading. The only part that made me go back was I thought he sat down to your table until I reread you could see the table he sat down at years ago.
I've seen this type of thing recently and also have been told some comments were "obviously" meaning something else. I think people must've stopped reading books and lost interpretation skills.
I liked the way you wrote it, I could picture you sitting in the library, picturing the arrest yourself :-).
The reactions remind me of a philosophy class I had, where the professor went for a thought experiment in order to explain an idea. "Imagine a world where ...". There was a physicist in the class who kept interrupting the professor, saying "well that's not possible because of how physics works". I would have asked him what he thought about Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings; could he enjoy them at all? But he ruined the class for me so I didn't :-).
I had a similar experience watching Mr. Robot. There’s a scene where it shifts to first person PoV and the voiceover says something like “am I seeing this? Is this real?” … and it was EXACTLY the PoV I had every day walking out of my office on 36th st back then.
I once walked home after an evening of some friends and beer.
As I came up to my house it was dark but I clearly saw a little person walking through my back garden. About 3 foot tall, at the most, it seemed. And they were holding the hand of a smaller person half their height. Walking together, no hurry at all.
I just froze and watched them walking away, and turn a corner.
The feelings of disbelief, but wanting to believe were crazy.
I came out of my shock. Ran the length of my home and managed to see mother and child raccoons now walking on all fours.
They must have walked 20 feet on their back legs together, holding hands.
For a minute of my life I was actually Alice in Wonderland and there were tiny people who walked gardens at night.
My kids used to go to that library! We lived in the neighborhood (Glen Park- one of the "gems" of San Francisco) and the downtown is almost like a little village (except with California levels of traffic and trash). It was a bit weird to think that my kids were probably reading books while this guys was, uh, transacting his business nearby.
I mean, it’s possible that the library had rearranged their chairs in the intervening years and that exact one was now at a different table, but it was certainly a chair in the same location.
This is unrelated but you just did a wonderful job of explaining why I love history so much. There’s something so exciting (to me) about deeply researching an event, going to where it happened and seeing the land (or library) come alive with images of the past.
BTW Boondock Saints is like one of the dumbest movies of all time, they made a behind-the-scenes documentary about how the film failed because of how arrogant the directors/screenwriters were. It's so stupid, it's great
I read this article when it was first published years ago, and it is written so well I still "see the movie" in my head when I think about it. Your experience must have been next-level.
I'll share my experience, too: I live near Glen Park and was in Bello that day, taking up one of those coveted seats, as all this was happening. I recall being aware of a lot of police cars outside, and perhaps seeing the phalanx around Ross as they walked past the window. Clearly something big was going on, but I stepped outside and the street was already back to normal. Shrug, perhaps I'll hear about it on the evening news. Not a peep. :-)
It was only some months & years later that I heard about Glen Park, the library, and Bello being part of the drama, and other local landmarks. To this day I keep hearing about other local details. (I learned a few months ago that his group house was on Monterey Blvd, not far from the conservatory).
Looking back, I had noticed a number of 'out-of-town' business people in Bello around that time. Glen Park is a busy local scene, but gets very few visitors, so they stuck out. Clean cut, business casual, but not FiDi types. They were cheerful but not interested in chatting. Who would go to a cafe and not want to socialize, I wondered? I thought perhaps realestate people.
I went to Bello frequently then, and must have seen Ross there a few times too, but I only vaguely recall once or twice. Something drew my attention to his laptop, maybe it had an EFF sticker on it? But he likewise didn't seem interested in conversation. I do recall once he was talking with an older man, in his 50's or early 60's, about libertarianism.
Literacy and nuance is hard with written words — especially when a large chunk of your audience is either a non-native English speaker or and Adderall addict. I feel like this community is heavily laden with both, and surely there must be some significant overlap between those groups.
i had a similar experience working in copenhagen. read an article about copenhagen sub orbital rockets, looked up and out my window and my eye landed on the rocket i was just reading about. weird.
You’re not going to hear from the people who thought it made perfect sense, so the replies are a pretty biased sample. (This is also true of the parent complaint about reading comprehension, tbh.) But I see three confused replies and three corrections (not counting my own), so it doesn’t seem to be every reply.
I think the problem is that I took an artistic style in an attempt to paint a picture for the reader, but I did it in a long thread on a technical forum where people are probably mostly skimming rather than engaging in literary criticism, so I should maybe have anticipated this would be a problem.
I thought it was fine, I wasn't confused for a moment. The only real problem here is that HN attracts a certain brand of nerds who are inclined to think it's hilarious when Maurice Moss says "Yes, it's one of those", many of whom are likely frothing right now because I just committed a comma splice in the previous sentence.
I (and others) have vouched a few of his comments back to life, he does write a good comment.
I don't know the original reasons for his apparent perma-dead'ing (users can option to "show dead" and see these comments) but I suspect it's due to going fully Australian wih swear words and invectives when he gets a bit passionate about something .. or even just adding colour for a lark, as we do.
I feel torn about this because it seems there was good evidence for attempted murder- and I cannot understand why they never tried him for that (seemingly larger) crime. However, for the crime he was actually found guilty of, the sentence was unfair and unreasonable. It seems they unethically sentenced him for crimes he was not even ever charged with.
I'd also argue he almost certainly saved a huge number of lives with Silk Road: the ability to view eBay style feedback and chemical test results makes buying illegal drugs far safer than buying them on the street. On Silk Road people could buy from a reputable seller with a long history of providing unadulterated products, and could view testimonials from other buyers who had sent the products for chemical analysis.
Not going to comment on the murder part as that’s well discussed here.
I would take issue with assuming that it was net positive with ratings. Given the anonymous nature handling bots spamming fake reviews would be even harder to catch here, and you ultimately don’t know who ended up addicted/hooked/DUI’s etc from the easy availability this provided. I’m not sure the total effects could ever be qualified, but it’s not like unadulterated drugs are automatically safe. Just look at how many lives pharma-grade opioids ruined, even though they were “safe”.
That’s also not to mention guns and all kinds of other dangerous & illegal parts of it.
I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when he’s supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.
For LSD there existed a third-party forum, where a group of (supposedly) vendor-neutral, unaffiliated individuals would purchase samples from vendors, send them to private or state-sponsored labs around the world and publish/discuss the results (often with online links to lab results).
Yes, of course vendors could have also attempted to infiltrate these forums. But as enough of these functions were provided by/for the community, the profit incentive tilts. If you ran a vendor account on the Silk Road, your effort was better spent maintaining/improving good infosec and mail/postal security. Some techniques they developed were quite innovative, the professionalism was evident.
Ross’s story is fascinating and tragic- as everything that’s said for and against his character is generally true. Silk Road was built on naive yet admirable ideals. It fostered a special community, some of which really did reflect those ideals. He got in over his head, and really did try to have someone killed.
Though, the details on that latter point are a bit more complicated- authorities had infiltrated Ross’s inner circle- the motive and the ‘hitman’ himself were fictional. Ross still took the bait though, which is pretty damning. Until that point, they weren’t sure they had a sufficient case on him.
Is that why they never prosecuted the attempted murder? It sounds like entrapment.
That's the point people don't seem to be getting about anonymous reviews- if the review is more costly than the value it provides the seller, they won't do it, and it's fairly easy to make that the case. A separate enthusiast forum where the reviews are from people with a long history of high effort engagement is a good example of that. That's basically the idea behind crypto as well- making false transactions is more expensive than the value it could return.
The truth is no one knows why they didn't bring those charges, or the real details behind the evidence or what happened in those interactions. It's pretty much shrouded beneath things like:
-DOJ released some details and screenshots, but
-the FBI agents who were involved in investigating this topic were like arrested for stealing bitcoin from silk road or something, so their work is hard to find credible
-general lack of clarity as to the identity of the person running silk road at the time this happened
The law is murky and seems to hinge on the court's opinion on whether the person who committed the crime would have had they not been influenced by an officer. The police being the ones to start the conversation doesn't rise to the level of entrapment. The police deceiving you into wanting to commit a crime may rise to the level of entrapment if the courts find you wouldn't have done it otherwise (the example I found that illustrated this best was "Hey there's a warehouse full of valuables let's go rob it" isn't entrapment but "Hey this guy said he's gonna kill your kid you need to kill him first" probably does absent any reason to believe you would have killed him without being deceived first). My guess would be that the grey area, plus the relative ease with which they were able to secure a life sentence for the other charges, is why the murder-for-hire charges never went to trial.
> the example I found that illustrated this best was "Hey there's a warehouse full of valuables let's go rob it" isn't entrapment
Literally entrapment.
Like you said, it hinges on if you would have committed the crime without encouragement from the police.
A trap car is not entrapment. You walking past a trap car, checking if the door is unlocked and then going for a joyride / stealing it means you convinced yourself to do this crime.
An undercover policeman telling you he's seen an unlocked car, and "just take it for a spin, for the hell of it"? That's entrapment.
>By a 5–3 margin, the Court upheld the conviction of a Missouri man for selling heroin even though all the drug sold was supplied to him, he claimed, by a Drug Enforcement Administration informant who had, in turn, gotten it from the DEA. The majority held that the record showed Hampton was predisposed to sell drugs no matter his source...The case came before the court when the defendant argued that while he was predisposed, it was irrelevant since the government's possible role as sole supplier in the case constituted the sort of "outrageous government conduct" that Justice William Rehnquist had speculated could lead to the reversal of a conviction in the court's last entrapment case, United States v. Russell.[2] Rehnquist was not impressed and rejected the argument in his majority opinion.
Here's one where the government said "Hey you should sell this heroin that I gave you" and the conviction was upheld because "the record showed Hampton was predisposed to sell drugs no matter his source." So no, the simple act of an undercover cop asking you if you'd like to commit a crime isn't entrapment on its face.
> In late February 1974, Hampton and a DEA informant known as Hutton were playing pool at the Pud bar in St. Louis when Hampton noticed the needle marks on Hutton's arms. He said he needed money and could obtain heroin to sell. Hutton responded that he could find a buyer. After the conversation, he called his handler, DEA agent Terry Sawyer, and reported the proposal.
It was under his own will, the DEA just supplied him the means to do so.
It's basically as if I was in a seedy bar and spot a pistol on an undercover agent, and I tell them I know an easy spot to rob near the bar. Then the undercover agent gives me the pistol, asking for 20% of the take. It only turns into entrapment if I was talking about money problems and the undercover agent would have told me robbing a nearby convienence store could be an easy solve to my money troubles.
My understanding is that they did not charge him with the attempted murder because it was later found that both parties/witnesses (other than Ross) later turned out to be corrupt and financially benefitting from the situation (keeping his murder payment for themselves) and the Silk Road in general.
Entrapment requires some coercive/persuasive force by the government to push you to commit the crime, the government is allowed to setup entirely fake scenarios and let you choose to do a crime.
Not that it's a perfect source, but reddit lawyers used to describe the difficulty of proving entrapment by laying out two requirements: (1) you wouldn't have committed the crime if the instigator wasn't law enforcement, and (2) you only committed the crime because the instigator was law enforcement. One or the other is not enough. Like an 'if and only if' deal.
If you aren't aware that it's an LEO urging you on, I don't see why you should be able to argue impropriety. You made the decision as if it were real and would have real consequences.
If someone comes to you and offers you a fictional job to illegally move a lot of drugs for cash and you agree - that's not entrapment, you agreed of your own accord. That the whole thing was a fake setup is not materially relevant.
If you first refuse, and then the undercover officer says "if you don't do this we'll come after you and kill your family" and then you agree under duress - that's entrapment.
It has to be something that's compelling you to do something you would not have done otherwise. Presenting you with the option to make a bad choice is not itself enough because had the situation been real you would have done it.
On one hand I'm sympathetic to Ross in that I can empathize with his youthful ideals and ego that drove the marketplace, but I also think he genuinely would have authorized that person be killed had it been real and people are in prison for a lot less. His market was also a lot more than drugs iirc.
I find his supporters downplaying the assassination bit irritating - I suspect they do it because they know it's the least defensible bit and they can argue it on technicality. I think it'd be better if they just accepted it.
I also think he's very unlikely to commit another crime now that he's out, but still - a lot of people are in prison for a lot less.
Depends a lot on the exact setup. He still chose to try to hire a hitman allegedly. The standard is fairly high, "that man is informing on you" isn't entrapment, without knowing a lot of details it's hard to know and it's rarely actually entrapment.
Built on naive yet admirable ideals? Special community? It was the world’s largest drug market, selling things like fentanyl in large quantities. What admirable ideal is this?!
You really cannot stop illicit drug use. A hard approach to prohibition not only makes people less safe, it’s a massive waste of spending. On just a pragmatic level- Fentanyl and analogues are by weight hundreds of times more potent than morphine. How do you even effectively stop that from getting across borders? Silk Road provided a brief counterpoint, and ideally wouldn’t have had to exist. The ideals it represented were more broad- for drug regulations/spending that focus on safety, and respect individual rights / bodily autonomy (ofc limited to not harming or endangering others).
The Silk Road represented a tiny fraction of illicit drug revenue per country. Some report-skimming would indicate less than a single digit. A series of more profit-oriented darknet markets replaced it. I don’t know what the costs were associated with its takedown but they must have been enormous. I doubt it became large enough for cartels to care much, but the effect of shutting it down is certainly good for them.
I don’t personally hold the opinion that Ross Ulbricht shouldn’t have been pursued according to the law- or support his pardon- or even that darknet drug markets should exist! I’m also not really interested in crypto.
However I strongly believe that a completely different approach to drug laws & regulations is necessary to make people safer and reduce crime.
Oh, I like that, tough on crime! It's a novel idea. I wish the Nixon and Reagan administrations had thought of that a few decades ago, maybe if they did we could be witnessing the brilliant effects of that sort of policy today!
Amazing idea! After all, giving long term prison sentences to drug dealers, and even drug users, has totally eliminated drug use, it's not like it has exploded over time...
Separating the drugs from the adjacent crime and problems that come with an illicit industry by finding a way to make it run kinda like normal business seems pretty admirable to me.
It’s cheaper than the alternative, though, if there is rat poison in it, there is nothing you can do!
Caveat Emptor is a shit way to run a society. It incentivizes the sociopaths.
Both Hippies and Libertarians fail to understand that if your organizational principles don’t account for sociopaths, they will take over and ruin everything.
>It’s cheaper than the alternative, though, if there is rat poison in it, there is nothing you can do!
Sure there is, I can take you to court.
>Caveat Emptor is a shit way to run a society. It incentivizes the sociopaths.
Bureaucracy and nanny states do that too.
>Both Hippies and Libertarians fail to understand that if your organizational principles don’t account for sociopaths, they will take over and ruin everything.
I don't think the latter are against locking people up. Or executing them even!
And the former, I dunno, perhaps they handle them Midsommar style!
Not to mention the issue is quite solvable: sellers can sell whatever, but need to specify the contents and whether they match a specification (e.g. same contents as aspirin). If you want to buy rat poison drug or heroin cut with sawdust, it's on you.
Courts can do very little to remedy the harm of dying from rat poison. They can address, in an imperfect way, the incidental harm your death by rat poison causes to other people, but, I think most people would strongly prefer not to die of rat poison, than to die of rat poison but have their dependents compensated financially for the loss of their future income, etc.
Something anyone with an addict in their life needs to know:
While substances can efficiently help someone destroy their life, keeping them away from drugs won’t stop them from destroying their lives. There’s something already broken in these people that they need to fix before it’s too late.
There are perfectly legal alternatives that can be just as effective with a little more effort. Putting heroin in your arm is just quicker than downing a fifth of vodka, or chasing dopamine at the dog track.
I think you're advocating for better mental health care and rehabilitation of addicts, which I agree with. However, the idea that addicts will destroy their lives regardless of whether they stop using, or are forced to stop using, their drug of choice is an extremely dangerous statement. Many addicts get better by changing their environment and quitting/going to rehab/etc.
Furthermore, heroin != vodka in terms of how addictive it is for the average user, and that's partly why only one of them is legal for recreational use.
Controversies about decriminalization aside, harm reduction exists as a studied component in addiction, public health, and psychology circles for a reason.
The important question isn't raw numbers, it's which destroys a greater percentage of lives out of those who consume it. If heroin were as widespread as alcohol, would it still be true that alcohol destroys more lives? We obviously can't know for sure without trying it, but preliminary results aren't promising.
Yeah, I don't know. There's certainly people that are just broken, but reading other examples, I think there are plenty of people who just happen on to a perfect addiction(, or maybe an imperfect one that fills the spot). The manifest destiny stuff is kind of a mix that soothes a lot of people with various motives whether or not it is representative of the median case.
> I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when he’s supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.
He's the candidate that was preferred by Christians, yet probably he was the least Christian-like candidate. Just today/yesterday he criticized a Bishop for values that are clearly Christian, people seem to swallow it. I'm pretty sure trying to add logic/reasoning to the choices he makes is a lost cause.
> Ulbricht stopped selling them because it wasn't lucrative enough.
While technically accurate, the tone of the Ulbricht quote differs somewhat:
The volume hasn't even been enough to cover server costs and is actually waning at this point. I had high hopes for it, but if we are going to serve an anonymous weapons market, I think it will require more careful thought an planning.
There's a reason Wikipedia doesn't accept "I saw it" as a citation.
Wikipedia isn't perfect, but if I had to put odds on Wikipedia vs "rando on internet forum who claims to remember something from years ago", I'm going with Wikipedia 10 times out of 10.
"Facebook is a communication tool for friends and family that is sometimes used for illegal activity" is categorically different than "Silk Road is a tool created to facilitate illegal activity."
There are many Christians who would happily to get in long arguments over which values are “clearly Christian.”
If you really want to understand, it’s not hard. It just requires making an honest effort to try, without judging. And that’s what stops people who don’t understand it. Try chatting with an LLM sometime about what it looks like from their perspective. Knowing it’s not a human makes it easier to avoid getting upset.
> If you really want to understand, it’s not hard. It just requires making an honest effort to try, without judging
I was brought up Christian, sealed my religiousness with a confirmation when I was 15 (which required studies and field trips), and been around religious people for a lot of my younger life. Oh, and my mom worked at a church where I grew up, spent a bunch of time in the church, for better or worse.
I'd like to think that the values of compassion and mercy are two of the most fundamental Christian values, at least from the protestants I spent a lot of time with. It seems to me, that the American bastardization of Catholicism, might not actually be very Christian if those two values aren't include in there.
I'm not religious anymore, but if I learned anything from (truly) religious folks, then it would be that you should treat your fellow humans as just that, fellow humans.
Well, he just did an executive order to label cartels as foreign terrorists, and has spoken at length about drugs in many of his speeches. Not sure why you think such a statement is controversial.
Because I don't think he has a honestly held belief about anything. I think he's happy to do whatever is most expedient for his interests.
He wants to be known as a guy who trades favors, so here, he ignored all the previous fear mongering about [scary thing], and is repaying the favor to the "libertarian party" who wanted this, and voted for him.
Almost everything he says is just for show, fits his pattern of behavior better than, "he believes [thing he said]" does.
I just read another article about how the person who says we need to follow "law and order" and "respect police" just pardoned everybody convicted of violence against police... again, trading favors instead of consistently following something he said.
I replied with more details in a sister thread but calling it a schtick is more accurate that I think you meant. It's exclusively a shtick; he doesn't actually believe it, or care about it.
Historically, many anti-drug / anti-cartel leaders are actually members of a rival cartel, and want to use law enforcement to fight their wars for them.
The Mexican government has a long history of this. The LAPD’s (well documented for over 50 years) do the same thing.
Trump is a convicted felon with lots of ties to organized crime. Nothing about him pardoning members of some criminal organizations but not others is surprising.
In related news, he signed an executive order forcing prosecutors to seek the death penalty when police are killed, and in the same day pardoned 132 of his supporters that were convicted of assaulting police officers during an event where officers were killed.
>he signed an executive order forcing prosecutors to seek the death penalty when police are killed
He also pardoned a drug dealing cop killer at the end of his last term. Said cop killer has since been arrested for attempting to strangle his wife to death.
> Historically, many anti-drug / anti-cartel leaders are actually members of a rival cartel, and want to use law enforcement to fight their wars for them.
For reference, Rudy Giuliani was lauded as the anti-organized mayor that brought down the Italian mob in New York, but ultimately was flagged as actually being an upper echelon of Russian organized crime who worked to establish it by eliminating competiton.
The Wikipedia article does not flag Giuliani as being a member of Russian organized crime, but someone who Giuliani's law firm represents, an individual by the name of Dmytry Firtash.
Furthermore the timeline for this is over a decade after Giuliani was mayor of New York.
The link doesn't say that. The phrase you use is a reference in the Wikipedia article to the DOJ's characterization of Dmytry Firtash, "a Ukrainian oligarch who is prominent in the natural gas sector", not Giuliani.
Well, now you probably understand that Trump is not really anti-drug/anti-cartel. Nor do I think he's pro-drug/pro-cartel. I think he doesn't actually care except in how those issues affect his political career and public profile. Many of Trump's more ... let's call them "random" seeming statements and actions make much more sense if you look at them through the lens of "he doesn't actually care one way or the other".
Ulbricht's career represents many core values of a certain wing of today's Libertarians.
* unfettered and unregulated and anonymous weapons sales.
* willful ignorance and rejection of any of the social costs of buying and selling hard drugs.
* commerce that operates in a world that is difficult to be taxes by government entities, and ideally anonymously (even though bitcoin is the least anonymous thing in the world)
So are libertarians fighting for complete legalization of drugs? If so, why aren’t they pressing on Trump for that? Why wasn’t that an executive order vs pardoning this guy?
> I think it's a belief that a lot of us arrive at early in our lives, many eventually grow out of it.
Very astute. What’s interesting to me is the ability for youth to discount this potential change, mostly because they just see the end result vs the journey. I know I was like that.
> I would take issue with assuming that it was net positive with ratings.
I know this is probably as minority view, but I think if adults consent to buying and using any drug, that should be both fully legal, and their right and responsibility- any negative consequences are 100% their own fault, not the person who sold them. It's probably true that making drugs easier to buy made more people buy them, but I was only considering the ill effects of fraudulently adulterated products. Do the math differently if you don't see it this way.
I don't know how Silk Road was designed, and have never actually used it or anything like it- but I imagine it would be possible to eliminate fraudulent reviews with proper design, and they may have done so. eBay, for example, is almost free of fraudulent reviews because posting a single review is very expensive- you'd need to sell an item to yourself for full price, and then pay eBay their full (rather large) cut to post a single fraudulent review.
As a buyer, you should be able to take a single high effort review that contains something like mass spec chemical analysis results, and further confirm that the reviewer themselves has a credible history of making purchases and reviews broadly across a lot of different sellers. An impossibly expensive to fake signal. This could also be done automatically by the platform- by making the more credible reviews display first.
> I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when he’s supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.
Trump is not an idealist- he will promise anything to anyone if it gets power and attention. Previously, he had attempted a political career as a leftist, and switched to the right because it was getting more traction.
> I know this is probably as minority view, but I think if adults consent to buying and using any drug, that should be both fully legal, and their right and responsibility- any negative consequences are 100% their own fault, not the person who sold them. It's probably true that making drugs easier to buy made more people buy them, but I was only considering the ill effects of fraudulently adulterated products. Do the math differently if you don't see it this way.
I'd agree with you if the people that used these drugs did so rationally. That's not the case mostly though from what I've heard. Trauma is often the root cause and that's out of many people's control. From then on it's ub to society to help them.
If a high performing exec wants to buy drugs to function better, sure maybe that's ok but I doubt that's the majority of people.
I proclaimed nearly this exact opinion in the jury box after being summoned between 15 and 20 years ago. They didn't pick me for trial, which was the intended effect. I really did believe it at the time. Nowadays, I just think it's way more complicated and there are no simple or blanket answers.
Re-consenting: this is a different argument than saying more lives were saved because the reviews would remove adulterated products. Again, just look at opioid addiction for very clear evidence of the opposite effect.
It is very clear from what you’ve said that you haven’t used it :) I have browsed it when it was active and I was very pro tor. You’re making a lot of assumptions that simply don’t hold for silk road.
> Again, just look at opioid addiction for very clear evidence of the opposite effect.
I was playing devil's advocate, but agree there is more culpability to a seller if the drug overwhelms your ability to make the choice in the first place- however a lot of very illegal drugs do not do this. More so if you're using emotionally manipulative ads and selling methods as the alcohol and pharma industry do.
No doubt people were buying weed and hallucinogens on Silk Road, but there was A LOT of opioids, Xanax, cocaine, meth, and other highly addictive drugs that change people’s brain chemistry for the worse.
silk road was on the dark web, a place that is oriented 100% around anonymity. This precludes any sort of "elimination of fraudulent reviews" since there's no reasonable way to build any sort of chain of trust.
I explained several ideas to eliminate fraudulent reviews in my comment, that you didn't address. The main thing is to make a review coupled with a purchase that involves a large cut to the platform, so each review is very expensive. Secondly, don't take reviewers themselves seriously unless they've also made a large overall number of purchases to a diversity of sellers- making becoming a credible reviewer also expensive.
> Trump is not an idealist- he will promise anything to anyone if it gets power and attention. Previously, he had attempted a political career as a leftist, and switched to the right because it was getting more traction.
This is a critical point. His explicitly goal is to be an autocrat, there is no other ideology other than what works.
That's why I think the only real bit of him is the one that admires Putin. That is who he wants to be.
The cybersecurity podcast Risky Business interviewed an FBI agent who was deeply involved, I'd highly recommend listening to it if you want that perspective. If I remember correctly, the agents who were investigating the murder for hire stuff were later found to have been stealing some of the bitcoin they were confiscating and the prosecutors fro the Ulbricht case decided they didn't need to bring up those charges to get a conviction (which they obviously didn't).
That is interesting. I'd suspect he could possibly be found guilty of attempted murder, and have the sentence reduced or eliminated by arguing that his previous sentence unjustly assumed guilt for this as well, and factored it into the sentence he already served.
If I remember correctly, there were comments from both the prosecution and judge that would basically prove that point- and they allowed evidence related to those other crimes in the trial. If they could prove this misconduct, they may even be able to argue double jeopardy.
There was deliberately no mention of the alleged murders-for-hire during the trial.
The judge said during sentencing that she was giving Ulbricht an incredibly harsh sentence to make an example of him to others who think that facilitating selling drugs is a victimless crime, and she was also angry at the huge stack of nice letters that people sent to the court in support of Ulbricht.
"for the crime he was actually found guilty of, the sentence was unfair and unreasonable."
Was it? Based on current law in the US?
While I do not know English Common law well, in many jurisdictions, every part of the drug dealing is drug dealing. Even if you never touch a drug and just provide payment processing services, transport or whatever, as long as you are aware of it and profit from it, it is drug dealing. So every transaction on Silk Road would also be his crime. And there were many, many many. On the other hand, for non-first degree murder, in several jurisdictions his sentence would have maxed out at 15 years. First time offender, he could have walked after 10.
> I'd also argue he almost certainly saved a huge number of lives with Silk Road: the ability to view eBay style feedback and chemical test results makes buying illegal drugs far safer than buying them on the street.
So will the Trump admin be making any moves on legalization or safe supply? Especially since between Musk and Kennedy's admitted drug use, the white house pharmacy report, and the allegations about the Trump family itself, it seems obvious that the White House appreciates the usefulness of illegal stimulants?
Or is this another case of "in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"?
the benefit wasnt really unique to silk road or ross. it was just a very convoluted, roundabout demonstration of how safe drug use can be when its done in the right environment. legalization would be even safer…
Safer for buyers and users I guess. Based on being able to smell marijuana coming from so many car windows just walking around town, I'm not sure it would be safer for the public. I'm not anti-legalization by the way - I think it's similar to gambling: a mixed bag.
What are you talking about? I specifically said it was unethical that they seem to have sentenced him for crimes he was never even tried for- but deserved a fair trial for. You appear to think I was saying the opposite of that?
I just can't fathom the lack of self-awareness of people who championed Ross Ulbricht's cause, seemingly because he looks like them, codes like them, and sat in the same public library they frequent or became associated with a techno-libertarian identity. Hundreds of drug and gun dealers are sentenced every week, some certainly unjustly. Where is the outrage for them?
Those people that championed Ulbricht's cause are for the most part also the people championing the cause of drug dealers and other victims of New Prohibition. If you genuinely care about this cause, you might ask yourself whether alienating other supporters is the best approach.
If you're just looking for someone to feel superior about, find another forum.
My impression is that a big part of the outrage is directed not at the conviction, but at the disproportionate sentence.
I'm not surprised or upset at all that he went to prison, but unless I'm missing a ton of details (and I probably am), 12 years is plenty for what he did.
It's the scale of the crime (he facilitated 10s of thousands of transactions), the judge clearly stated she wanted to make an example of him and give pause to anyone thinking about doing something similar in the future, and she was angry at the many of the letters of support Ulbricht's fans family and friends sent the court.
My memory is she started the sentencing hearing by disdainfully reading a few of them from a pile of them she brought to the court that day.
As for the murder part Christina Warren knows best:
The murder for hire bit was always the most bullshit of all the charges. Not only were the fbi agents that were part of that later jailed for their own actions related to the case (including theft and hiding/deleting evidence), it was never real and no one was ever in danger.
> it was never real and no one was ever in danger.
Because one of the hitmen he hired was a scammer, and another was an FBI agent. Still clearly a crime to hire them for murder.
Ulbricht's right-hand-man Roger Thomas Clark, who was involved in one of the murder-for-hire conversations, admitted the conversation was real during his trial:
"In his own remarks, Clark didn't comment on that murder-for-hire conversation—which he at one point claimed had been fabricated by Ulbricht but later conceded was real."
Chris Tarbell states that there are logs about 6 imaginary "murder of hire"'s .. none of which actually took place, two were faked by the FBI(?) and four were scams run by third parties outside the USA.
In the absence of any other context it's assumed these were acts of "intent to murder" but that's about it .. logs that look like a duck and probably were a duck.
But no actual murders that anyone could find, no bodies, etc.
Okay, another comparison would be, everyone who wants Luigi Mangione exonerated also is feeling what some people felt when they wanted OJ Simpson to be exonerated. Do you see now?
Luigi is a symptom of an overly inactive justice system, if you don't prosecute crimes then some people take the law into their own hands (as a matter of fact). Preventing vigilantism is why having a working justice system is important to a functioning society.
DPR is according to his defenders a symptom of an overly active justice system prosecuting crimes that shouldn't be prosecuted. Though I'm not sure I personally agree with that.
The Luigi some people have constructed in their minds is a symptom of an overly inactive justice system. The Luigi of real life is the symptom of a man suffering a psychotic break.
See, you are one of the people who feels about Luigi Mangione what some people felt about OJ Simpson. You’re getting it. You can read about how some people talked about OJ Simpson’s supposed innocence, it is exactly the same energy.
Almost nobody thinks Luigi Mangione or Ross Ulbricht are innocent, or were falsely accused. Neither of the 3 cases are remotely comparable beyond being "people charged with crimes that there is some public sympathy for."
Most people seem to think Ulbricht was guilty, and deserved to be found guilty and go to prison, but that the full sentence didn't fit the crime.
I don't see how those are remotely comparable, the OJ people believed he didn't do it and was set up by the racist LAPD while the Luigi people think that what he did was good actually. I guess the Ross Ulbricht people are more like the latter but they still seem pretty dissimilar.
The lengths the FBI went to in one of the murder for hire cases is interesting.
After Ulbricht ordered the hit on one of his forum moderators, the FBI visited him, took all of his computers, told him they were going to be "him" from now on online forever, had him "pose" in a bathtub where they hosed him off and doused him in ketchup to take fake trophy photos, had the "hitman" send the photos of Ulbricht, who famously commented "It had to be done."
Did you just make that up? I have never heard that claim before and searching for Ross Ulbricht ketchup just leads back to your comment, so you seem to be the first person to ever claim this.
>Force got Green to sign a waiver, thereby commencing his role in an impromptu staged torture sting against DPR. Soon Green was being dunked in the bathtub of a Marriott suite by phony thugs who were in fact a Secret Service agent and a Baltimore postal inspector. Force recorded the action on a camera. “Did you get it?” Green asked, wet and wheezing on the floor. He’d felt like their simulation was a little too accurate. They dunked him four more times to get a convincing shot.
There used to be an online archive of every little bit of public information known about the Silk Road's administrators and their court cases. I can't find it anymore. It was over 10 years ago. All I can remember is the site had a weird url.
This is wonderful. I've never argued that Ross shouldn't have served time but it's always been clear his prosecution and sentencing were excessive and unjust. The prosecutors asked for a 20 year sentence, which seemed disproportionate given the sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender and the non-violent charges he was convicted of. But the judge sentenced Ross to TWO life sentences plus 40 years - without the possibility of parole. There's no doubt Ross made a series of unwise and reckless decisions but serving over ten years of hard time in a FedMax prison is more than enough given the charges and his history.
It's just unfortunate that Trump, and now, excessive pardons are politically polarized, which could cloud the fact that justice was done today. I don't credit Trump in any way for doing "the right thing" or even having a principled position regarding Ross' case. Clearly, others with influence on Trump convinced him to sign it. It doesn't matter how the pardon happened. Biden should have already pardoned Ross because that crazy sentence shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Madoff stole $20-35B, but by some measures a human life is only worth $10M. I am not really asserting those figures are comparable, just that Madoff stole a lot of money.
Nah, it's more that you do not fuck with the money system. SBF is learning that same lesson.
Jeff Skilling (Enron) served 12 years in jail for insider trading and securities.
Not saying that Skilling, Maddoff or SBF shouldn't have gone to jail. They deserved it. But I do find it interesting that financial crimes can tend to be the most harshly judged, likely because of who they impact (the people with money) and because they cause distrust of the financial system as a whole.
> Madoff stole $20-35B
Not to defend Madoff, but it's not like he made off with that money himself, so I'm not sure "stole" is the correct term. Most of that money went to investors -- it just went to a different set of investors than the ones who had put that money in (the nature of a Ponzi scheme).
yes, unless you're a big enough finance scammer that you stole from really rich people (most scammers who steal millions don't get it from the very rich)
But even then the times aren't longer than someone who gets caught with a 100 grams of coke. Skilling got 12 years for a financial fraud so heinous the whole system was re-regulated. You get that for selling crack on the corner.
There’s no question that the “war on drugs” sentencing is ridiculously out of proportion with the actual harm done, especially if you’re not white or upper class. I was making a comparison between types of financial crimes.
Hasn't the Trustee recovered 90% of the money invested? Phantom returns were ignored; at the time of the arrest the phantom returns were considered money lost.
> Not to defend Madoff, but it's not like he made off with that money himself, so I'm not sure "stole" is the correct term.
What else would the term be? Did you always feel that Robin Hood was being unfairly maligned when he was described as robbing from the rich and giving to the poor?
It's the same level as saying "tech companies stole from the populace". Which is ethically correct but legally wrong. I guess that's the distinction GP wants to make.
I think there's almost no chance. SBF is a perfect example of someone to throw the book at. He's effectively Madoff 2.0, the people everyone from the lowly to the elite hate.
Ross Ulbricht is a very unique, interesting case. I don't for a second believe that Trump has any moral imperative with pardoning him, but his sentence for the crimes he was prosecuted for was very clearly unjustly large in an extensively murky case. There's also a whole slew of benefits to Trump for pardoning him - it's largely perceived as very pro-crypto, pro-libertarian (ironic), etc.
In any sane democracy I would agree with you. But this POTUS has pardoned 1500 people that actively participates in an insurrection, some of who hurt and even killed police officers. He's pardoned a the Dread Pirate Roberts.
All of those people were perfect people to throw the book at.
From what I read, the Ulbricht pardon was part of a deal at the Libertarian National Convention. So it's just business as usual.
Broken clocks and all that. I entirely agree that he may have a potential muder conviction on his case, but they instead threw the book at him for a much lesser crime for a way too large sentence. Especially if we compare it to the War on Drugs.
If someone robs a bank, or steals a wallet, they're probably hoping to get as much money as they can. If that wallet happened to $1B in it, I don't think it makes the thief more heinous. If we sentence people based on the amount of money they manage to steal, we're sentencing them largely based on luck.
If you shoot someone and hit their head killing them or just their ear, its a matter of luck (and possibly skill), the charges are different. The justice system judges based on intent as well as outcome (i.e. execution X luck).
well you're not wrong. That attempted Trump assassination was a few inches away from being in the same books as John Wilkes Booth, instead of being talked about for less than a week and then forgotten. Sentences would have been night and day.
Many jurisdictions have the same punishment for attempted murder and murder though.
I get that there are different views on how much punishment should be based on intent vs outcome. My opinion is factoring in outcome in criminal sentences is often pragmatic, but if we had omniscient judges, judging on intent would be ideal.
You're either not understanding or refusing to engage with the hypothetical. When you steal a wallet, you don't get to choose how much money is in it. It could have $5, or $500.
You're imagining something like a thief who just intends to steal $X, robs a bank, counts out $X and leaves the rest of the money untouched. In reality, most thieves are opportunists: they will take as much money as opportunity allows without getting caught.
Obviously you couldn't physically fit $1B cash in a wallet, but assuming this hypothetical wallet did have $1B, does that make the thief more heinous or just luckier?
(If you must insist on a literal and physically accurate wallet in the hypothetical, just imagine it held $1B in Bitcoin.)
But if the wallets each only contain $100 and you steal enough of them to get to $1 billion, that is qualitatively different from stealing a single wallet. The man committed fraud repeatedly and caused financial hardships for tons of people. He wasn't lucky in how much he managed to steal, that was a combination of effort, skill, and reckless disregard for the wellbeing of others.
Sure, but that's an entirely different metric to judge him on than the comment I was replying to. Instead of trying to judge the heinousness of his crime by comparing the raw amount stolen ($20-35B) to the value of a human life ($10M), you're judging based on the number of times a crime is committed. That makes intuitive sense; more crimes committed gets a harsher punishment.
The hypothetical is there to try to tease out a principled stance from our intuition. If someone stole a wallet that contained $1B, should their punishment be a million times harsher than someone who stole a wallet with $1000? Should it be 5x harsher? The same punishment?
If your stance is that luck would not ideally affect one's punishment then the amount stolen isn't itself a factor in determining the punishment. It's downstream of the true factors, such as the number of thefts committed. The amount stolen is correlated but not causal.
> If your stance is that luck would not ideally affect one's punishment
I don't think this is generally the stance. If you give someone a little shove, they bump their head, and they get a bruise, you've committed assault, you're facing up to a few months in jail. If you give someone a little shove, they bump their head, and they die, you've committed murder, you're facing potentially years in jail. According to the eggshell skull legal doctrine[0], it doesn't matter that some people are especially more vulnerable than others (ie that you were particularly unlucky and pushed someone who happened to have an eggshell skull), you take responsibility for the consequences when you do something illegal.
Now in our world, no one is going to steal a wallet with $1 billion in it - there is some reasonable assumption that when taking a wallet you are at most stealing a few thousand dollars, and never more money than a person would be comfortable keeping in their wallet. While that's against society's rules for various reasons, it's not a particularly damaging crime. The victim will be perhaps very inconvenienced, but no worse.
However if we lived in a world where a wallet might contain 1 billion dollars, that would be a different story. Now you might very well be causing life altering damage to large numbers of people when you steal a wallet. The decision to do so, knowing the risk, is a much more serious offense. The metaphorical wallet Madoff stole was not only possibly filled with an enormous sum of money, it very likely contained that much. Beyond the much greater and repeated effort that Madoff employed to steal this money than would be needed to snatch a wallet, the very fact he was willing to cause so much potential damage for his personal gain is a much more severe breach of the social contract than a petty thief.
There definitely shouldn't be a simple linear relationship of dollars stolen to days in prison; but that doesn't mean the punishment should be completely agnostic either. These relationships are complex and need to be looked at in context with other relevant factors like pre-meditative effort or degree of remorse. Regardless of one's stance on rehabilitative vs punitive justice, I think we can all agree someone who effortlessly broke core parts of the social contract and would gladly do so again needs to be treated differently from someone who made a bad call in a moment of weakness.
> If you give someone a little shove, they bump their head, and they die
What you're describing is manslaughter or possibly not a crime in most jurisdictions, but your point stands. Generally, murder is an intentional killing, and manslaughter is an accidental killing. But if, say, you give an aggressive drunk a little shove and they bump their head and die, you probably haven't committed a crime. Nonetheless, luck absolutely plays a role in punishment in our current justice system in a thousand different ways. I don't think most people consider the element of luck to be ideal so much as an unfortunate but necessary reality.
With the eggshell skull doctrine, you're talking about paying for damages in a civil case. I think most people see reparations differently than punishment. In civil law, you pay to fix the damage you caused, even though the exact amount comes down to luck. But criminal punishments require some criminal intent. It's a higher bar.
> there is some reasonable assumption that when taking a wallet you are at most stealing a few thousand dollars
I think you're giving thieves too much credit here. They may not expect most wallets to have more than $1000, but I don't think most thieves have some innate goodness in them that makes them want to get a wallet with less than $1000. I think it's the opposite: if thieves knew someone had $1B in their wallet, and the chance of getting caught was the same as stealing any other wallet, I think most thieves would want to steal that wallet more, not less. And I don't think most would care if the money in that wallet rightfully belonged to the investors of Madoff Investment Securities either.
> factors like pre-meditative effort or degree of remorse ... moment of weakness
With these factors, you're judging the thief based on their character. We're both advocating this. The difference is you're arguing someone who steals a larger amount of money has a worse character while I'm arguing they just had greater opportunity.
Madoff stole from the rich. That is a sure fire way to have the book thrown at you. Smart criminals steal from the poor, because they don’t fight back as much and the justice system doesn’t care.
It is wildly harmful and an escalation of monstrous practices to look at one or several unjust actions and/or sentences and declare that those who do worse than the person who was dealt out such a retribution should receive an even longer sentence.
If someone gets 10 years for smoking weed, the solution is not to put someone in prison for 20 years for punching someone.
On the same principle, noting that someone who punched someone got one day in jail is not a good justification for why someone shouldn't get two days in jail for smoking weed.
It is interesting but, if I'm understanding the stats being tracked there, it's about petitions received and granted. However, many of the recent pardons by both Biden and Trump were unusual and controversial because they were either never petitioned, preemptive (in the case of Biden's family, staff & political allies) or granted to broad groups (in the case of Trump Jan 6th protesters). I'm not sure they are reflected on the site, or at least not yet, and if/when they are, how the site would reflect one pardon impacting dozens or hundreds of people.
In general, the recent wave of pardons in the last month reflect the trend over the last 20 years of pardons by both parties being increasingly political, self-interested and granted to connected donors who mount targeted campaigns. Sadly, it's not a great look. Yet I believe the pardon process can, and should, serve an important function of being a final check and balance to correct prosecutorial and judicial excess when it occurs. I'd be happier if the majority of pardons were commutations of grossly excessive sentences in cases most people have never heard of.
Hopefully, many of the more unusual and controversial recent pardons were a final paroxysm in response to the increases in politically-related prosecutions or threats of such prosecutions by partisans on both sides. Regardless of the validity (or lack thereof) of these prosecutions (or threats), it's clear many were pursued more aggressively, timed or conducted with at least one eye on either influencing political optics or retribution. Overall, it's certainly not been a shining moment for our republic. Both parties share the blame and need to do better.
Your math is wrong at least for Biden, I didn't recheck the others. Biden has 1736 pardons commuted or granted in 46.5 months or 37 pardons per month. I suspect all your other ones are wrong since Biden was so off. The recent trend is Biden and Obama being "off the charts" compared to the republican presidents. From my understanding this is due to weed related charges where they did mass pardonings. It's besides the point ones feelings about it, just commenting on the math.
Although the murder-for-hire charges were dropped, transcripts published by Wired in 2015[0] show Ross Ulbricht openly discussing contract killings: he haggles over price, suggests interrogation, and even provides personal details about a target’s family (“Wife + 3 kids”). These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York, making further prosecution moot—but the transcripts themselves factored into his sentencing. No killings occurred (he was likely scammed), yet the conversations challenge the notion that his crimes were purely non-violent. He was willing to have someone killed to protect his idea.
> These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York
It was further complicated because a couple of the law enforcement officers involved with setting up one of the six murder-for-hire scams* stole the Bitcoin Ulbricht paid and it was also felt that trying to prosecute based solely on the other chat logs would have been difficult. The FBI agent who arrested Ulbricht was interviewed about it recently[1].
* The other five are said to not have been law enforcement, which makes it curious the number of times Ulbricht was scammed in this manner.
The murder for hire was done with the admin account which was called "Dread Pirate Roberts" from the novel "The Princess Bride". The thing about the name is that is passed on over and over. The admin has claimed multiple times that he is not the original nor first administrator (Ross) of the silk road.
In addition you have the guy that was supposed to be murdered also claiming that it could not have been Ross.
The murder for hire case was very weak and then in addition you had the two federal agents working the murder for hire case charged for stealing bitcoins.
This is silly whataboutism. They have plenty of evidence, including PST/PDT timestamps and proof he logged out of other personal accounts when he logged into that account, that suggested it was him. Despite his claims, they watched him extensively and found no indication that anyone else was posing as DPR.
Not to mention that he was caught in part because the first public advertisements for Silk Road were traced back to his personal accounts, and there's strong evidence that he personally grew the first batch of shrooms that launched the market. It was all him from the beginning.
First time offender?!?!? Applying that term to a guy who spent years traveling around the world under multiple fake IDs while using state-level security on his hardware and racking up law violations every single day seems like an absurd stretch.
I mean, come on. By that logic, Al Capone was a first time offender when the feds finally nailed him for the first time. Pablo Escobar was a first time offender when he finally got nabbed. Good lord.
"First time offense" applies to your _first offense_. Not relevant when you've committed thousands of offenses over years while living on the run.
> I don't credit Trump in any way for doing "the right thing" or even having a principled position regarding Ross' case.
This is probably the most ridiculous comment in this thread. Trump even spoke at the Libertarian convention and specifically mentioned how unjust the sentence was and that he would pardon Ross as one of his campaign promises and he delivered. Trump saw parallels between the attack on Ross and the politically motivated law fare the democrats attacked him with. I think the real issue you have with this pardon is that Trump did it and not some democrat.
I think he's referring to the NY state case, which is difficult to dispute that it was done for political purposes. Although I'm sure Trump would say it applies to the federal classified documents case, as well.
Actually, I support neither major political party. I'm probably closest to a moderate "free markets, free minds" libertarian (note: the small "l" means I'm not in, or aligned with, the national Libertarian Party). I haven't voted for any candidate from either major party for decades. I greatly disapprove of Biden, Harris and Trump equally, along with almost all state and federal politicians of both parties. There are less than a handful of national-level politicians I would trust to dog sit, much less run my country.
Interestingly, I get hate from nearly everyone whose bought into either side of the political mainstream, and not because I dislike their candidate (few serious people would argue even their favored candidate doesn't have significant negatives). No, people can't stand that I don't dislike the other candidate/party more than I dislike their preferred candidate/party. It's bizarre because it seems entirely reasonable to have concluded that all the major party presidential candidates are so flawed, each in their own uniquely terrible ways, that they are beneath any serious comparison of which may be less bad. It's simply beyond reasonable discourse to engage in evaluating whether a dog shit sandwich might taste better or worse than a cat shit sandwich. They are all animal shit sandwiches.
I'm responding because you're objecting to my mild statement about Trump's likelihood of having a principled position regarding Ross' case and thus you may have assumed I favor the other candidate or party. Hardly! This is especially galling because I've had to defend Trump, who I dislike as much as Biden/Harris, against reflexive "Orange Man Bad" attacks - if only to point out, sometimes Trump does things which are good. And the same was true of Biden. Both of them have done good things - even if only in the sense of a broken clock being right twice a day.
To be clear, my observation about Trump not basing many of his political positions on long-held, fundamental principles applies equally to both major parties. Neither party is grounded in principle. In recent decades, both parties have abandoned so many of their own long-held, traditional "left/right" pillar positions judged by how they actual govern when in power, if not in their campaign claims, as to now be mostly incoherent. Neither party can seriously claim they arrive at their current political positions by deriving them from deep, unchanging principles. Once again, I'm not making a partisan judgement for or against either. This is simply a factual statement. Neither party's platform positions or political actions over time are self-consistent enough to be grounded in principle. At most, they try to later market the political calculations they've made for pragmatic, contextual reasons as aligned with some principle - but that's just transparent retconning to pander to their base. This is obviously true because no voter can reliably predict what their own party's (or candidate's) position might be on some enitrely new issue in advance.
In the case of Ross, Trump came very close to granting a pardon at the end of his term in 2020. He ultimately didn't pardon Ross due to the uncharged, untried allegations of Ross hiring an online hitman. Trump pardoned Ross now despite the same things still being true. The reasons Trump cited for the pardon were the excessive prosecution and sentence, but those things were also equally true in 2020. So, while I think it's just that Ross is free after over 11 years in a FedMax prison, that's why I don't believe Trump's reasoning was grounded in principle. And it has zero to do with liking Biden/Democrats more or Trump/Republicans less (because I dislike both equally). If Biden had pardoned Ross it would also not have been for principled reasons.
I personally believe that having lots of parties founded on concise, coherent principles would be very nice from a voter point of view (to express preferences), but those would be completely unable to actually govern-- because there are a lot of decisions to make and compromises to find, and trying to do this solely based on a small set of principles is just not possible, because you would need to abstain from all decisions that your founding principles can not answer clearly (and no current democracy is set up in a way that enables this).
I can picture a system where this could work in theory (lots of parties forming the government, but most parties abstain from voting on any single decision), but I can see no way of preventing scope creep/consolidation...
Regarding the "both main parties equally bad" aspect:
What are your main pain points with the previous administration? As an outsider, to me it appears that despite getting dealt a rather bad hand (Covid/Ukraine/Middle East chaos), they made a lot of correct decisions (in hindsight).
Post-trump republicans, on the other hand, appear irresponsibly selfcentered to me in many ways (climate/emissions, Covid policies, foreign/trade, anti-pluralism). I also think that (2016) Trump poisoned political discourse in a insidiously harmful way, by basically forgoing any form of factual debate in favor of spewing insults at every opportunit (lying Hillary, sleepy Joe, ...)-- this alone I feel almost requires opposition...
> TWO life sentences plus 40 years - without the possibility of parole
IMHO convicting somebody of such a thing is a crime in itself. Simply not excusable. Especially when the crime is essentially a form of white collar crime at best. Bank robbers, drug dealers, and some actual murderers often get more lenient sentences than that.
I think this was a case of the justice system being abused to make a political point. Casually destroying somebody's life to make a political point should be criminal in itself (with appropriate sentences and public disgrace). I don't agree with Trump's politics. But this seems like he's righting a clear and obvious wrong; so good for him. Regardless of his motivations.
> Biden should have already pardoned Ross because that crazy sentence shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Biden did commute the sentence of several other non-violent cases just last week or thereabouts, and Trump has been talking about Ulbricht for quite some time so it's not a complete surprise.
I guess the whole "murder for hire" thing excluded him from the "non-violent" category. But how that got tacked on seems very odd; the judge basically said "we didn't really handle it in the court case and it wasn't a charge, but it was mentioned a few times and it seemed basically true, so I included it in the sentencing". Like, ehh, okay?
To be honest, I don't really understand much of the logic ("logic") of the US justice system....
Judges are allowed to consider some evidence during sentencing which was not presented at trial. The standard for this evidence is lower than the "beyond a shadow of doubt" standard required for a criminal conviction. This is allowed because during sentencing the judge is considering information related to the history and character of the defendant. The 'hiring an online hitman' (who was an FBI informant) allegation was never charged or tried. Even if it hadn't been obvious entrapment, it might well have evaporated under discovery and cross-examination by a competent defense.
Including such evidence in sentencing consideration is not uncontroversial in the U.S. However, it can cut both ways, in that a judge can consider extenuating circumstances in a defendant's life to reduce sentencing. We want judges to evaluate cases and make sentencing adjustments where appropriate. So, I don't think I'd do away with the practice. The real issue is that this specific judge went absolutely bonkers far beyond the 20 years the prosecution asked for during sentencing (which was already very high) and sentenced Ross to two life sentences plus 40 years without parole.
Most of us who are happy that Ross was pardoned agree that he was guilty and deserved a jail sentence for the crimes he was convicted of. The only problem is the sentence was so wildly excessive for a non-violent, first-time offender. Compared to guidelines and other sentences it was just crazy and wrong. Ross has served over ten years. Now he's free. That's probably about right.
Calling him a non-violent first time offender is very odd given the magnitude of what his crimes were. He created a very large scale marketplace for all things illegal. Independent of his own hiring of hit men (hello non-violent?), selling substances that lead to overdoses, guns, bomb making materials, etc is certainly my definition of violent. Then add the scale; I fully agree with life sentence without chance of parole. This pardon is shameful.
Yup. And just for some context regarding guns at the time; during the years Silk Road was active it was perfectly legal for me (in the state of Virginia) to buy a gun from another citizen cash in hand without ever showing an ID, filling out a BoS, or any paperwork whatsoever.
On the one hand you say we should retain judges making sentencing adjustments where appropriate, but who judges the appropriateness of the adjustments?
It sounds like if an extenuating circumstance resonates with a judge, then the sentence will get modified. Sentencing shouldn't be based on a single person's "feelings."
Ultimately responsibility lies with the people electing either judges directly or representatives who appoint judges. We must choose people of proper demeanor who will make sound decisions when required. It takes effort on our part to be knowledgeable and vocal, but it's the price for living in a world where we are not at the mercy of unfeeling automatons.
I was at the sentencing, I do not remember the judge mentioning the murder-for-hire cases. To me it was obvious that the prosecution defense and judge had agreed beforehand to not mention it. The judge gave plenty of other reasons for the harsh sentence.
But he’s only served a tiny fraction of what you say was an unjust sentence. So the jury’s still out as to whether he’s served enough time. Other hard drug dealers get way more time than Ross has served.
Its astonishing that granting pardons to drug dealers and attempted murderers is something Trump sees as one of the more urgent matters affecting the most powerful nation on Earth.
If you value societal order above all else, then you want extremely horrific punishments for crimes, you want near-absolute certainty that you'll be punished for criminal acts, and you want capture and trial to be swift, so that people know that breaking the law results in:
Swift capture
Swift trial
Swift execution
And with those three things, you get a highly ordered, law-abiding society, because it becomes common knowledge that breaking the law results in death, guaranteed, so unless you're just stupid or insane, you don't break the law.
If you don't value that kind of clockwork societal order, then you get... Western civilization.
Frankly I'll take the chaos of our Western civilization over the stifling draconian societal order of places like Singapore any day of the week.
> If you value societal order above all else, then you want extremely horrific punishments for crimes, you want near-absolute certainty that you'll be punished for criminal acts, and you want capture and trial to be swift, so that people know that breaking the law results in:
You're ignoring the issue of which acts are criminalized.
The United States incarceration rate is 4x higher than of the rest of the world, in part because it hands out much longer sentences than most other countries. You're not wrong, but it's still the US that is the outlier in terms of sentence lengths [1].
The US is wholly inefficient with the Death Penalty, so I'm against it from a purely financial point of view. By the time many cases get to a point of being convicted they will have already served years, maybe even a few decades in prison already.
And yes, there is the open secret that the US uses its prison system as a form of soft slave labor. Many people don't want to reduce that supply.
Highlighting the polarization and weaponization of the justice system is worthy subject matter for the most powerful nation on Earth. It needs to be set onto a new path that is fair to all involved.
Trump owed the libertarians for their support. This is what they got in return. It's bizarre seeing Trump designate the Mexican drug cartels as terrorists a few hours earlier while Ross facilitated billions in sales of the same products.
I think the attacks on some of these black and gray markets has increased violent crime in the real world. I wish the federal government would stop shutting them down and instead use them as tools to build cases against people breaking the law.
For example, for a while most prostitution and sex work seemed to be online, on places like Craigslist right next to ads for used furniture and jobs. And it seemed to be really effective in getting prostitutes off the streets.
Now that those markets were shut down, I'm seeing here in Seattle we're having pimp shootouts on Aurora and the prostitutes are more brazen than ever. Going after Craigslist has had a negative effect on our cities and has increased crime, and I suspect going after SilkRoad has had a similar impact.
I wish instead of criminalizing addiction we'd fund harm reduction centers and rehabilitation services.
I would much rather the police be focused on stopping violent crime rather than these victimless crimes.
Legitimizing drugs/prostitution makes is easier to regulate and ultimately make safer. Shoving this stuff into a black/gray market is what ultimately creates violent crime.
> I wish instead of criminalizing addiction we'd fund harm reduction centers and rehabilitation services.
We tried that in SF, I was a supporter. Seeing it first hand with a with a family member in public school flipped me. Dumping money into people who aren't ready to convert back into tax payers (even in the most basic sense) while schools got the back burner was enough. Not to mention the tents.
> Seeing it first hand with a with a family member in public school flipped me.
Why is this an either or?
SF spends about $1 billion dollars on schools [1] and while the program ran it had around a $40 million dollar budget [2]. For an area that houses huge tech companies, this doesn't seem like an extreme budget to be working with.
> Not to mention the tents.
Ok? And what options would you give these people, just be homeless somewhere else where you can't see them?
correct. my comment was intended to point out the disturbing misplacement of priorities, given that the budgets for educating the citizens of the future and for fetty smoking bums are comparable.
While I think anecdotes are valuable and should not be easily dismissed, we have decades of research and evidence supporting the benefit of harm reduction centers. They reduce risk of overdose morbidity and mortality while not increasing crime or public nuisance to the surrounding community.
It's just really hard to swallow the findings in this paper (all non-US cities) when you can see such a visible change on the streets in SF since the pandemic.
By all official accounts crime is down in SF, but many agree something has changed in the way homeless carry. I would dare to use the word "entitled" to describe the cavalier way large encampments and bicycle chop shops are set up.
I never did any drugs but when I was growing up, it was understood that you needed to keep your drug use somewhat secret, behind closed doors, hidden from the public, I expected there would be consequences from the police if I decided to do drugs out in the open.
Now I see guys doing extremely hard drugs out in the open on the street and on buses. it is a jarring. They're usually not trying to inject or exhale on me ( though the meth smoke guys on some buses don't seem to care ).
Yeah although this is more a consequence of how SF decided to handle it. Rather than decriminalising they're just enabling users.
Look towards other countries with similar policies (Portugal, Netherlands, etc.) in their cases they saw a decrease in drug usage and fatalities. The difference is they decided to not encourage their behaviour by allowing open air drug markets to flourish, with kiosks just down the street handing out the necessary paraphernalia.
no victim means no crime. victimless "crimes" are just 'arbitrary rule' violations (like going 56mph in a 55mph zone) or infractions. the twisting and distortion of language by the state is counterproductive to society.
How does that make any sense? So you could never pass a law to reduce risk because in most cases, breaking it won’t create a victim?
Speed limits are done to reduce the risk of you killing someone. Do you really think you should be able to drive however you want and until you actually have an accident, it’s fine?
if you cause no harm, how could it be a crime? an infraction, sure. a rule violation, sure. but calling a small rule violation which never causes any harm to anyone the same thing as rape, murder, assault, carjacking, etc, is just pure degeneracy of language.
The crime is increasing the risk to other people. Why does that not make it a crime in your opinion?
If I try to shoot someone but miss and they never even notice, is that fine because there’s no actual victim?
Edit:
To be more precise, the crime doesn’t even need you to increase the risk to anyone. Just thinking that you’ll increase the risk is already a crime, even if you’re wrong. If you buy a prop gun but think it’s real and try to shoot someone, that would still be attempted murder, even if it couldn’t even have worked. But you’re punished for trying to kill someone, it doesn’t matter wether you’re incompetent at it (well you get a bit less for the attempt compared to the actual successful act but it’s still a crime).
And another edit because coming up with weird hypotheticals is fun:
Imagine planting a bomb with a one hour timer on a marketplace and when it goes off, the marketplace was empty of people by chance.
Does that mean that the worst punishment you should expect should be for property damage because someone needs to clean up the ground? Obviously you committed a crime, even if there’s no specific victim this time.
an attempted crime is an intent to harm another. even my autocorrect could finish that sentence.
but we have a separate crime category for those already. "attempted murder" etc. those are crimes because they intended to be a crime, but they just failed for incompetence. it's a lot harder to prove in court (rightfully so).
i would say that i agree with you about attempted crimes, if that helps.
So what’s the problem? Attempting crimes is a crime too.
Edit:
You initially wrote:
> no victim means no crime. victimless "crimes" are just 'arbitrary rule' violations (like going 56mph in a 55mph zone) or infractions. the twisting and distortion of language by the state is counterproductive to society.
So you think not being allowed to bomb someone while being unsuccessful is ab arbitrary rule and should not be called a crime?
The inflow/manufacture of narcotics won't be affected at all. You'll still have a constant new influx of junkies, and it you'll essentially by funding this widescale and expensive solution forever.
Much better to simple make drug trafficing and manufacture a capital offense. It's been extremely effective in a lot of jurisdictions. Even if you're squeamish about the death penalty, a back of the envelope calculations will tell you you're saving a lot more lives than you spend due to decreased overdoses, drug wars etc,
It's a tiny island nation with a single sea port, single bridge, and single airport. Meanwhile western nations are so porous they can't keep millions of undocumented people out.
Having garbage bins in my neighborhood, keeps garbage from being put on the ground.
There are other neighbourhoods where the garbage bins don’t help at all
I don't think much changed, really. The contraband and services offered on these marketplaces has always been backed by criminal enterprises. Mostly the markets provided level of indirection that made purchasing palatable and gave a false sense of safety.
Online markets for sex work allowed women to operate far more safely than "the street" allow. I had friends who were affected by the crackdown on craigslist etc.
I sincerely didn't mean to minimize the harm to sex workers, which is devastating.
My point is rather that an online marketplace in the absence of decriminalization and reform can only provide a marginal increase in safety. Sex workers marketing on Backpage, Craigslist, Onlyfans, and IG still face a great deal of risk of violence, pressure from pimps, and prosecution by law enforcement. It's a deeply complex systematic issue which can't be fixed by a website.
For drugs in particular, darknet marketplaces primarily rely on unspeakably violent criminal enterprises upstream. The consumers, sellers, and communities implicated in this supply chain are all losers in this system. The cartels are the winners and the global "war on drugs" establishment are a close second place.
Still, in the case of sex work, I think you are simply wrong. Your overall sketch is the "movie version" or police/puritanical version of sex work, a version that equates trafficking and voluntary transactions (not that those transactions can't exploitative in other ways). The majority sex work isn't filled with violence except on the level of the literal street. Notably, my friends and acquaintances who used Craigslist back in the day didn't deal with any pimps and a moment's thought would show pimps are only needed when someone sells sex at a physical location.
Also, afaik, onlyfans is a virtual only platform so workers there face the same physical dangers as people on zoom calls.
> a moment's thought would show pimps are only needed when someone sells sex at a physical location
Pimps are needed whenever there is coercion involved. It seems unlikely to me that only street prostitution requires coercion. I think we'll soon learn that most of the women on OnlyFans are there because of a violent and manipulative man.
Thank you for the kind elaboration. I wonder if you could share any writing on the social justice issues surrounding sex work? My knowledge is limited and informed by only a few pieces I've read over the years.
Illegal online marketplaces absolutely do reduce "turf wars". It's argueable that there is harm reduction compared to street dealing. Then I suspect it creates new consumers so there is that too.
Sure, but the point is about secondary effects. If pimps are "competing" online then they need to compete on, well, marketing and UX. If they compete in real life then it is about who controls physical territory.
There are lots of studies about the unintended consequences of prohibition.
By this, do you mean "reducing the total amount of prostitution occurring" or "making prostitution less visible"?
Your third paragraph implies the former, but I suspect the answer is actually the latter. There is probably less total prostition now, but what's there is more visible.
You talk about "increased crime" in reference to pimp shootouts, but you know prostitution and sex trafficking are crimes too, right? If thousands of women and girls are suffering but you can't see it because it's all organized online, that's not necessarily better.
Coming from a country where prostition is legal and drugs heavily decriminalized, all with plenty of help programs for people who need it. I can only say that the problem is not the platforms but forbidding things that people won't stop using is simply delusional.
Well, I think that justice has been served. The feds' prosecution of Ulbricht was the epitome of throwing the book at someone to make an example, when the government's case was pretty flawed, in my opinion. 10 years is enough time to pay the debt of running the silk road.
I am glad that Ulbricht has been pardoned and I feel like a small iota of justice has been returned to the world with this action.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading the comments on this thread. Multiple teenagers (one in Australia) died from the drugs distributed on Silk Road. Ross was ok with selling grenades, body parts, etc on there. But everyone is saying he served his time ???
If the liquor store owner knows that some of those bottles might contain pure methanol, and people end up dying from drinking said methanol...then, yes, I do think the store owner should do some serious jailtime.
Which is what this boils down to. Ross didn't know what people were selling. Could be pure high-quality stuff, could be contaminated stuff, could be stuff that was cut up with fent. He made money either way.
> It also allowed the long string of shady middlemen to be cut out
Based on what? This sounds completely made up. Anyone could sell on Silk Road, and faking reviews would be trivial on an anonymous platform. And if someone died from drugs they bought, they're not exactly leaving a review, are they?
Sellers have reputations in real life, but it can actually be difficult to link a death to a specific dealer without a thorough investigation. Even more so on an anonymous platform. Would Silk Road have cared if the police linked deaths to a specific seller? Fuck no.
For the record, I am not anti Silk Road, I'm actually for legalizing drugs. I just find the notion that drugs online were inherently cleaner to be naive Libertarian propaganda.
Selling drugs vs. selling alcohol, this is beyond morality matter but a matter regulated by law, sorry.
There was no equation there actually. Let me unwrap it for you, probably this way it will be clear: first line was a satire of the parent comment along the line of depicting deadly but permitted matters; second line was the unpacking the satire higlighting that the fella hopelessly confused (now, this was more like the equation you sought) a socially permitted activity with an illegal one.
>Selling drugs vs. selling alcohol, this is beyond morality matter but a matter regulated by law, sorry.
There's nothing beyond morality. Laws are an application based on morality.
And as we know with the 18th and 21st amendments, even the law can have shakey morality based on more factors than "what is good for the populace". That's more or less why I'm against most drug laws. They were not made with "the good health of the people in mind", they were a scapegoat to oppress minorities. It's all publicly declassified, so no one can call me a conspirator anymore.
I don’t think that’s true. Maybe in its infancy law really looks like that, but as societies grow their law books get more complex and can very easily become separated from majority perception of morality. Does morality explain zoning laws, or is it more about the equilibrium point of a pluralist conflict, everyone looking out for their interests, etc.
Roughly. But always read between the lines and follow the money. We didn't selectively ban Tiktok because government finally woke up to the dangers of social media.
Doctors can be arrested for malpractice. I sure do wish we could arrest some of these car makers for telling staff to skimp on details and taking "recalls" as a cost of doing business, but that's an issue for another time.
> unable to comprehend the concept of illegal activity.
There's illegal activity on popular forums all the time. How much should Facebook/X/Reddit be accountable for those?
The comment you replied to referenced "multiple teenagers" - the very people that liquor stores cannot sell alcohol to since they're not recognized as mature enough to be freely allowed to drink.
SR allowed children to buy addictive poison without any regulation whatsoever, and Ross profited off of those transactions.
You're right. Ross should have been granted a drug selling license, analogous to a liquor license, and it should have been revoked if he failed to check ID before allowing people to make purchases on his marketplace.
Doing business in, or running, a marketplace without established legal regulations opens you up to undefined consequences. Without laws to bind you, there are no laws to protect you.
Idk about silk road, but hydra (russian online marketplace) was the best thing that happened to russia drug market. It had very good reputation system and even labs that did random testing of drugs being sold
Existence of big marketplaces definitely lower chances of people dying from drugs
I don't think those types of hypotheticals are taken very seriously in court rooms. One, they are effectively unfalsifiable, because it's a about harm that could have happened but didn't. Two, they can be applied universally. Any action might have prevented a catastrophe, after all. Courts persecute based on laws broken and harm done.
Ironically our justice system sometimes does persecute based on hypotheticals. For example persecution for driving recklessly, which is inconsistent with the principle above.
As an Australian who had friends who bought product on silk road my understanding was:
1) It's safer to buy something online and have it mailed to your house than go pick it up from some shady dude.
2) On the street you would often get duds or spiked product, online reputations were built up over time and important to be maintained (think uber/ebay stars).
Overall silk road probably increased the amount of drug activity but made each incident safer. Not sure what the overall impact would be.
An 18 year old lad from my village, who had just started a job programming, bought a drug from an online “pharmacy” and it turned out to be spiked with a synthetic opioid (N-pyrrolidino-etonitazene) and he died in his sleep at home, alone.
On your point about spiked products - it’s clearly a problem for online illegal drugs as well as those bought on the street.
The problem is, you don’t get to leave a bad review if you’re dead.
If you knowingly operate a marketplace where unsafe products are being sold, you very much bear some responsibility of those injuries.
If Ross let drug dealers sell fentanyl-laced drugs, which ended up killing someone, he absolutely should be charged.
Those deals wouldn't have been possible without his platform. Sure, maybe the same drug dealer would have sold the bad stuff to some other poor user outside silk road, but those dealings that ended up happening on silk road are his (Ross) to own.
You can clearly see that "deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily illicitly manufactured fentanyl)" didn't particularly alter or rise until after the 2013 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down of the Silk Road website and arrest of Ulbricht.
If the Silk Road Marketplace had any influence on fentanyl deaths Then some kind of spike would be expected during the years of operation, 2011-2013.
So I could bring down eBay by opening a store; selling something that I know (but eBay doesn't) is dangerous / broken / false. If that sale goes through, should eBay be taken down since they operate a marketplace where unsafe products are being sold ? eBay cannot reasonably test every single item that is sold through their platform. Same goes for every second hand marketplace in the world. They need to take some measure to address this, but cannot reduce the risk to 0.
As far as I know, SilkRoad had a whole reputation system in place to allow users to flag untrustworthy sellers; that system was inline or even ahead of what many "legal" marketplace had put in place. A part of why SilkRoad was so successful is precisely because overall that reputation system allowed users to identify trustworthy sellers.
This theory was actually tested last year and...eBay won.
The DOJ filed a lawsuit on behalf of the EPA against eBay in 2023, seeking to hold them liable for prohibited pesticides and chemicals as well as illegal emissions control cheat devices sold through the platform that violate multiple federal laws and environmental regulations.
There wasn't even really an argument about whether or not the items were actually illegal to sell - all parties including eBay basically stipulated to that and the judge even explicitly acknowledged it in her ruling - the entire case came down to whether or not eBay could be held liable for the actions of third party sellers on their platform who they failed to proactively prevent from selling illegal items.
In September 2024, U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant granted eBay's motion to dismiss the case, ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides eBay immunity for the actions of those third party sellers.
DOJ filed an appeal on December 1st so we'll see where that goes but as it stands now - no, you couldn't take eBay down even by listing stuff eBay does know to be illegal, based on current precedent.
Why the courts applied Sec230 that way in one instance and not another is the real question and the more cynically minded might also wonder how eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's various philanthropic and political endeavors (including but not limited to being the $ behind Lina Khan's whole "hipster antitrust" movement) could be a factor too. He's no longer an active board member but still a major shareholder whose existing shares would likely be worth a lot less if a case with a potential ~$2 Billion in fines had been allowed to proceed.
Ebay tries to prevent you from selling illegal stuff though. Silk Road didn't. The reputation system was to prevent scams and bad quality products, not to prevent illegal transactions, right?
A large minority of the population (and in some cases, like weed, an overt majority) of the population don't think those transactions should be illegal. "The law is wrong" is sort of the whole point, and why Ulbricht is a quasi-folk hero.
It's a philosophical difference. As someone running a market where buyers and sellers meet I think it's valid to let the buyers and sellers participate in the exchange among themselves at their own risk. The person running the market doesn't need to treat the participants like children. Plus, if you're on the TOR network and buying obscure research chems using crypto in the early 2010s I think it's safe to assume you're more sophisticated and aware of what you're getting into than the average person.
I think there is some difference between running a marketplace which you intend for people to sell products legally on, and a marketplace which you intend and know people will sell products illegally on.
Whether I agree with it or not, the law often recognises differences like this. It's not illegal to lie, but it is illegal to lie in the aid a murder. The lier themselves might not be a murderer, but the lier is knowingly facilitating murder.
Ulbricht was knowingly facilitating crime in the case, and sometimes this crime would result in the deaths of people. And despite knowing all this he took no action to address it.
Perhaps your point was he just didn't deserve the sentence he receive, which is fair, but he clearly did something that most people would consider very wrong.
I also wonder how people would feel if Silkroad was associated more with the trading of humans, CSAM, biological weapons or more serious things rather than just drugs. I doubt the "he's just running a marketplace" reasoning would hold in most people's eyes then.
This is why people only blame the DZOQBX brands that sell on Amazon for review fraud and not Amazon themselves, who are blamelessly hosting all those fraudulent sellers.
Smart people can differentiate between a transparent marketplace which provides a net economic benefit to society from an obfuscated one which by design enables illicit activity.
So much corporate/gov negligence leads to permanent environment damage, cancer, death. In most cases it's a slap on the wrist. Maybe some exist, but I'm having a hard time finding an example.
Show me one executive that served this kind of jail time despite direct links to the deaths of multiple individuals and evidence of negligence leading to those deaths.
You can certainly make an argument that the sentencing was warranted but there's a whole lot of history of being sentenced, if at all, to far less for far more egregious crimes.
The government should have investigated the people that listed and sourced the drugs
this isn't controversial to say, the governments just go for the laziest intermediary lately
but there is the choice of doing actual investigations for time tested crimes. those dealers just went to other darknet markets, which are far far bigger than Silk Road ever was
People die when they take drugs all the time, whether brought online or not.
But the war on some drugs are a failure, but also impossible to change due to stupid people, so Silk Road and crypto was a means to work around this, while lowering crime and turning it into an iterated prisoners dilemma so that quality etc could stay high.
He wasn't dealing them. He's not exactly culpable for the effects of his platform any more than Zuckerberg is responsible for mass hate speech coordinated by third-world dictators or Evan Spiegel for facilitating millions of nude images of children and teenagers.
Hard disagree - Zuckerberg absolutely is responsible for inadequately policing calls for genocide on his platform. Just as every social network is responsible for policing child abuse materials. Should they be punished for such content being uploaded? Of course not. They should face punishment where their wilful failure to police such content results in active harm. Facebook's utterly irresponsible behaviour in Myanmar is a great example - https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-ho...
In the case of the Silk Road of course, it's much worse, since the platform specifically existed to facilitate illegal behaviour. I couldn't care less about the drug dealing aspect per say, but absolutely facilitating sale in these quantities with no protection from outright poisoning from contaminants is immoral. But he also sold weapons via 'the armory' https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/not-ready-silk-roads-the...
I didn’t say Zuck isn’t responsible for the ills of his platform. I said DPR is no more responsible than Zuck or Spiegel. That is, that there’s a distinction between facilitating a drug deal and dealing drugs, just as there is a distinction from managing a communication platform that promotes hate speech and violence.
That distinction wasn’t recognized, and I called attention to it. And also to the fact that Eva Spiegel very strangely isn’t catching any shit whatsoever for knowingly running the nation’s most prolific child porn brokerage platform, with a product tailor-made to do so.
drugs is one part, but silkroad facilitated more than drug, guns, fake documents, stolen data, money laundering, fake currency, contract killers... the list goes on.
Are you confusing SR with other darknet markets? SR explicitly banned most of these things (guns, fake currency, stolen data, contract killers). Yes, fake documents were allowed.
People are usually jailed for hiring contract killers, even if the contract killer happens to be a FBI informant and the murder does not end up getting done.
There wasn't any evidence that actually happened. It appears that it may have been fabricated by the same investigators that later robbed him of some millions of dollars worth of bitcoin. Then when it went to trial the murder-for-hire charges were completely dropped due to lack of evidence.
He was convicted of:
1. Conspiracy to traffic narcotics
2. Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) (sometimes referred to as the “kingpin” charge)
3. Computer Hacking Conspiracy
4. Conspiracy to Traffic in Fraudulent Identity Documents
5. Money Laundering Conspiracy
I think they were dropped because in 1 out of the 6 cases, the investigation was tainted because the associated government agents committed their own crimes, and also maybe but I can't prove it everyone thought that prosecuting someone who has been sentenced to 2 life sentences + 40 years is a waste of time.
The hitman was a conman for a murder on a fictitious person. While he fully believed he was committing a real assassination, you can't convict people for killing imaginary people.
I'm not convinced that you looked at the article you linked.
> That’s because he was the Silk Road employee implicated in an elaborate, and fake, murder-for-hire scheme, created in part by a corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent.
>DPR contacted one of his trusted drug dealer contacts, Nob, and asked him to kill Green for $40,000. Shortly after, Nob sent DPR photos of Green covered in Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup and victim of an apparent asphyxiation, to prove the murder had been carried out.
> Unbeknown to DPR, Nob was no drug dealer. In fact, Nob was Carl Mark Force IV, the very same DEA agent who had arrested Green.
Both were fake. One was a con by the DEA and the other one a con by a single guy posing as executioner, victim and a slew of other colorful characters.
Real justice would be changing the laws and sentencing guidance (through a democratically legitimate process), and re-evaluating the sentences of everyone affected.
Whatever you think about the outcome in this case, it is the moral equivalent of vigilante justice. It is unfair to others convicted under the same regime, who don't happen to be libertarian icons who can be freed in exchange for a few grubby votes.
I think his original sentence was absolutely deserved—even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped, I think it's clear he did many things in the same vein. Even if you support his original pursuit of a free and open online marketplace, I think most people would agree he took it a bridge too far in the end.
That said, I do think he absolutely deserved to be released, not because he didn't deserve to be locked up in the first place, but because he's clearly been rehabilitated and has done great work during his time in prison. All that considered, ten years seems like a not unreasonable prison sentence for what he did. I hope he'll continue to do good when he's released.
"he took it a bridge too far" is a massive trivialization.
The guy operated a marketplace for illegal goods in order to enrich himself. The illegality wasn't just incidental, it was literally his business model -- by flouting the law, he enjoyed massive market benefit (minimal competition, lack of regulation, high margins etc) by exploiting the arbitrage that the rest of us follow the rules.
Said a different way, he knowingly pursued enormous risk in order to achieve outsized benefits, and ultimately his bet blew up on him -- we shouldn't have bailed him out.
The state hates more than anything someone who operates on first principles that the empire is wrong.
A serial rapist, even one that would happily do it again, will often repent and quickly admit guilt. They have no interest in undermining the philosophical basis of the state. They will posture themselves as bound but imperfect citizens under the law.
Ross violated the only remaining national holy religion, the rule of law. He was sentenced for being a heretic.
> Ross violated the only remaining national holy religion, the rule of law. He was sentenced for being a heretic.
Good.
Let's keep in mind that the shared faith in this "holy religion, the rule of law" is the only thing holding together your country, my country, everyone's countries, and civilized society in general. Take that away, and everything around us will collapse, regressing the few survivors of that event to the prehistorical lifestyle of small tribes slaughtering each other for what little scraps the land has to give.
I'm from Germany. I could tell you something about blindly following the "rule of law". If you throw morality out the window the law can become a very ugly instrument.
Yes, Rechtsstaatlichkeit only means that the state and its organs have to follow the law themselves. It doesn't say anything about the moral quality of the laws.
The Nazi state had to follow its own laws. They just had such laws that enabled the total lunacy that the 3rd Reich was.
All I'm saying is: If you decouple laws from morality you get a really bad time.
> The Nazi state had to follow its own laws. They just had such laws that enabled the total lunacy that the 3rd Reich was.
This is false. Even if you take the Nazi propaganda that their laws were themselves lawful (which they were not, beginning with the clearly unlawful capture of power) at face value, the Nazi regime did not adhere to its own laws and regulations. While in some cases the Nazi regime did codify a basis in law for their atrocities (i.e. excluding and expropriating jews), much of the Nazi terror both in a civil and military context would have been explicitly illegal under the law at the time.
This includes the November Progroms of 1938 (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novemberpogrome_1938), large parts of the Nazi's approach to warfare, as well as the entire Holocaust (the murder of more than 6 million jews and other "undesirables"), for which the Nazis did not bother to create any legal justification.
While the Nazi regime was deeply bureaucratic (in that it documented its policies, orders and their results in high detail) this is not the same as "following the law". Most of the Nazi's atrocities evolved not through a process of lawmaking, but from their racist ideology and were given legitimacy through the highly personalized nature of the regime: Hitler was explicitly above the law, as were his orders, not matter if expressed through him personally or in his name by his followers.
Not sure why this comment got voted down; it's absolutely true.
The rule of law means that nobody is above the law, not even the Fuehrer or president. Clearly this is not the case in many countries, but it is in some, and it should be.
> The rule of law means that nobody is above the law
If the stats from the Innocence Project are correct[1,2], then it would also mean that nobody is above being a victim of the rule of law, either.
The rule of law is not infallible - and any sort of blind "rule of law" worship is akin to the worship for a dictator; its just merely dressed in different clothing.
This has nothing to do with the concept of "rule of law". This is simply about how the law is applied and appealed. If anything, the rule of law should protect against these miscarriages of justice, because the law should be applied equally to everybody, and therefore the poor should have the same access to the processes of appeal as the rich and powerful.
Very insightful answer indeed. I found this part particularly interesting:
> One of the most interesting theories however is Ernst Fraenkels "The Dual State". Fraenkel asserts that Nazi Germany is a dual state where the normative state (the state based on the rule of law) coexists with the "prerogative state" (the state not bound by law). While some swaths of society such as the relation to private property, the civil law etc. continue to function on the basis of codified norms (think the building code, neighbor disputes, companies suing each other, "ordinary" criminal law, stuff in relation to ownership of private property), some parts of the state were unbound by the Nazis such as the prosecution of political opponents, the camp system etc. Fraenkel further asserts that once the prerogative state is established, it has a very strong tendency to expand into the territory of the normative state and that state actions once unbound will cause enormous havoc in a certain sense.
This theory kind of generalizes my statements upthread, expanding them to cover authoritarian states. Any kind of society we could label as authoritarian state is by definition already way too large to be fully micromanaged by the people at the top. Such a state has to retain a quite substantial "normative state", as Fraenkels calls it - and this state is what my arguments about intersubjective beliefs apply to. When people stop having faith in the "normative state" - whether because of "prerogative state" overreach or other forces - the whole thing collapses, and not even the strongest tyrant can hold it together.
The issue is that we're used to think in terms of Legislative, Judiciary and Executive. That's what most modern democracies are based on.
If you look at this the old way, Hitler wasn't above the law, he was the law, because there was no real split of powers.
Your comment, though, is very interesting because it defies the stupid idea that back then people respected laws, while today....
Somehow this got idolized, which is why (young!) people tend to feel nostalgic about such times. In reality, there was a lot of corruption, Hitler himself evaded taxes, used Party money to fund his own Mercedes etc.... yeah like today!!! :)
Edit: somehow this propaganda of people of law lasted until today. In reality, the guy was a fraud that collected millions over the years. While everyone else had to live in fear of deportations or worse. I don't understand why journalists don't focus on things like this to dismantle idiotic extreme parties.
> Even if you take the Nazi propaganda that their laws were themselves lawful (which they were not, beginning with the clearly unlawful capture of power)
What definition of the laws lawfulness are you using? Capturing the power - it is what makes law lawful, otherwise any law is unlawful.
This is a very crude and on every level incorrect understanding on how laws work, both in a formalistic, as well as a societal way.
When the Nazis captured power, they did so by excluding the legitimate (and lawful) parliamentary opposition from key votes in parliament by (unlawfully) imprisoning opposition parliamentarians. In a strictly legal sense, this made their entire regime illegitimate from the outset.
What you fail to grasp is that a regime like Hitler's is constitutionally and ideologically incapable of being "lawful", i.e. having any set of laws and norms that would apply consistently, even if these laws were shaped by their own ideology. The whole point of Hitler's leadership was that laws were irrelevant and completely subservient to facilitating his twisted idea of Arian racial domination, with even the "German" society being completely dominated by the "Ubermenschen" that he hoped to create out of the murderous struggle of war.
Even the ancient Romans and Greeks would have recognized the Nazi regime as "unlawful". While the roman empire was a dictatorial regime, it had a mostly consistent set of laws and norms that even the Cesar had to abide by (though these laws gave him tremendous power in comparison to modern democratic executives). "Personalized" regimes in contrast are not build on laws, but revolve around the whims and/or ideology "the leader". You can see some aspects of this in Trump's approach to governance, though the US is obviously still a long way away from the extremes that the Third Reich went to.
You are absolutely right saying that rule of law is not sufficient condition for the existence of modern society. It was a bit confusing still, because nobody claimed the opposite: the comment you replied to was saying rule of law is a necessity.
You may have been saying this but the parent comment that spurred the discussion was making the explicit assertion that "the rule of law is the only thing holding together [...] everyone's countries, and civilized society in general".
Saying that law is 'the only thing' necessary for the existence of modern society effectively means it is also a sufficient condition. So yes, someone did claim the opposite.
I doubt that modern society does fulfill the sufficiency criteria [1], so „the only thing“ can be right, but also it is not the claim that it is enough for survival.
[1] USA regressing to a globally disrespected oligarchy under Trump is a good example.
Not in my wildest dreams I imagined Brazil would give the good example for prosecuting a former president who attempted a coup and that the US would fail to do the same.
Ah, but legal positivism is the norm in liberal societies, and not by accident. This follows directly from the demands of liberalism which privatizes discussion of the objective real and relegates it to individual sentiment. One of the paradoxes of liberalism is that the maximization of individual liberty necessarily demotes authority and elevates power, leading to tyranny.
So any appeals to the contrary are rooted in appeals to beliefs held in parallel with the liberal doctrines of the state. When Protestants ruled the US, that means some residual (often warped) Christian sensibility, because they were able to attain that consensus. But with greater competition today, that old consensus is no longer possible. Liberalism ensures that.
The Nazis did anything but blindly followed the rule of law. They did the opposite - they used law as a cudgel to beat their enemies with, while somehow magically, not being held responsible for any of their own violations of it. It's how they rose to power, and it's how they liquidated all of their internal opposition in the pre-war years.
We are seeing this play out again. The brownshirts have all been pardoned (with a clear message to the ones who will be involved in the next act - that as long as they break the law in support of the regime, they'll get bailed out), while everyone else is getting in line to kowtow and kiss the ring - because if they don't, they might be targeted.
It's actual insanity that people are looking at this and saying it is fine.
Then again, the whole country has gone insane, it looks at a video of the richest main in the world giving a fascist salute, and insist that he's just giving a confused wave, or that it's the same thing as a still of some other person with an outstretched arm.
I thought everybody knew the first thing the Nazis did was eroding the rule of law, with the help of Hans Frank, before even taking power.
The fact that everybody is equal in front of justice and that justice should be independent, two of the basics tenet of the rule of law, were hated by the Nazis and called 'jewish law', and were targeted. Lawyers and judges were increasingly close to the Nazi party. The same crime by a party member didn't had the same consequence.
I think the Nazis pamphlet said that 'roman law follow the materialistic world order, and should be replaced by German law'. Where materialistic was a dogwhistle for Marxism, and world order for Judaism.
What did help Nazis was that older judges and lawyers were often aristocrats who didn't really love the republic, and new one were petty bourgeoisie where Nazism had a lot of supporters. They helped put a staunch conservative (who later joined the Nazis) at the head of the German supreme court before 1933. The man blocked socdems appointments, and changed how the German law was interpreted (basically pushing intent of the law vs letter of the law, where intent weirdly always aligned with Nazi ideology).
Then, once they had power, the first thing they did after the conservative Hindenburg (may he be remembered as Hitler first collaborator) declared a 'state of emergency was to suspend judiciary oversight over arrest and imprisonment.
I learned so much from reading this, thank you. Is there more of this same style dense history writing somewhere? (Of course there are caveats and narratives etc., I hope people understand that...)
I bought it as an audiobook and listened for about 30 minutes already. It's been fascinating. It is quite long. But I have definitely learned a lot. Thank you!
I guess the psychological aspect of clamoring for a strong leader would need more deep diving. Serhii Plokhy and Martti J Kari have talked about this in regards to Russia, those are available as Lex Fridman interview and youtube lecture: a strongman, even with downsides, is still preferrable to a weak leadership that is unable to defend against external threats or internal chaos.
The reader's pronounciation of German is quite incomprehensible though (book is in English). Völkischer Beobachter is not easy.
> a strongman, even with downsides, is still preferrable to a weak leadership that is unable to defend against external threats or internal chaos
What's interesting with that is that I think it is wrong, the part against 'external threats'. France during the revolution was attacked by everyone, and despite absolutely no leadership, managed to beat back, well, everyone. By deferring power, it made its army stronger. Yes, then some the people the republic deferred power to then took the rest of it by force, but the laws were weak and the culture not set yet.
Certain discourse in other languages sometimes like to underline the difference between "rules" and "law" as in "we must aspire to be a state built on law, not a state built on rules." (not necessarily claiming English is such a language either)
Everything done without consideration is very quickly evil. Free tragedy of the commons with every free market; equivalents of Malthus for poverty wages and zero profit margins in the economy; Nash games where all parties want to defect and want the other not to; AI optimising for paperclips.
Rule of law is a pillar, but not the only one — in an ideal case the laws themselves are bound by constitutional requirements, and the constitutional requirements are bound by democratic will, and the democratic will by freedom of speech, and the freedom of speech by a requirement for at least attempting to be honest.
> Actually they didn't. Everything the Nazis did they had a law for. The mass murder was all lawful according to the 3rd Reich's laws.
This is false. Even if you take the Nazi propaganda that their laws were themselves lawful (which they were not, beginning with the clearly unlawful capture of power) at face value, the Nazi regime did not adhere to its own laws and regulations. While in some cases the Nazi regime did codify a basis in law for their atrocities (i.e. excluding and expropriating jews), much of the Nazi terror both in a civil and military context would have been explicitly illegal under the law at the time.
This includes the November Progroms of 1938 (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novemberpogrome_1938), large parts of the Nazi's approach to warfare, as well as the entire Holocaust (the murder of more than 6 million jews and other "undesirables"), for which the Nazis did not bother to create any legal justification.
While the Nazi regime was deeply bureaucratic (in that it documented its policies, orders and their results in high detail) this is not the same as "following the law". Most of the Nazi's atrocities evolved not through a process of lawmaking, but from their racist ideology and were given legitimacy through the highly personalized nature of the regime: Hitler was explicitly above the law, as were his orders, not matter if expressed through him personally or in his name by his followers.
"Everything the Nazis did they had a law for. The mass murder was all lawful according to the 3rd Reich's laws."
Can you cite those laws?
I doubt you can, because they do not exist. There were laws for removing jews from academic positions and to confiscate their belongings - but no law allowing to kill them based on them being jews.
The Nazis operated from the very beginning on the principle do things and later maybe add a law about it, if necessary.
"the mechanism, process, institution, practice, or norm that supports the equality of all citizens before the law, secures a nonarbitrary form of government, and more generally prevents the arbitrary use of power."
You ought to distinguish 'the law' that can be discriminatory, unjust, imperfect, and 'the rule of the law', which in theory cannot. In practice, the 'rule of the law' was never truly achieved, nowhere, and recently (post 9/11 it seems) the US might have gotten further from the hypothetical 'perfect state'. Presidential pardon, Guantanamo, or I think closer to everyday life civil forfeiture, or arrest without cause, interrogation without a lawyer...
Some exceptions to the rule of law are just good practice: immunity to the executive power from executing a voted law, immunity for the legislative power (in some countries like France this immunity have some caveats) while elected. Sadly it breeds corruption.
That's not what rule of law is. Rule of law requires following the established constitutional order which the Nazis did not. A feudal king ruling on his whims has many laws, but there is not rule of law.
>The rule of law is a political and legal ideal that all people and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers, government officials, and judges.
But the Nazis themselves were accountable to their own laws. It was a highly lawful state. Only the laws were pretty fucked because the society lacked any morality.
I know what you mean, and I do agree with your main point about not blindly following orders. I hope most people do. It's just the way you phrase it, I also have to disagree. The Nazis at their core were not "lawful", not even "lawful evil". Not unless the one law is "as long Hitler says it's fine, it's fine".
> Any hierarchy, no matter how authoritatively managed, and any communication of orders, no matter how autocratically and dictatorially issued, would stabilize and thus limit the total power of the leader of a totalitarian movement. In the language of the Nazis, it is the dynamic, never-resting "will of the leader" (and not his orders, which could be given a definable authority) that becomes the "supreme law of total rule".
> Hitler did sign an order for the T-4 euthanasia program. In the T-4 program as many as 100,000 German citizens who were thought to be ‘unworthy of life’ were murdered by Nazi party authorities and other German collaborators. When the German population caught on to what the Nazis were doing with T-4, they protested and Hitler was forced to publicly back down and cancel the program (although it continued secretly in the camps). Having been embarrassed by a written order once, Hitler became wary of doing it again. Important Nazi officials confirmed the oral transmission of Hitler’s secretive orders.
The controlled substance act violated the constitution as it regulates even intrastate trade of drugs. It relies on the tyrannical Wickard V Filburn ruling which says intrastate commerce is actually interstate commerce. The charges against Ross relied on law that flagrantly transgress the 10th amendment of the US constitution as written and as enforced.
This is why they needed an actual amendment to nationally ban, say, home made liquor.
It was 'accurate' until the 1930s when a certain lawyer with initials FDR found his programs unconstitutional, so he threatened to pack the Supreme Court until they were willing to shit can the 10th amendment.
I'd argue more have died from drug regulations than the Nazis, particularly when you factor in how DEA licensing and FDA approval corruption stifles access to medicine, and how prohibition fosters violence without meaningfully curbing harmful drug use.
Can you hear yourself? Are you really saying that "drug regulation" has caused more death than the tens of millions who died in ww2? Not to mention the millions and millions of people whose lives have been saved by drug regulation as they are not exposed to harmful drugs from charlatans.
39 million people died on the European theater of WW2 alone. Estimates of Jewish deaths during the holocaust range from 4.9 and 5.9 million people. Are you seriously suggesting drug ~regulation~ caused more deaths?
Silk road was not primarily used for "unregulated medicine" but for recreational drugs, weapons and other quite unsavory illegal things.
The bodies dead from the Holocaust are somewhat countable.
The bodies dead because of worldwide drug wars, because it is insanely costly to sell new medicines, and because some poor African child could not get a medicine because a company spent 500 million to get it approved and needs to recoup their costs in the inflated US market is much harder to count.
It's easier I guess to just frame the counterparty as downplaying the Holocaust. I am just not taking the death of the Jews seriously enough, perhaps I am some kind of racist or culturally insensitive person.
In Germany it is currently illegal to criticise Israel. You'll pardon me for being a bit skeptical about rule of law. Rule of good law is good, but rule of bad law is bad.
one of the German states foundations is responsibility for the Holocaust, which led to the founding of the state of Israel.
There are laws in Germany that make it a crime to condone a crime (forgive, overlook, allow, permit )
Some German courts have ruled that the slogan "between the river and the sea" is condoning the unlawful removal of Israelis or that the slogan is firmly attached to Terrorist Organization Hamas (therefore is by default a criminal statement )
Plenty of people have been fined for chanting the slogan at German protests against the current conduct of Israel in Gaza and West Bank.
There isn't a German law that states "it is illegal to criticize Israel" but laws like the following have been used to punish people criticizing Israel, in Germany:
Some German courts have thrown out some of these cases, they don't agree the Condone Crime laws can be applied to chanting 'between the river and the sea'
I understand that you could face charges if you criticized a group of people and expressed something that can be interpreted as a call for their elimination.
Pretending that those charges are for the criticism doesn't seem right, though.
Grossly excessive sentences for non-victim crimes while letting rapists, murderers and corrupt politicians go free with at best a slap on the wrist, is why people are abandon your "holy religion" in droves
Never read it, but I watched its recent adaptation as a Strange New Worlds episode called Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach, and if it's in any way representative of the source material, then I'd say the ethical problems there are nontrivial.
Ironically, by sentencing him more harshly on the basis of ideology as opposed to on the basis of the criminal code, you are undermining the rule of law, which requires sentences to be based only on statutory law.
It makes me very sad when people act as if the rule of law wasn't important, or worse in case like this they do as if the rule of law was only a limitation of freedom.
One cannot be more wrong: there cannot be freedom without the rule of law and without the existence of a state that enforces it.
Yeah, it's pretty clear that the rule of law is not particularly strong in the US. The past few years have made it clear that some people really are above the law.
That's comparing apples and oranges. One spent 10 years in a jail for making himself rich (and some others), the other never spent a day in a jail for committing at the highest level election subversion, retention of classified information, hush money payment (and more) - and was caught on the latter, eventually. It was arguably "exceptional prosecution" for that hush payment, like Al Capone was caught on a mere tax fraud
>One spent 10 years in a jail for making himself rich (and some others), the other never spent a day in a jail for committing at the highest level election subversion, retention of classified information, hush money payment (and more) - and was caught on the latter, eventually.
What an interpretation!
Another one might be: they tried to throw all kinds of things at Trump, and they all failed because they simply aren't true, until they managed to catch him on some triviality.
The fact that you "rule of law" people keep putting out accusations as if they were convictions, and insinuating people should be judged on these accusations is truly horrible for the system.
> the rule of law" is the only thing holding together your country, my country, everyone's countries, and civilized society in general. Take that away, and everything around us will collapse, regressing the few survivors of that event to the prehistorical lifestyle of small tribes slaughtering each other
I've seen this sentiment expressed before, including with the movie "The Purge" (that I admittedly haven't seen, but I understood the concept as law becomes suspended for a day and everyone becomes violent). That idea that the only thing keeping people safe is the rule of law seems absurd to me.
There's a sense of empathy, there's religion (e.g. desire of heaven and fear of hell), there are family values (keeping extended family ties together which can induce pressure to do what's considered right), a concern over reputation, a sense of unity with one's culture and wanting the betterment of one's people, collectivism (the psychological/social tendency to put others before oneself), stuff like not wanting to bring shame to one's parents and extended family, a hate for hypocrisy, a simple lack of any desire to be violent, etc. etc.
I like to believe that between most people and their potential for violence, there's a lot of things besides the rule of law. Law enforcement is for outliers that have a desire for violence and nothing else to stop them.
If law enforcement would disappear from one day to the next, people would be less safe, but I don't think to the point that you'd have "few survivors of that event", especially if you consider just a single country/culture going through that experiment, since this probably depends somewhat on culture and its particular values. I'm more inclined to think that life would mostly just go on as normal, carried by habit/convention and the values we instill in offspring.
Maybe. Or maybe the arbitrary lines drawn and maintained that define "country" and "society" are the only things allowing hate to prosper. Get rid of the lines and become one people.
He was punished for his visible actions, not his private beliefs.
Also, I was focusing less on Ulbricht, and more on what 'ty6853 wrote in the comment I replied to. Quoting another part of it:
> The state hates more than anything someone who operates on first principles that the empire is wrong.
My point is: the state is absolutely right to hate such people. This is true regardless of whether the "empire" is North Korea or the United Federation of Planets - it's not an ethics issue, it's a structural property of stable social organizations.
As for people living today, unless you really suffer under the yoke of an evil empire, it's worth remembering that, were the state to suddenly break down, things will get much, much worse for everyone in it, yourself included.
It's too easy for all of us to take our daily lives for granted.
Many were convicted of the same acts and received far lighter sentences. They specifically sought to make an example out of him. That is contrary to the rule of law.
I think you may be overstating this. The archeological evidence is pretty clear that prehistorical lifestyles weren't just small tribes slaughtering each other, and that there was a lot of variety and complexity in the way prehistoric societies organized themselves. Also, there are some societies that exist in 2025 which proved scary enough examples of what's possible.
There are also societies which have blatant arbitrary authoritarian rule which seem to be well in the 21st century. I doubt that faith in the rule of law is the only thing keeping our societies together.
> pretty clear that prehistorical lifestyles weren't just small tribes slaughtering each other,
Well, that's sounds quite logical. When you kill people, they usually fight back. Very strongly fight back. So you have to expect something big to make it worth it. But small very undeveloped tribes had nothing of such, so they have no incentives to slaughter each other.
> But small very undeveloped tribes had nothing of such, so they have no incentives to slaughter each other.
With neither size nor technology to make a lasting impact, the ones that got slaughtered didn't exactly leave much in archeological evidence behind for us to find.
As for GP's point, obviously those people weren't bred for battle with others. All the tiny tribes would happily frolic in the forest or whatever small prehistoric tribes did when they weren't starving, but eventually they'd grow in size, hit a size limit leading to a new tribe splitting off, etc.; over time, the number of tribes grew to the point that they started to bump into each other and contest the same resources, leading to the obvious outcome.
It was later, when humanity accumulate knowledge about resources gathering and processing, about nature and how to deal with it to not to die all the time. Then yeas, tribes were becoming larger, wealthier, more stationary. But before that there were very few people, the tribes were nomadic with virtually no alternatives and had nothing of value. At least nothing so valuable that it would be easier to get it by attacking another tribe, rather than by simply moving a couple of dozen kilometers away.
I'm genuinely convinced that prehistoric humans, being literally the same species as us, were just as capable as us in the ability to thoughtfully construct their societies. Like, why, when they bumped into each other, couldn't they have formed a confederation?
I think instead of labeling them as children of nature or starving savages warring with everything in their vicinity, it makes most sense to see them as more or less similar to ourselves.
Editing in a TL;DR: imagine you and your friends are thrown back in time to year 20 000 BC or thereabout. Imagine you find the nearest tribe of humans, and by magical means are able to understand and speak their language. Imagine you go to their chief and propose to form a confederacy, and ponder what would stop them from replying "ugh" and bashing your head in with a club. Compare with a closest analog to today, and where the difference comes from.
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> I'm genuinely convinced that prehistoric humans, being literally the same species as us, were just as capable as us in the ability to thoughtfully construct their societies.
I agree. We're basically the same people as we were before, hardware and firmware, +/- lactose intolerance and some extra mutations that, without modern medicine, would prohibit one from successfully reproducing. With that in mind...
> Like, why, when they bumped into each other, couldn't they have formed a confederation?
Because they most likely couldn't have even conceptualized this that long ago, much less make it work.
A "confederacy" isn't some built-in human feeling. It's advanced technology. Social technology, but technology nonetheless. In a way, it's merely a more advanced form of a bunch of elders getting together to deal with a problem affecting all of their tribes - but this is like saying passing around crude drawing on stones is basically a bit less advanced e-mail or international postal network. As an advanced social technology, a confederacy has a lot of prerequisites - including writing, deep specialization of labor (allowing for both rulers and thinkers to thrive), hierarchical governance, a set of traditions (religious or otherwise) that solidify the hierarchical governance structure and some early iteration of a justice system, literate ruling class, etc.; all of those are but a few nodes in the "tech tree" that leads to a confederacy, and more importantly, enables scaling the society up to the point we can even talk about a confederacy as we define the term today.
> I think instead of labeling them as children of nature or starving savages warring with everything in their vicinity, it makes most sense to see them as more or less similar to ourselves.
We still are children of nature. We're not starving because of all the advancement in science, technology and social technologies we've accumulated over the past couple millenia.
Consider that it is only recently - within the last 150 years - we finally stopped going to war over land and natural resources. Human nature didn't change in that time. What changed was that we've expanded to the point every place on Earth's surface has someone staking a claim to it, that the knowledge of these claims quickly becomes known to other groups; we then fought it out in 1914-1918 and then for the last time, in 1939-1945, then most countries accepted agreements to keep the borders as they are, and then we invented nuclear weapons and froze the borders via MAD.
The modern world is a beautiful but fragile place. If we let any of the supporting structures - whether social or technological or military - snap, the whole thing will collapse like a house of cards, and the few people that survive it will be back to prehistoric savagery. Not because they'd suddenly get dumber, but because they'd have lost all the social and technological structures that makes humanity what it is today, and they'd have to rebuild it from scratch, the hard way.
Look at every society before the modern state monopoly on violence. Basically none of them were in danger of regressing because of it. The evolution of the modern state is a result of inter society competition for who can apply the most massed violence against a competing state.
We've seen what happens when empires fall apart (Rome for example) and things don't revert to "prehistorical lifestyle of small tribes slaughtering each other for what little scraps the land has to give".
I'm not gonna go too far into this because like you say, it's a religion, and I'm not gonna waste my time trying to convert anyone.
Depends on the time scale. I mean the early middle ages (500 to 1000) could be described as "(smaller) tribes fighting over what is left" (considering all the barbarians from the north pillaging the roman empire while the Arabs conquering it from the south).
The evolution of modern society is as much a result of religion (centralizing a purpose and limiting inner fighting) of science (do things more efficient) as it is to violence.
Violence might be one way to progress, everybody is entitled to an opinion. I just hope you experienced it yourself if you believe it is the way you prefer personally. I am saying just because I thought some things would be great, only to be quite disappointed when I actually tried them...
> Look at every society before the modern state monopoly on violence. Basically none of them were in danger of regressing because of it.
They were too small. But they had their own social orders of equivalent importance, and breaking those would break them apart. There's a reason religion and tradition played bigger role in a distant past, and going against them was severely punished. It's not just out of spite or "us vs. them"; people take threats to stability of their group personally. It's definitely in part a survival mechanism.
> The evolution of the modern state is a result of inter society competition for who can apply the most massed violence against a competing state.
Yes. More specifically, it's the result of growth. It's the same thing as small tribes fighting each other over some small areas of land, except scaled up. Bigger groups have a competitive advantage over smaller groups, but there's a limit to the size of a group beyond which it ends up splitting apart; increasing that limit requires stacking more layers of hierarchy and associated social technologies. "Rule of law" and the legal system in general is one of such technologies, and it looks like it does today, at scales of groups we have today.
A group of dozens can just work on instinct alone. A group of hundreds requires some rules and specialization and designated authority. Scale that 100x, and you need another level of leadership hierarchy just to keep sub-group leaders coordinated and aligned. Scale that 100x further, and you kind of have to get something looking like a modern nation state, as anything else would either break apart or be defeated by another group that is more like a modern nation state.
See also: Dunbar's number.
> We've seen what happens when empires fall apart (Rome for example) and things don't revert to "prehistorical lifestyle of small tribes slaughtering each other for what little scraps the land has to give".
Nonsense. "The rule of law" isn't one cohesive thing--sure, some parts of it are important for holding together a country/society, but in a sufficiently complex legal system (like the US') there exists a plethora of laws which are irrelevant to holding together society. Every such society has laws which are on the books but are not enforced, weakly enforced, or unevenly enforced. In fact, an implicit part of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's theory of government was explicitly having laws which only existed to be broken, to allow citizens to exercise their rebellious impulses without causing harm--Wilson believed that turning a blind eye to the breaking of a certain subset of laws actually minimized the harm of unlawful action. An example of this is rules against walking on the grass in many public areas in London, which is enforced by security guards whose only recourse is to tell you to stop.
The US also has laws which we don't care if you break, and the laws we place in this category say a lot about our society. For example, it's widely accepted that people can drive up to 10 MPH above the speed limit and consequences will be rare. Even more severe moving violations are met with a slap on the wrist which primarily effects the poor (fines).
Drug laws were already within this category before Ullbricht started the Silk Road. The was on drugs was explicitly started by Nixon as a war on the antiwar left and black people, and if you didn't fall into one of those categories, you were/are largely above drug laws, since enforcement generally targets those categories, while the social acceptability of popular drugs means that crimes of this nature are rarely reported.
Ullbricht's primary offense was breaking a law that was already broken ubiquitously. Society did not collapse before Ullbricht when these laws were broken, it did not collapse when Ullbricht broke them, and it does not collapse because of the myriad of darknet sites which immediately filled the void left by the Silk Road's closure. Ullbricht's arrest didn't end the blatant disregard for drug laws on the darknet, and yet somehow in the 11 years since his arrest, society still hasn't devolved into small tribes slaughtering each other.
In short, if people breaking drug laws was a real threat to society, then society would have devolved into tribes slaughtering each other already. We have had over 50 years of people ubiquitously breaking drug laws without societal collapse.
I'm not talking about any particular law, I'm talking about the general idea of laws as things that apply to everyone, that everyone should obey, and that everyone expects everyone else will obey, and that everyone knows they're expected by others to obey. That's the self-reinforcing structure of intersubjectivity, that allows us to invent and maintain imaginary entities such as "dollar", "law", "justice system", "contract", or "limited liability corporation", etc. Underlying all such entities is the set of shared beliefs about how others will behave.
This structure is self-reinforcing and very resilient: few people here and there rejecting faith in rule of law, or authority of the courts, or money, don't make a difference - we write such people off as weirdos and carry on with our days, secure in knowledge our world will continue to work as it worked the day before. But if sufficient amount of people have their faith falter, that's where the trouble starts.
For example, if enough people stop trusting in the justice system to deliver something resembling justice most of the time, you'll see people ignoring courts and laws and taking justice into their own hands[0]. People start lynching and killing each other, others see them getting away with it, which quickly destroys their trust in the system, and now you're at the precipice. If shooting a (person accused of being) thief is fine, if shooting a billionaire is fine, then why uphold a contract? Might as well get your own at gunpoint, etc. At this point everything stops working - banks, healthcare, fire services, stores. Your country collapses. You probably die.
That is why threats to our shared belief system are so dangerous, and need to be dealt with swiftly and aggressively. It's not about elites in power wanting to stay in power (though it's no doubt part of it for them) - it's because should we all start thinking our social structures don't work, and that everyone else thinks this too, and start acting on this expectation, they'll all collapse in an instant.
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[0] - No, whatever it is that America has with its police is still far from that point.
> I'm not talking about any particular law, I'm talking about the general idea of laws as things that apply to everyone, that everyone should obey, and that everyone expects everyone else will obey, and that everyone knows they're expected by others to obey. That's the self-reinforcing structure of intersubjectivity, that allows us to invent and maintain imaginary entities such as "dollar", "law", "justice system", "contract", or "limited liability corporation", etc. Underlying all such entities is the set of shared beliefs about how others will behave.
You can talk about whatever you want, but you don't get to limit what other people talk about.
If you think there's anything like "everyone should obey, everyone expects everyone else will obey, and everyone knows they're expected by others to obey" around drug laws, you're living in a fantasy. You can talk about that concept if you want, but I'm saying that concept doesn't apply to drug law, which is, in case you noticed, the primary group of laws Ullbricht was convicted of breaking.
> For example, if enough people stop trusting in the justice system to deliver something resembling justice most of the time, you'll see people ignoring courts and laws and taking justice into their own hands[0]. People start lynching and killing each other, others see them getting away with it, which quickly destroys their trust in the system, and now you're at the precipice. If shooting a (person accused of being) thief is fine, if shooting a billionaire is fine, then why uphold a contract? Might as well get your own at gunpoint, etc. At this point everything stops working - banks, healthcare, fire services, stores. Your country collapses. You probably die.
You're picking unrelated examples and ignoring the issue at hand.
If selling drugs is fine, why uphold a contract? If driving faster than the speed limit is fine, why not get your own at gunpoint?
Sure, generally people agree murder is bad, but that's very little to do with the law or any sort of trust in the law. Your ivory-tower ideals have nothing to do with it: as it turns out, people don't want to be murdered, so we're all pretty happy when the cops enforce that law, whether we trust them or not.
I'll further add: banks, healthcare, fire services, stores, all only work for a segment of our population in the US. By your definition of collapse, large portions of the U.S. collapsed decades ago.
> That is why threats to our shared belief system are so dangerous, and need to be dealt with swiftly and aggressively. It's not about elites in power wanting to stay in power (though it's no doubt part of it for them) - it's because should we all start thinking our social structures don't work, and that everyone else thinks this too, and start acting on this expectation, they'll all collapse in an instant.
"Our shared belief system"?
Let's be clear, this is your belief system, and what you're trying to do is justify ramming it down other people's throats with the physical violence performed by police. Your belief system is probably the majority opinion within the upper-middle-class and richer demographic of Hacker News, and might even be the majority opinion nationally, but it's not unanimous or even close to unanimous. Drug use is well within the mainstream in 2025.
> Ross violated the only remaining national holy religion, the rule of law. He was sentenced for being a heretic.
That's a weird way of talking about that. The rule of law is what keeps rampant corruption and government abuse at bay. It means the law also holds for the ruler, and not just for the subjects. The rule of law has already been significantly weakened in recent years by openly corrupt judges and politicians, and traitor being elected in defiance of the 14th amendment.
None of this is a good thing. Without the rule of law, it's the people that lose, because then you get the rule of those in power, who will be above the law.
Also his opsec was sloppy. If you want to believe that the spooks were doing full ipv4 scans to DDoS all his legit exit nodes that would make a better movie. But really, he was just in over his head.
Predictably, dark web market operators adapted afterward. The state got lucky and they knew it, so that also factored in to their sentencing recommendations.
Ten? Oh man. Have you read about the FALN commutation? Iran-Contra? Watergate? The 1960 presidential election? Roosevelt (both of them)? Wilson? Lincoln? Those are just a very few of the instances of disrespect for the rule of law that come to mind immediately.
> Ten? Oh man. Have you read about [list of older historical events I suggest you were foolish to ignore]
Slow down there cowboy, it's "ten" because the other poster is referencing a conviction which occurred on February 5th 2015, uncannily close to exactly ten years ago.
But that's what "rule of law" means: that the rules also apply to the leaders. The fact that leaders in the US aren't held accountable for their crimes means the US does not have the rule of law, but the rule of power. Or the rule of money, probably. The rich are above the law and can buy the government.
> The site's terms of service prohibited the sale of certain items. When the Silk Road marketplace first began, the creator and administrators instituted terms of service that prohibited the sale of anything whose purpose was to "harm or defraud." This included child pornography, stolen credit cards, assassinations, and weapons of any type
Yes, but so are a lot of sentences in the US. I've heard of people being put away for decades for mere drug possession.
That said, rapists surprisingly often get just a slap on the wrist, or not even that. The US absolutely needs some balance and consistency in its sentencing, but pardoning this one guy sends a really weird message in that regard. At the very least, just commute the sentence so at least the conviction still stands.
Pretty much all criminal laws are like that since only a fraction of crimes will ever lead to an arrest we make examples out of those are caught to make others less likely to commit crimes in the future when they see the punishment. The deterrence effect is basically "risk of getting caught" * "punishment if you get caught".
It's not just the deterrence but to publicly condemn the act. Condemnation needs to have teeth and the perpetrator needs to feel the burden, otherwise it's just empty words on paper. The burden is necessary to establish social balance. The punishment can't be enjoyable, it needs to take away the unfair advantage gained by the criminal act, it provides a way to repay moral debt back to society.
> A fourth feature of punishment, widely acknowledged at least since the publication of Joel Feinberg’s seminal 1965 article “The Expressive Function of Punishment” is that it serves to express condemnation, or censure, of the offender for her offense. As Feinberg discusses, it is this condemning element that distinguishes punishment from what he calls “nonpunitive penalties” such as parking tickets, demotions, flunkings, and so forth. (Feinberg, 1965: 398-401).
In the UK, the police helped hide the crimes of non-british child rapists.
The axiom of their "rule of law" was that racism is the worst possible sin, and that anything done to appease people calling you racist was mandatory. The below link MASSIVLEY understated the number of victims.
Enoch Powell explained all this nearly 60 years ago, and was sacked the next day by Edward Heath. The term "racist" is at best useless and at worst dangerous. It doesn't differentiate between judging people based on their physiology and judging them on their culture and values. By going out of their way to avoid appearing to judge by physiology, people allowed into their society millions of people with cultures and values fundamentally opposed to their own (e.g. Christians using the British common law vs Muslims using Sharia law). The result is a slow destruction of society that Enoch Powell predicted so long ago in his 1968 speech.
Well, maybe Britain shouldn't have colonized large areas of the globe and exploited them for resources while keeping the indigenous inhabitants oppressed for centuries, all while preaching the absolute supremacy of British civilization and culture. Hardly seems surprising that some of the people you colonized might want to see what all the fuss is about.
Indeed, Britain should have known this and realized that the only way forward was complete and total separation from the post colonial states. Any sort of immigration or pseudo integration was bound to lead to this. Other countries, such as the US, should look to what has become of Britain as an example of what not to do, what ideas do NOT work, and what ideologies lead to such betrayals.
Silk road had a policy against selling items with intent to harm like guns. While occasionally some weapon listings would slip through, they would be taken down. The focus was drugs (and a lot of legal media). There were plenty of other black market sites on the dark web that sold everything, but that's not what the silk road in particular was about.
Selling say drugs that kill people (kids including) and illegal weapons that are often used for murders. Such activity is by western standards one of worst crimes, especially in massive scale and run for profit. Even ignoring all other criminal activity, 25 to life seems like a adequate sentence.
It seems that from day 1 US is moving quite far from the place it was and projected itself to others for past decades. More ruthless, money above all, not much fairness in international dealings. Maybe US will be richer after those 4 years, but at current trajectory it will lose a lot of friends and partners.
Please realize this - for Europe, China starts to look like a great not only business but also military partner, much more reliable long term. This is how much such moves can fuck up things.
That's mainly because it cuts into the US government profit margins. They and their favored contractors have been selling arms for profit and love drug running when it suits their aims as they showed with eg support for the Contras.
It is important drugs stay illegal so powerful connected interests can maintain high profit and control. Without that, simple cocaine/meth/marijuana is just an agricultural or chemical commodity with essentially the margin of generic OTC drugs.
Yeah I meant more like some shady fentanyl that overdoses people en masse, not some rather harmless and sometimes even beneficial weed.
The worst part are weapons, there is no way to spin it as something benign. Victor Bout for example got 25 years and there was no drug smuggling nor contract murders.
Victor Bout is free and selling weapons again with the blessing and release of the US government. Always was about profiting off of weapons. Don't believe what the US really got from it was one ditzy WNBA player.
They might be alluding to regulatory capture by groups such as the NRA, big pharma, and the defense industry, which, for all purposes, are an unelected part of the government.
In terms of money they really aren't that big, but they don't need much money to wield influence because their cause is very popular with a lot of voters and politicians know that.
He was serving 2 life sentences + 40 years, not one. Even the prosecutors only asked for 20. What he did was wrong, but the sentence was disproportionate. The judge intended to throw away his life to make a point.
China seems to understand the concept of soft power, something the US has been neglecting for many decades in favor of less subtle military intervention.
It could start helping finance infrastructure projects, schools, hospitals, universities, and so on. Along that comes the opportunity to exercise cultural influence and develop consumers and suppliers for your own industry.
It’s far less nasty than invading, freeing the people from their government and installing a puppet in its place. Also a lot cheaper. Any missile could pay for a school.
So, which countries did China liberate from oppression? What did the CCP/its predecessor movement actually do? Standing aside while the NRA fought the Japanese. Instead of helping and preventing some major bloodbaths, Mao and his army just abided their time. After the power change, the Long March, the Cultural Revolution and whatever havoc I forget, China was too weak to do anything, let alone invade countries. Now it's stronger, and seems remarkably poised for war.
Your "US bad because invasion" is a tankie frame. Yes, that refers to the Tiananmen tanks.
>So, which countries did China liberate from oppression?
My friend, what are you babbling about? Did you hallucinate me saying that China is my model of a utopian society?
Again. Which countries has China invaded or toppled, outside of the imaginary ones you yearn for in your head? Is the list close to that of the US?
>Your "US bad because invasion" is a tankie frame. Yes, that refers to the Tiananmen tanks. (??)
I'm a tankie because I think invasions are bad?? What does that make you, a frothing bloodthirsty hawk? A despotic militarist?
Or will now attempt to argue the tired and ahistorical trope that those other invasions were good actually because Pinochet or Suharto were actually secretly democratic and the thousands they murdered aren't important, and it was good that Arbenz was toppled because he actually wasn't democratically elected and was infact a rabid communist in disguise and the United Fruit Co. lobbying was just a coincidence etc. etc.
If so don't bother. I'm not wasting anymore time talking to one bereft of ordered thought, spinning baffling word associations and tired tropes. I'm not interested in discovering to what extent daily life presents a sisyphean ordeal to you.
>minimal competition, lack of regulation, high margins etc
Those benefits don't come from nowhere. You're basically getting compensated to take on the risk, same as any other business. The difference in this case is that the risk is that a bunch of thugs with guns will show up and either kill you or put you in a cage in addition to the usual financial ruin.
Many criminal gangs from biker groups to foreign cartels are doing the same thing and reaping profits in the $100Bs scale annually.
Your argument is not an argument for incarceration, it is an argument for abolition of prohibition and regulating the sales of some psychoactives.
The same stone would hit the fentanyl epidemic, it would hit the pushers of ”zombie drug” laced cocktails, it would hit cross-border trafficking, to name only a few. Society would massively benefit. So would the economy.
Bailing him out comes at no cost? That's one way to see it.
In my opinion, it sends a message that as long as you can provide value to this new administration, you get preferential treatment - no matter how shady and unethical your business ventures are.
Not sure it was high margin as much as it was low fees on a large number of transactions, coupled with bitcoin appreciation this meant he made a lot of money.
The illegality of drugs is a government reaction, since governance failed to do anything with the problem by action. No-one deserves a life-long sentence in prison for that. This market, as well as minimal competition, lack of regulation, and high margins was created by the same power which sends people to jail.
Trump is a bit of an agorist is well. It's part of the American wild west mythical psyche, to the point America made a sport from moonshine running cars. Not hard for me to see how he half won and walked away with an unconditional pardon.
> In the 1920s, moonshine runners during the Prohibition era would often have to outrun the authorities. To do so, they had to upgrade their vehicles—while leaving them looking ordinary, so as not to attract attention. Eventually, runners started getting together with fellow runners and making runs together. They would challenge one another and eventually progressed to organized events in the early 1930s.
I don't have a horse in this race but the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear "we shouldn't have bailed him out" is silicon valley bank and its depositors. That to me was the biggest show of hypocrisy by silicon valley.
The idea that possession of drugs is or should be illegal is purely arbitrary, and is used thus to justify massive violations of human rights. It is literally insane that the state claims authority over what you are allowed to do to your own body.
While you might argue which drug is dangerous and which isn't, ban on drugs is not arbitrary decision. You can't do whatever you want with your body, because you might loose control and hurt others. Drug abuse affects others as well (financially, mentally, physically...). I am victim of someone's drug abuse. I never took any drugs. So if you are looking for victims of drug abuse, here I am.
Some of the decisions were rather arbitrary at best, and racist at worst, though. The sentence disparities regarding, for example, cocaine depending on how you are using it was designed to punish black people more harshly. Opium bans had as much to do with anti-Chinese sentiment than anything.
I'm not arguing that drugs should be legal, but we do have to be clear that the reasons for banning them and the punishment are not necessarily rational.
That’s pure historical revision. The sentencing difference was created in 1986 based on the belief that it was more addictive. It wasn’t until a decade later that research showed the causation had been reversed (more addicted people were more likely to use crack). If you look at the timing, there was a huge increase in drug crime that occurred as a result of the crack epidemic: https://www.nber.org/digest/oct18/lingering-lethal-toll-amer....
The recent change in policy simply reflects the prevailing trend of reducing disparities in sentencing for criminals while increasing disparities in crime victimization by failing to enforce the law.
It is legal if you're in good shape and therefore the risk of that happening is minimal. It is illegal to drive a car under an altered state that makes it more likely to happen. It is a balance between the benefits of permitting something and the likelihood of something bad happens. In normal conditions, the benefits are believed to outweigh the risks, so it is generally permitted to drive a car. But it is not permitted to drive it if you're under the effect of some substance that can alter your perception of reality.
Alcohol is in fact heavily regulated and controlled in most countries, and we have cultural practices in place that largely manage the risks for the vast majority of people that consume it.
Personally I'm in favour of further narcotics legalisation, but with regulation to manage it's social effects and taxation to fund the expensive mitigation measures it would require.
It's clear you don't personally know anyone who has been affected by a serious drug addiction. It is devastating not just for them, but their family and everyone that cares about them. It's unbelievable to me anyone could claim that dealing drugs is a victimless crime.
Almost everyone I know has been personally affected by serious drug addiction. Alcohol, opiates, cocaine, marijuana, cigarettes, even gambling if you count such things.
I still support the abolition of all bans and controls on access to drugs.
Destroying one’s own self has no victims, any more than bodybuilding does. If we should be free to build ourselves, we should be free to destroy ourselves.
Please don’t assume anyone who disagrees with your philosophy is naive or lacks empathy.
I'm not assuming. Your position on this issue simply lacks empathy.
If you've known anyone addicted to the list of things you mention, you should know that at some point, they are no longer "free to destroy themselves". They are continuing to destroy themselves out of a chemical or phycological necessity. The people who deal drugs or own casinos are running predatory businesses and it should be illegal, just like other predatory business practices are.
Chemical addiction is not comparable to overeating/lack of exercise. You could theoretically be "addicted" to McDonalds and still live a fairly healthy and balanced life in other respects. It's really not possible to be addicted to heroine and live a balanced lifestyle. Even though drug addicts are largely personally responsible for their actions, that doesn't make it less true that drug dealers are knowingly profiting off of vulnerable individuals and actively encourage them to ruin their lives.
Drugs weren't the only items sold there, there were also weapons. If you illegally sell weapons in a country where it is already much easier to legally get a weapon than most other countries, you can be sure that those weapons aren't going to be purchased by a layperson trying to defend themself but by criminals going to use those to harm other people.
The crime being not selling the weapons, but failing to keep appropriate records that ensured the use of the weapons was responsible and that users would be held accountable for their use.
Ross Ulbricht was not sentenced for murder-for-hire charges.
Those allegations were used to deny him bail and influenced public perception, they were not part of his formal conviction or sentencing.
He was convicted on non-violent charges related to operating the Silk Road website, including drug distribution, computer hacking, and money laundering.
Does this change your opinion of sentencing being well-deserved?
This opinion [1] from the judge in his case indicates that the murder-for-hire evidence was admitted during his trial. The document outlines the evidence for all 6 murder for hire allegations and explains why, although not charged, the evidence is relevant to his case.
It's surprising to me that the prosecutor is allowed to essentially insinuate crimes to influence the jury, without the need to prove them. That seems to undermine the process because it creates a "there's smoke so there must be fire" mentality for the jury.
There was plenty of evidence that he ordered the hits, and the defense had the opportunity to address the evidence in court. The chat logs go far beyond "insinuation"
It's ridiculous that people are pretending there is any doubt about his guilt because they like crypto and/or drugs.
Do you not think the optics are a bit weird when you sentence someone to life for something relatively small, but the reason is another crime you’re very sure he did but you didn’t bother to charge him with?
Prosecutors often choose not to pursue additional charges against someone already serving a life sentence. This approach helps avoid wasting court time and resources on cases that are unlikely to change the individual’s circumstances or contribute meaningfully to justice (none of the murders for hire resulted in victims).
I actually wonder if those charges may still be on the table now that a pardon has been granted.
If I understand correctly, only one of the "murder-for-hire" allegations was dismissed with prejudice[0]. However, he was suspected of orchestrating a total of six "murder-for-hire" plots.
Comically (horrifically sadly?) they were dismissed that way because he was already in prison for life with no possibility of getting out, so the court did not want to waste time on it.
Being a drug kingpin is not considered "something relatively small" under US law, as you can see from the sentencing. Being the leader of a large drug operation and ordering hits to protect your business would be considered worse than trying to take out a hit for whatever "personal reasons".
Obviously the hits are a lot messier to prosecute as well with the misconduct of the FBI agents, maybe you could hammer that enough to confuse a jury. But people are commenting like the evidence outright didn't exist - I can only think they have either heard it told second-hand, or are employing motivated reasoning.
Of course it is. Throwing in potential evidence of unrelated crimes to sway other people's (specifically jury's) opinion about the defendant without formally charging him is exactly what the word "insinuation" means[0]:
the action of suggesting, without being direct, that something unpleasant is true
> There was plenty of evidence that he ordered the hits, and the defense had the opportunity to address the evidence in court
Clearly not that much evidence if the state didn't bother to prosecute those charges. And why would they? The judge sentenced him as though he had been found guilty of them.
Coincidentally, on the same day, SCOTUS confirmed in Andrew v. White ruling [1] that admitting prejudicial evidence violates due process rights under the 14th Amendment.
That's a nice end-run around “innocent until proven guilty”: they didn't have to prove anything about those allegations beyond making them, because he wasn't charged with them.
The first person in the murder-for-hire allegations 'FriendlyChemist' was an undercover DEA agent or informant, and it's strongly possible none of the other people existed. It's also conjectured the hitman account 'Redandwhite' was being operated by the same DEA agent [*]. Moreover the bitcoin DPR sent the supposed hitman 'Redandwhite' sat in the wallet from 3/2013 till 8/2013, "which alone should have tipped out DPR about a possible scam" ie. that the killing never happened [0]. DPR never requested any confirmation pictures of at least 5 of the (fictitious) killings, nor was there any Canadian media coverage to suggest anyone got assassinated on the supposed dates.
The US Attorneys made a lot of publicity out of the murder-for-hire conspiracy allegations against Ulbricht in their indictments and in pre-trial media ("although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out." as the indictment itself obliquely says).
Ulbricht's defense could have come up with a plausible alternative explanations that he knew redandwhite was a scammer trying to extort him with a story involving nonexistent people, and was just playing along with him for whatever reasons.
[*] If the prosecution had not actually dropped those charges at trial, it would have been confirmed at trial which of the six identities were fictitious/nonexistent and whether all the accounts were managed by the same DEA agents. Hard to imagine that at least one juror wouldn't have formed a skeptical opinion about government agents extorting a person to conspire to kill fictitious people (why didn't the indictment just focus on nailing him on the lesser charges?). If this wasn't a Turing Test on when is an alleged conspiracy not a real conspiracy, then someday soon we'll see one.
To my mind, it doesn't matter whether a murder actually occurred for Ulbricht's culpability. He thought he was ordering a murder, he solicited proof, he got proof, and he asked for more hits. In his frame, someone was murdered on his orders. It's a burden to prove for sure, but the fact that he paid substantial cash equivalents in bitcoin to me mean he didn't think he was playing some fantasy game with scammers.
The chat logs show that he was quite stoic about the whole thing and treated it as a mundane business action to protect himself ("is a liability and I wouldn't mind if…"; "I've received the picture and deleted it. Thank you again for your swift action.").
Given that he is now free, and may have access to substantial cryptocurrency wealth, I think it would probably be best under the circumstances if everyone forgot about these allegations and just left him alone to live a quiet life.
FWIW, the two agents in the Ulbricht case, Shaun Bridges and Carl Mark Force IV, both subsequently went to prison for corruption, money-laundering etc. which they were perpetrating at the same time as the Ulbricht investigation, and tainted a lot of other prosecutions.
[0] gives a timeline and fills in lots of details.
Article [1] describes Bridges:
> Bridges was a cryptocurrency expert [... with offshore entities, including one that he had created after pleading guilty in this case]. According to AUSA Haun, his involvement with digital currency cases across the country caused a “staggering” number of investigations to become tainted, and subsequently shut down. She told the judge at Bridges’s sentencing that the corrupt agent had been looking out for opportunities to serve seizure warrants and somehow profit from it.
> The prosecutor also said that bitcoins were still missing, and they weren’t sure if he had worked with other corrupt agents. The US Attorney’s Office seemed to imply that there had been a lot of weird (but not necessarily chargeable) stuff that was still unaccounted for.
Article [2] describes Force:
> [Force's mental health issues]... his previous undercover assignments had ended disastrously. An assignment in Denver in 2004 had ended with a DUI. A second undercover assignment in Puerto Rico had ended in 2008 with a complete mental breakdown. Force was institutionalized, and did not return to his job until 2010. He was on desk duty until 2012, when he was assigned to investigate the Silk Road.
You missed that the "victims" did not exist and were invented (and Ulbricht's defense could have claimed that he was aware of that, and it would only need one juror to find that credible). I'm pointedly asking what a "real" plan is if it involves fictitious people invented by the two govt agents - both of whom (Bridges and Force) subsequently went to prison for corruption. If the conspiracy-to-commit-murder charges hadn't been dropped, cross-examining Bridges and Force likely would have destroyed the prosecution case (for conspiracy to commit murder).
UPDATE: apparently I'm wrong that "factual impossibility" is not a defense [0]. But Bridges and Force's criminal behavior tainted the prosecution case on this charge. Presumably why the prosecution made sure those two agents were not mentioned in the trial.
> You missed that the "victims" did not exist and were invented (and Ulbricht's defense could have claimed that he was aware of that, and it would only need one juror to find that credible).
But now we're playing legal tricks here. The real question would be if Ulbricht was willing to have people killed or not, regardless of what the defense can claim.
EDIT: just to be clear. Legally, I think it makes a big difference if someone decides to have someone else killed, tries to hire an hitman and that hitman turns out to be a policeman in disguise vs a policeman in disguise telling you "there are people doing something that is bad for you, should I kill them?". And it is perfectly right that the second case is crossing a line. But form a moral perspective, if someone answers "yes" in the second case, that still tells us a lot about that person, regardless of whether those people existed or not. The important thing is that those people were real in this person's mind.
" I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him?
Necessities like this do happen from time to time for a person in my position. I have others I can turn to, but it is always good to have options and you are close to the case right now. [...] As you don't take kindly to thieves, this kind of behavior is unforgivable to me. Especially here on Silk Road, anonymity is sacrosanct.
It doesn't have to be clean, and I don't think there are any funds to be retrieved [...] Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k. Are the prices you quoted the best you can do?
I would like this done asap [...] I've only ever commissioned the one other hit, so I'm still learning this market. I have no problem putting my faith in you and I am sure you will do a good job. The exchange rate is above 90 right now, so at $90/btc, $150k is about 1670 btc. If the market tanks in the next few days, I will send more. Here are some random numbers for a picture: 83746102
Here is the transaction # for 1670 btc to 1MwvS1idEevZ5gd428TjL3hB2kHaBH9WTL4a0a5b6036c0da84c3eb9c2a884b6ad72416d1758470e19fb1d2fa2a145b5601
Good luck"
lmao
If that isn't conspiracy to murder, I'm not sure there is anything that would qualify.
I don't have knowledge of how the message exchange went. But if it was Ulbricht to contact the supposed hitman in the first place, then you're right that there isn't much to discuss about. Policeman in disguise or not, it is an attempt to murder someone.
He was found during sentencing to be guilty of hiring a hit on a competitor using a preponderance of evidence (lower then presumption of innocence). While this is a lower standard than a conviction, it is still a higher standard than most apply in public discourse.
That isn't fair, the point of the trial is to test whether something is to be acted on. To act on something that wasn't directly part of the trial is a bit off. I'm sure the judge is acting in the clear legally, but if someone is going to be sentenced for attempted murder then that should be after a trial that formally accuses them of the crime.
He wasn't sentenced for attempted murder, the sentence Ulbricht received was within the range provided by statute for the crimes he was convicted of. Judges have discretion in sentencing and they are allowed to consider the character of the defendant. The fact that Ulbricht attempted to murder people was demonstrated to the judges satisfaction during the trial and influenced her to sentence at the higher end of the range allowed for the crimes he was duly convicted.
The range allowed for those sentences is way too wide. Life without parole is nowhere near reasonable for hacking, money laundering, and drugs. Being within the sentencing range is meaningless when the range encompasses any possible sentence.
Well, just selling some drugs and laundering the money is one thing. Being some much a drug lord that you start a war on other drug lords is so much on a different level of severity that it could have been it’s own article in a criminal code
His sentence was severe in part because he fell under the "kingping statute". This is based on the amount of drug trade he facilitated, the amount of money he made, and the actions he took as an "organizer". The hits didn't help.
> For conviction under the statute, the offender must have been an organizer, manager, or supervisor of the continuing operation and have obtained substantial income or resources from the drug violations
> Being some much a drug lord that you start a war on other drug lords is so much on a different level of severity
Is this a hypothetical or did I miss a big chunk of this story?
If the war involves people being hurt, then conspiracy and instruction to injure and murder sound like great things to charge the drug lord with. If it doesn't, then I don't see the severity.
This cuts both ways as judges often adjust their sentencing downward based on mitigating evidence. For both aggravating and mitigating circumstances evidence does need to be submitted, and there are standards of proof to be applied. It's just that the procedural rules can be different and, depending on the context and jurisdiction, sufficiency can be decided by the judge alone. In some jurisdictions, for example, aggravating evidence may need to be put to the jury, while mitigating evidence need not be.
The U.S. is rather unique in providing a right to jury trials for most--in practice almost all, including misdemeanor--criminal cases. And this is a major factor for why sentencing is so harsh and prosecutions so slow in the U.S. In myriad ways the cost of criminal trials has induced the system to arrive at its current state favoring plea deals, with overlapping crimes and severe maximum penalties as cudgels. Be careful about what kind of "protections" you want to impose.
> This cuts both ways as judges often adjust their sentencing downward based on mitigating evidence.
It isn't supposed to cut both ways. The prosecution is supposed to have the higher burden, and admitting unproven allegations is excessively prejudicial.
> In myriad ways the cost of criminal trials has induced the system to arrive at its current state favoring plea deals, with overlapping crimes and severe maximum penalties as cudgels. Be careful about what kind of "protections" you want to impose.
The lesson from this should be to make the protections strong enough that they can't be thwarted like this. For example, prohibit plea bargaining so that all convictions require a trial and it's forbidden to impose any penalty for demanding one.
It's not supposed to be efficient. It's supposed to be rare.
In common law, you are found guilty, and then sentenced. The judge does the sentencing, the jury finds you guilty or not.
Then there is precedent. Guidelines are created based on caselaw, so if a simular type of case arrises, that forms the "expectation" of what the sentence will be.
This means that you don't need specific levels of a crime. For example drug trafficking can be a single gram of coke for personal use, vs 15 tonnes for commercial exploitation. hence the range in sentences.
Suppose you're charged with two crimes in two separate courts. The first is jaywalking, the second is murder, but the judge is given unlimited discretion to determine sentencing.
To try to prove their jaywalking allegations, the prosecution in the first case claims that you were in a hurry to cross the street because you were trying to kill someone, and present some evidence of that from a questionable source. They also have separate video evidence of you crossing the street against the light. The jury convicts you of jaywalking.
The judge in the jaywalking case then sentences you to life without parole, because jaywalking in order to murder someone is much more serious than most other instances of jaywalking. The prosecution in the other court then drops the murder charges, so the murder allegations were never actually proven anywhere.
Is this reasonable? Should we be satisfied with how this works and not want to change anything about it?
You can only be given a sentence for the crime you have been convicted of, otherwise you could easily appeal.
> Is this reasonable? Should we be satisfied with how this works and not want to change anything about it?
It doesn't work like that, and I wouldn't be satisfied by a court system that does work like that. It'd fucking disastrous. If anyone convinces you that it does work like that, they are either a scammer, or want to make the law system _very_ scary.
> You can only be given a sentence for the crime you have been convicted of, otherwise you could easily appeal.
If you're convicted of a crime, let's say selling drugs, that carries a penalty of up to life in prison even though most people get 5-10 years, and then you're sentenced to life in prison after the person doing the sentencing is prejudiced by these murder allegations you've never been convicted of, what's your basis for appeal?
> If you're convicted of a crime, let's say selling drugs, that carries a penalty of up to life in prison even though most people get 5-10 years, and then you're sentenced to life in prison
you can appeal the sentence as being "too harsh" or out of the normal bounds. That's fair game and quite common.
However, if you are convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering and criminal enterprise, and you are appealing the length of the sentence, its very difficult to appeal if your system/company organisaiton to which you admit to being the head honcho of, uses a very traceable currency to launder money, and therefore can reasonably prove spectacularly large amount of drug trafficking.
The criminal enterprise charge has a minimum of 20 years, adding in drugs to the mix adds an additional 10.
the whole "judge was biased because of unfounded ordered assassination" is plainly wrong.
Sure you can argue that drugs should be legal (but you need support and money to help people escape, see opioid explosion)
but thats not the same as Roos Ulbricht got the wrong sentence. What he did was really obviously illegal, and at industrial scale. industrial scale illegality is going to get you a long sentence.[1]
[1] yes rich people manage to escape justice, this is an affront to justice, but arguing that Ulbricht was wrongly convicted only enables rich people to get off more, because it wrongly states that the law was wrong in this isntance.
Mark my words, the US legal system is going to get a huge shakeup. most constitutional checks and balances for the executive have been dismantled, because of a failure of congress. You don't want that new legal system, as thats going to be injustice for many, control for the few. A central plank of libertarianism is a fair and equitable legal system, we are straying further from that.
> if you are convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering and criminal enterprise, and you are appealing the length of the sentence, its very difficult to appeal
That's what I'm getting at. The premise is that this guy is Al Capone. But if he was actually guilty of murder then they should have convicted him of murder, whereas if he was only guilty of running a website, those penalties are crazy. Not because they don't ever get handed out or Congress didn't put them in the statute, but because they have within them the assumption that you're a drug cartel. And then because drug cartels are murder factories, the penalties are extreme and inappropriate outside of that specific context.
But the courts are bound to follow the law, which is the problem, because those laws are nuts. They're even nuts in the context of the actual drug cartels, because what they should be doing there is the same thing -- getting severe penalties by charging them with the actual murders, not putting life sentences on the operation of a black market regardless of whether or not there is any associated violence.
It's the same reason people are so eager to lean into the unproven murder allegations to justify the sentence -- it's intuitively obvious that without them, the penalties are excessive.
> whereas if he was only guilty of running a website,
Yes, he was guilty of running a website, which on the face of it seems innocent right? Sure thats an argument. "i'm just providing an online location for this to happen, but I don't know whats going on"
Apart from he was _also_ running an escrow service, Now to run an escrow service you need to create a contract with conditions to allow money to be released. The problem is that to say "oh he didn't know what was going on" is a provable lie, because to keep the escrow trustworthy, you need to arbitrate, to arbitrate requires knowing what was supposed to be delivered and why it didn't get delivered.
Now, escrow isn't free, you're taking a risk holding that money. So Ross takes a cut.
But the problem is, that money comes from illegal activities. He knows this, so he needs to find a way to make the money legit. This means fraudulently laundering it.
> Those arrested face sentences of 10 years to life in prison for the narcotics violations and up to 20 years for the money laundering violations.
However
I want to find agreement, because I want to make sure that understand I'm not saying your viewpoint is wrong, I think your anger is directed in the wrong place.
The sentence is within tolerance for the scale and combination of offences, the murder allegations are a red herring, and didn't materially affect the sentence.
For a large number of drug users, silkroad provided a safer way to obtain drugs, both in terms of violence and quality.
The people that ultimately set the bounds for these sentences are congress. They have chosen the war on drugs, which I think we can agree has caused more violence that it has stopped. The courts did exactly as they are supposed to do with the laws that they had at their disposal. The way the court operated was correct.
What is not correct is the federal governments approach to drugs.
> "i'm just providing an online location for this to happen, but I don't know whats going on"
It's not even that. It's a matter of, okay, there is a gas station next to the highway. They sell gas to anyone who shows up. "They don't know those people are speeding", wink.
They know those people are speeding. If you went up to the average gas station attendant and asked them if they knew their customers were speeding, they would probably admit they know, because the speed limit is below the speed of the median car and everybody knows it. You may also have other ways of proving they know. They may even know in specific cases rather than just in general. So they're knowingly making money from all of this illegal activity. A dangerous offense that causes thousands of fatalities. Literally making more money than they would otherwise, because cars use more gas at very high speeds, and knowingly enabling the unlawful activity, because those cars don't run without gas.
Should gas station workers all be in prison for life, or is that a crazy penalty for that type of offense?
> The sentence is within tolerance for the scale and combination of offences, the murder allegations are a red herring, and didn't materially affect the sentence.
There can be more than one source of the problem. I'm not disputing that Congress has passed some bad laws.
The issue is, there is still a range of penalties for that offense, and he got the very top of the range. For some reason.
That's not possible because jaywalking has a maximum penalty, and the judge can't exceed that maximum penalty.
A proper analogy would be something like two crimes, A and B, both with the same statutorily defined maximum penalty--life imprisonment--but where the typical sentence for A is much less for B. The defendant is found guilty of A, but the judge uses aggravating evidence to sentence them as-if it were B. But that highlights the fundamental problem: why would we have both A and B with the same maximum penalty, both covering the same or similar behavior? Often the point of A is to make convictions easier because proving B proved too onerous in practice.
What we want to get back to, and which almost every other jurisdiction implements around the world, including both systems thought to be far more fair than ours as well as less fair (for different reasons), is to have better tailored crimes, including penalties. One of the reasons we have so many felonies these days is because sentencing someone to jail for a single day on a misdemeanor offense for stealing a pack of gum for the 20th time can require a jury trial just as onerous as a felony offense with a 20 year sentence. Thus, if you want a more fair system, we probably may need to make it easier to sentence for smaller crimes with lighter sentences. IOW, lower the stakes so there isn't an arms race between punishment severity and procedural protections.
Most countries don't even require juries or panels for serious crimes, let alone light (i.e. misdemeanor) offenses. The shift to granting jury trials for any offense carrying possible jail time started in the early 1900s via Progressive Era reforms. Today only NYC (just NYC, not New York state) and, I think, South Carolina are the only jurisdictions[1] that don't grant a right to jury trials for misdemeanor offenses with jail time as a permitted punishment. Some other states nominally only provide for juries for 3+ or 6+ months of jail, but procedural precedent has resulted in courts effectively extending the right to any offense carrying jail time.
Note that the city of San Francisco has had for decades a public defender's office with equivalent or better resources (time, money, expertise) as the prosecutor's office, but the city sees the same interminable cycle as everywhere else.
[1] Also I think Federal jurisdiction, but purely misdemeanor cases without the threat of felony charges at the Federal level are pretty rare.
> That's not possible because jaywalking has a maximum penalty, and the judge can't exceed that maximum penalty.
That's part of the point. The maximum penalty for many nonviolent offenses is absurd.
> One of the reasons we have so many felonies these days is because sentencing someone to jail for a single day on a misdemeanor offense for stealing a pack of gum for the 20th time can require a jury trial just as onerous as a felony offense with a 20 year sentence.
But why is this a problem? The purpose of the trial is to deter the other million people who would have committed petty crimes if they weren't prosecuted. It doesn't matter if the trial costs ten thousand times more than the value of the stolen goods. Moreover, if the sentence would actually be one day then guilty people would just plead guilty without coercive plea bargaining because it's less trouble to serve one day in jail than to waste two weeks of your life going through a trial and then serve one day in jail anyway.
Whereas if you're innocent you may very well be willing to spend two weeks at trial to clear your name, vs. the status quo where if you try to do that you'll be charged with a dozen vague offenses that everyone commits in the course of an ordinary day but are only charged against people who demand their day in court instead of accepting a plea for some other offense the prosecution isn't sure they can prove, all of which have coercively onerous penalties.
So e.g. >90% (or whatever it’s now multiplied by several times) should be entirely ignored because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to prosecute them?
So police should ignore all crimes other than murder? Because that’s what you’re going to get…
e.g. nobody will prosecute any property related and others low level crimes (e.g. damage is less than hundreds or at least tens of thousands). Crime rates will increase and the system will collapse at some point.
If you prosecute property crimes, you don't get a lot of property crimes, because prosecutions for that crime act as an effective deterrent and then the courts aren't overwhelmed with property crime cases even if the few cases they do get are full jury trials. You only get widespread property crime cases when you don't prosecute them.
By contrast, drug use has no theft victim to report the crime and then even harsh penalties don't act as a deterrent because detection rates are low and addiction is a stronger motivator than the spoils of petty theft. So you would stop prosecuting recreational drug use (compensating by increasing addiction treatment programs etc.), and thereby also eliminate all of the associated crimes as drug cartels murder over territory and drug users commit serious robberies to afford street drug prices that otherwise wouldn't cost more than a bottle of aspirin, avoiding the need to prosecute those either.
At which point crime goes down and you can spend more resources prosecuting the remaining cases.
> You only get widespread property crime cases when you don't prosecute them.
Which you won’t be able to do if the cost of prosecuting someone increases several times (i.e. no plea bargains anymore).
> you would stop prosecuting recreational drug use
Aren’t these already (realistically) misdemeanors at most in a lot of places?
Even in the best case e.g. lets say case load decreases by 25% that doesn’t seem enough to balance things out.
I’m confused, though. Are you suggesting legalization? Or just saying that law enforcement should ignore drug traffickers and dealers (because they will certainly continue engaging in violent crime if it’s the latter)
To truly minimize drug related crime you’d need legitimate drug companies to start selling OxyContin/etc. in the candy section at Walmart.
> Which you won’t be able to do if the cost of prosecuting someone increases several times (i.e. no plea bargains anymore).
Well sure you can. It just costs more. But since you're still doing it, the deterrent is still present and then the expensive cases you have to prosecute remain rare.
> Aren’t these already (realistically) misdemeanors at most in a lot of places?
Not for the sellers they're not.
> Are you suggesting legalization?
Yes.
If you could go buy codeine or lisdexamfetamine for $5/bottle from the pharmacy counter at Walmart then there are no more drug cartels, no more drug cartel murders, no more street pushers lacing what was supposed to be MDMA with fentanyl that causes people to OD or get addicted to opioids, fewer addicts robbing people for drug money, higher deterrence for other crimes because police aren't spread so thin, less poverty and desperation because fewer kids have fathers in prisons or coffins, fewer neighborhoods held hostage by drug gangs.
That's a whole lot of crime that just goes away.
More to the point, consider where we are in terms of efficiency. It costs on the order of $100k/year to incarcerate someone. Every one of those drug murders you prevent is saving twenty million dollars worth of keeping someone locked up for two decades. That pays for a lot of two day jury trials for petty theft.
And what dictator is going to implement this perfect solution?
Here's how things have manifestly played out over the past 150 years: procedural rules are strengthened because citizens are afraid of unjust prosecution. Some high profile bad guys, or parade of run-of-the-mill criminals, get off because of said procedural loopholes, after which voters demand politicians expand substantive criminal law to re-balance the equation. Upon which more unjust prosecutions enter the public consciousness. Wash, rinse, repeat.
This is what systemic injustice looks like, and the cycle continues as unabated as ever. On the one hand, you have movements like BLM, which have indeed effected change even in the most conservatives jurisdictions, largely by changes in procedural rules by courts and in policy by prosecutors and municipalities. At the same time, you have #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, etc, which has resulted in the expansion of sexual crimes and punishments, and elimination of statutes of limitations, partly because procedural protections have made it extremely difficult to prosecute past behaviors, not because they strictly weren't already cognizable crimes.
Nobody is going to lose sleep over Weinstein, but long-term which demographics will bear the brunt of this tightening of the screws through the substantive law? You see the fundamental contradictory behavior here? There's tremendous overlap between the #MeToo groups and the BLM groups, and for both their demands are premised on empathy and justice, but at the end of the day we're going to end up with a harsher system that will further disproportionately punish some segments of the population over others. That's what systemic racial injustice looks like, yet nowhere can you find ill intentions or a desire to oppress anyone.
There's an alternative path, here. Notice how the legal screws have taken centuries to slowly but inexorably tighten without any concerted effort, yet in less than a single generation the normative behaviors of individual judges and other legal professionals, both as regards defendant rights (BLM) and victims rights (#MeToo) has seen a sea change. That suggests that by giving back more discretion to the system, not less, it's possible and, IMO, much more likely we could end up with a more fair system all around. Not guaranteed, of course, but neither is it guaranteed that just throwing more money and resources at the existing system would, even assuming we could even achieve let alone maintain that degree of attention from society. The difference between these two approaches, though, is that one requires trusting our fellow citizens, while the other holds out the (fantastical) prospect of an engineered solution.
> And what dictator is going to implement this perfect solution?
Nothing about it requires a dictator. You vote for politicians who repeal laws that don't have widespread consensus, when enough people vote for them they get repealed. Ideally you then do something that makes it more difficult to re-pass them.
> Some high profile bad guys, or parade of run-of-the-mill criminals, get off because of said procedural loopholes
The procedures aren't loopholes. They're prerequisites for a conviction. They by no means make a conviction impossible, but you have to do the work.
> At the same time, you have #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, etc, which has resulted in the expansion of sexual crimes and punishments, and elimination of statutes of limitations, partly because procedural protections have made it extremely difficult to prosecute past behaviors, not because they strictly weren't already cognizable crimes.
The problem here is not procedural rules at all. It's evidentiary difficulties. How do you distinguish between someone who consents but then has regrets and changes their story, or someone who has sex with someone wealthy in order to extort them for money, and someone who was actually sexually assaulted?
There is no perfect solution to that, but "innocent until proven guilty" is the only sane one. What you then need is a system that can uphold that standard even when there is pressure not to.
> That suggests that by giving back more discretion to the system, not less, it's possible and, IMO, much more likely we could end up with a more fair system all around.
It suggests that when you give more discretion to the system and the system favors you at this moment in time, you get what you want, for now.
But then there is another election and you may not like what someone else does with that discretion.
> Also how exactly are jury trials superior to e.g. Magistrates Courts in the UK?
The purpose of the trial is to separate the innocent from the guilty, and there is intended to be a presumption of innocence. But because the prosecution has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, they'll tend to only bring cases when there is a high probability of guilt -- a good thing -- so then let's say 90% of the defendants are probably guilty and 60% are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
A judge is going to become intimately familiar with that. ~90% of the defendants are actually guilty, so the judge develops the intuition that a new defendant is very likely guilty. That's a presumption of guilt. Soon even the innocent ones are getting convicted, when the whole point of the process was to prevent that.
A jury is a fresh set of eyes who look at the defendant as the only case they're going to be deciding for the foreseeable future and haven't been prejudiced by a parade of evildoers sitting in the same chair. It's also twelve separate people who each individually have to be convinced.
Yet the conviction rate in England was 84 % in magistrates courts (misdemeanors and low level felonies) and 78 % in crown courts (more serious crimes) which is not that different. Especially if we consider how a lot of crimes like DUIs are somewhat open & shut compared to more serious offenses.
> so the judge develops the intuition that a new defendant is very likely guilty.
A good judge wouldn’t do that. Also by and large random people are relatively dumb and biased. Why exactly are they less likely to convict an innocent person? (Let’s assume that the conviction rate is the same in both cases)
> Yet the conviction rate in England was 84 % in magistrates courts (misdemeanors and low level felonies) and 78 % in crown courts (more serious crimes) which is not that different.
The conviction rate can't really tell you anything because prosecutors will calibrate to bring cases they think they can win in a given system. Systems willing to convict more innocent people will have similar conviction rates but more innocent defendants.
> A good judge wouldn’t do that.
What about a human judge?
> Also by and large random people are relatively dumb and biased. Why exactly are they less likely to convict an innocent person?
So make the system (that’s already inefficient) several times more inefficient and then increase funding by a magnitude or two? Certainly seems like a reasonable option.
I bet all problems could be solved using this approach. What could go wrong..
> For example, prohibit plea bargaining so that all convictions require a trial and it's forbidden to impose any penalty for demanding one.
Many in jail awaiting trial are very guilty and the outcome of the legal proceeding is effectively a foregone conclusion. Exchanging a shorter sentence for a plea makes sense for all parties. Prosecutors can then spend their court time arguing more important cases, judges don't have to patiently direct clown shows where guilt is extremely obvious, and the defendant gets a lesser sentence. There is plenty of abuse in the plea system, and no shortage of outrageous prosecutorial misconduct. But that doesn't invalidate the principle of plea bargaining. No justice system is perfect and without plea bargaining every defendant would have to spend a decade in jail, maybe two, before their case makes it in front of a judge. That isn't justice. Unless we assign everybody chatgpt lawyers, judges and juries giving everybody a trial is a practical impossibility.
> Many in jail awaiting trial are very guilty and the outcome of the legal proceeding is effectively a foregone conclusion. Exchanging a shorter sentence for a plea makes sense for all parties.
Suppose we're talking about a case where it's a foregone conclusion. 0% chance that the defendant will be acquitted, never going to happen. Then the defendant should plead guilty and save themselves some time and effort regardless of whether it leads to a lesser sentence, right? You don't need to coerce them because they can't possibly gain anything.
Now suppose that the chance isn't 0%, it's, say, 10%. Should we coerce these people into a guilty plea by giving them a 100% chance of six months vs. a 90% chance of five years? Out of a million of them, a hundred thousand would be found not guilty, so no.
> No justice system is perfect and without plea bargaining every defendant would have to spend a decade in jail, maybe two, before their case makes it in front of a judge.
This is why the right to a speedy trial exists, even though it has been eroded dramatically by basically making it a false choice between "you have your trial immediately with no chance to prepare a defense even though the prosecution has secretly been investigating you for months" and "you waive your right to a speedy trial entirely and rot in jail for years awaiting trial".
The way it ought to work is that the defendant has a right to set a "not after" date where the prosecution either has to proceed or release them from jail and drop the charges, which gives them enough time to actually prepare a defense without opening the door to being detained indefinitely awaiting trial even after they're prepared. The prosecution already has this up until the statute of limitations has run, because they can already wait to file charges until they've prepared their case.
> Unless we assign everybody chatgpt lawyers, judges and juries giving everybody a trial is a practical impossibility.
Or we could just have fewer laws and then assign the resources necessary to prosecute the remaining more important ones.
Notice that if you get rid of e.g. drug laws, you also get rid of all the murders and other crimes that come along with the existence of drug cartels, and the load on the courts goes down dramatically.
I agree with your criticisms of the justice system except that your proposed solutions haven't worked anywhere. Yes the plea practice is abusive and coercive. It has to be because otherwise suspects would exercise their right to a trial, which they can't have. Anything you do to make going to trial more attractive for defendants will result in the backlog increasing or charges getting dropped en masse.
The laws on the books today hardly get enforced. Ross Ulbricht is one of the very few people to go to prison for crypto-related crimes. You probably agree that many people involved with crypto deserve to see the inside of a courtroom, but they won't. So not only is the justice system not capable of processing the people currently in jail (despite copious plea coercion) the justice system has almost completely given up on persecuting many crimes (e.g. fraud), presumably for lack of manpower.
All countries struggle with this resource problem. We want to give everybody a fair trial but we can't. Some countries force pleas on people. Other countries rush trials. Other countries still beat confessions out of people. Different 'solutions' to the same fundamental problem. Unless fair trials get cheap there is no way out.
Sentencing is complicated in the US. Generally speaking, they have a huge range and a standard for computing where one falls in that range, but everything within that range is open to judge's discretion. Life without parole was within that range for the crimes that Ulbricht was convicted of.
This standard is an enormous document, https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines which lays out the rules for adjustments. Evidence is admissible (by both sides!) for sentencing, with a lower standard of evidence and burden of proof, to either raise or lower the sentence within the very wide numbers of what the conviction was for. So the Judge in this case found that the lower burden of proof was met for additional violent crimes being committed (with Ulbricht's legal team having an opportunity to rebut), and that impacts the sentencing calculations.
Not a lawyer, but I have listened to US lawyers on podcasts.
Other acts of those charged are routinely brought up in trials. Fir example, criminals being charged with crime A that already committed similar crimes in the past are used to show that the likelihood of crime A being committed this time is higher.
Sure, but then you should have to have a conviction on those other crimes. It’s strange to consider stuff that wasn’t proven. If the crime was committed and the state is sure, they should charge him and then use the first conviction in the sentencing for the second, if they want to.
That’s not what happens in practice. The other actions of those charged are absolutely brought in as evidence whether they were actual crimes or testimony from others that knew those charged. This happens all of the time.
Yea, and most public discourse is at the level of "I saw a post online about it once". Most people aren't doing deep research before their opinions about things that aren't actually that relevant to their day to day lives. 95% of the world, at best, still has no idea who Ross Ulbricht is even today.
That's one way of phrasing it, and unfortunately some jurisdictions have adopted that phrase, but it is not correct.
A preponderance of the evidence is the greater weight of the evidence after all evidence is considered. Heuristics along the lines of "yeah that fits my priors"—which is what is actually meant by "more likely than not"—are explicitly disallowed.
If Joe Smith in Smalltown, Ohio was hit by a blue bus, and hammock owns 51 of the 100 blue buses in Smalltown whereas torstenvl owns 49 of the 100 blue buses, that is insufficient evidence by itself to prevail by a preponderance standard against hammock in a civil suit.
It does not change my opinion that the sentence was well deserved in the eyes of the law. Those are all things, that independently, can lead to serious jail time. The scale of his operation was also substantial.
There are also many murderers who get life. And serve it all. So, it's also true he was jailed for a much shorter time than what violent criminals get. Your comment is negated.
If he did a crime that’s strictly less bad than a murder, him being sentenced to a longer sentence than even a single murderer shows that something is wrong. It doesn’t matter if 99% of murderers actually get longer sentences.
That's "two wrongs make a right" logic. Because the justice system fucked up in the past, even once, that should prevent anyone else from receiving a proper sentence?
Secondly, Ulbricht was an accessory to thousands of drug deals. You think that none of those consumers of those drugs died as a result? He could easily be responsible for multiple, dozens, hundreds of deaths - far more than most anyone locked up for life.
> You think that none of those consumers of those drugs died as a result?
All kinds of products kill consumers every day, and we don't consider the person who sold them responsible. And the suppliers of those products heavily encourage and even manipulate people into buying them; do we know whether Ulbricht even advertised his services?
You could debate it forever - some people obviously think drugs are relatively harmless and pose no societal threat, others think drugs are poison and anyone involved in selling or distributing them is a potential murderer.
The OP made a dumb comment about the length of the prison sentence in comparison to a murderer, I pointed out a) that while the OP thought it was too long, the same exact logic could be used to say it was too short and b) his original premise about the relative degrees of the "badness" of crimes was not an absolute.
You're welcome to disagree, however the comment above is unconvincing. Ulbricht dealt in drugs which he knew from day 1 were unquestionably illegal in this country.
I don't see how that should change anyone's opinion on whether the sentence was deserved. Whether it was legally/procedurally correct, sure. Whether he didn't get the day in court he should have had, sure. But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did try to pay to have the guy killed, what he deserves is a long prison sentence, and whether that's imposed by a court doing things properly, a court doing things improperly, or a vigilante kidnapper isn't really here or there on that point.
(The rule of law is important, and we may let off people who deserve harsh sentences for the sake of preserving it, but it doesn't mean they deserve those sentences any less)
> But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did try to pay to have the guy killed
If there was enough evidence to demonstrate that he attempted to murder someone, why wasn't he charged and convicted of it?
Also, 2 of the DEA agents involved in his investigation were convicted of fraud in relation to the case.
I do believe he probably did attempt to have someone killed, but I'm far from certain of it, and think it should have no bearing on the case if there's not enough evidence to convict him.
> If there was enough evidence to demonstrate that he attempted to murder someone, why wasn't he charged and convicted of it?
Wikipedia suggests this was because he was already sentenced to double life imprisonment. Clearly prosecutors should not waste time pursuing charges that won't really impact a criminal's status, do you disagree?
If they don't "waste time pursuing charges that won't really impact" the sentence then the unproven allegations should not be allowed to impact the sentence. You can't have it both ways.
What a lot of people are overlooking is that there were two separate indictments in two separate courts with two separate prosecution teams.
In one indictment, in a New York federal court, he was charged with several crimes, but not murder-for-hire. In the other indictment, in a Maryland federal court, he was charged just with murder-for-hire.
The case in New York went to trial first. The murder-for-hire evidence was introduced in that court as part of trying to prove some of the elements of the other charges.
For example to prove a charge of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise one of the elements is that the person occupied "a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management". Evidence that a person is trying to hire hitmen to protect the enterprise is evidence that they occupy such a role.
After the convictions and sentencing in the New York trial were upheld on appeal, the prosecutors in Maryland dropped their case because he was then in jail, for life, with no possibility of parole. They said it was a better use of resources to focus on cases where justice had not yet been served.
> What a lot of people are overlooking is that there were two separate indictments in two separate courts with two separate prosecution teams.
They're not overlooking this, they're criticizing it.
Suppose you have to prove that someone occupied "a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management" so you introduce several pieces of evidence to try to prove it, one of them is some sketchy murder for hire allegations from a low-credibility source. The jury then convicts on the conspiracy charge without indicating whether they believed the murder for hire claim was proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Should you now use the murder for hire claim to determine sentencing for the conspiracy charge? No, that's crazy, it's a much more serious crime and they should have to charge and prove that as a separate count if they want it to affect the penalty.
The issue is that the law enforcement agent investigating the allegation had serious credibility issues, but the same agent had access to the laptop, so now you have a chain of custody problem. How much of the chat logs are real and how much of them are made up by this guy who was convicted for extorting Ulbricht?
In particular, the chat logs allegedly contain multiple separate instances of murder for hire, but then the claim that Ulbricht had already been sentenced to life without parole as the reason these claims were never prosecuted doesn't make sense, because a conspiracy to commit murder has multiple parties, so where are the murder prosecutions of these alleged contract killers and co-conspirators?
They're unproven allegations because "proven allegations" mean something specific, i.e. that it was charged as a count and the jury rendered a verdict of guilty. This is especially important when it's not at all clear they could have proven it as a separate count, because those allegations were tainted by significant law enforcement credibility issues.
This might be a case of conflict of interest though, as saying instead that Ulbricht did ask him to kill someone could worsen the legal position of the alleged hitman as well, depending on the specific circumstances of the case.
Strange because it reminds me of some story where an innocent man was framed for murder and a compassionate relative of the murder victim argued for their release and the innocent man went on to live a productive and happy life.
> But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did try to pay to have the guy killed,
It’s my understanding in the US that you are innocent until proven guilty, right? Therefore, he is indeed innocent of those crimes, since he was not proven guilty. Unless I’m missing something on how the US justice system works.
Their comment wasn’t about what was legally right. I thought the part where they said something like “regardless of whether it is by courts doing things properly, by courts doing things improperly, or by some vigilante” made that clear enough?
Whether someone morally deserves a punishment for a crime depends on whether they actually did it, not on whether they are considered innocent in the eyes of the law.
Of course, I don’t generally support vigilantism , so I don’t think people should try to make other people get what they think the other people deserve as punishment. But, that doesn’t mean that people can’t deserve worse than the law prescribes, just that people shouldn’t like, try to deliver what they think the deserts are.
You say the rule of law is important, but also we should impose extra-legal long sentences even if the rule of law doesn't allow us to? How do you reconcile this perspective?
The rule of law says innocent until proven guilty.
The reason they didn't go after him for murder for hire allegations isn't because they felt bad for him or that they didn't want to waste tax payer's money.
The reason they didn't go after him for 'murder for hire' was that they knew there was no merit in it.
They did go after him for "murder for hire"; the murders were part of his conspiracy predicates, and evidence for them was introduced. This stuff about him not being taken all the way through a case charged on murder-for-hire, after receiving a life sentence in a case where those murders were part of the case, is just message board jazz hands.
>case where those murders were part of the case, is just message board jazz hands.
you're trying to look like you don't understand or aren't aware that jury didn't convict him of murder-for-hire.
He chose a trial by jury, not by a judge. Nevertheless the judge herself decided that he is guilty of the murder-for-hire, and additionally the judge used significantly lower standard than required for conviction.
Feel free to use the search bar to see what's been written (including by me) in the zillion discussions we've had on this case in the past. Again: primary source documentation of what happened in that trial is right there for you to read; you're just a Google search away from it.
> even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped
Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent of it. In fact, reading the chat logs makes his guilt pretty clear. Of course, because the whole operation was a scam, there's little he could have been convicted of. Yet just because the murder was never carried out doesn't mean he didn't intend to have someone assassinated. In my book, paying someone money to kill another person is definitely grounds for imprisonment.
That happens all the time, when people confess to a charge ahead of time, instead of proceeding to a trial. Remember that the purpose of the trial is to find out whether they are guilty when there is a factual dispute about that question. Here, I suppose the existence of a factual dispute is itself disputed: does that need to go to a jury, or is it enough that the trial judge and the appeal court looked at the record and decided there wasn't a dispute?
Certainly not always. Sometimes a person will confess a crime under immunity, and not be charged. Ulbricht didn't confess the murder for hire formally, and he wasn't charged with it. The controversy is that his role in it was used to influence the sentencing decision for a different crime.
No. I'm talking more from an ethical standpoint. I think someone who hires contract killers deserves to go to prison. I also think people shouldn't be convicted for charges that were not proven in court. As I said before, in Ross' case, the charge was dropped.
Ah that's not strictly true. I believe Scotland is the only place in the world I am aware of where there is Innocent, unproven, and Guilty verdicts. I believe in reality a not guilty verdict is, we didn't have the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt this person committed the crime. Finding someone not guilty is a legal term. Considering whether someone is innocent or not is more of a moral/factual term.
Not proven in Scotland and not guilty in almost every other country are the equivalent. Innocent is the outlier verdict in Scotland that the rest of the world doesn't have.
That's also a description of the "not guilty" verdict. Guilty is "beyond a reasonable doubt", and "not guilty" is those circumstances that are not Guilty.
So you think heroin, which frequently kills people the first time they try it, should be able to be sold without consequence? Certainly an interesting take.
Honestly any time I read the procedural history of this stuff I get nerd sniped by the bizarre details and I lose track of the big picture. I feel like the whole thing could be three competing Dateline NBC style six-part crime specials and I still wouldn't get tired of it.
Ross heard that one of his Silk Roads moderators was arrested, and so he hired someone to kill the mod? The assassin sent a confirmation photo of his mod, asphyxiated and covered in Campbell's Chicken and Stars Soup?? The supposed assassin was actually a corrupt DEA agent who later served federal prison time for crimes so embarrassing that they were never fully disclosed?!?!
There is some kind of thorny moral question I cannot quite wrap my brain around.
Ross did not successfully have anyone killed, but it seems that he must have thought he was successful?
Ross (it is alleged, and chat logs seem to show) ordered someone's death and paid for it and got explicit confirmation that they were dead. [actually several someones.] Did he feel like a murderer at this point? What a fascinating, real life Raskolnikov style figure.
Later, perhaps much later, he gets strong evidence that the murder was fake. Nothing has changed in the outside world after he learns this -- the victim is no more alive before or after he learns this. Does this change his identity? Is he more or less of a murderer than before?
Do the people who kill with modified Xbox controllers from a warehouse in Las Vegas do the same kind of killing that Ross thought he did?
And then there is some kind of moral thought experiment happening at a Silicon Valley Rationalist, Effective Altruism kind of scale that I can't quite wrap my head around. Do people matter as much in person as if they're just blips on a screen you'll never meet? If Ross could have sent 1 BTC to prevent fatal malaria in a dozen young kids, thousands of miles away, but he didn't, should he feel responsible in some way for their death? Is he about equally responsible for them as for the online people he is pretty sure he ordered killed from afar, but never met?
It's just a lot. The whole story is supernaturally intense; it's hard to believe it was real. It will make for great TV.
This should be a top level comment. This whole thing is so much more complicated than, "man sells drugs and gets life sentence." I too cannot wait for the documentaries
Good point, you are absolutely correct. Then I suppose life “with the possibility of parole” would have been a more appropriate sentence, though I don’t know if that’s typically given. In any case, I feel prisons ought to release prisoners if they demonstrate exceptional rehabilitation and remorse, as Ross has, though of course that’s a difficult line to draw in practice.
Life imprisonment – with or without parole – for a non-violent crime still seems excessive. If they'd convicted him of conspiracy to murder for hiring the hitman then that's a different matter.
> He acted as an enabler to countless violent crimes.
I don't like this argument of imputing transitive guilt. If guilt is imputed indirectly, then all of us are guilty of many things, like atrocities that our countries have perpetrated during war.
> Also punishing a people for actions of their government is a war crime
Right, because we recognize that indirect, transitive blame is ethically problematic.
> He actively and deliberately enabled those activities for self benefit.
So did the Sacklers with the opioid epidemic, arguably even more directly than Ulbricht. Which of them is in prison?
"Enabling" is exactly the kind of weasel word that I find problematic. It has no strict definition and can be broadened to suit whatever is needed to condemn an action you happen to dislike in any given scenario.
He only allegedly needed to hire a hitman because the government invented the whole blackmail scenario behind it. You can't make this shit up, Silk Road was extra evil because it lead to the government creating hitmen and reasons to use them.
We need gangster hoodlums on the street because lookie here sonny, an online marketplace is dangerous and if it isn't dangerous enough well feds will make it that way.
As an aside, in Canada, a sentence of life without parole is considered unlawful because it conflicts with Section 12 of the Charter guarantees that individuals have the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Courts have ruled that life without the possibility of parole deprives offenders of any hope of rehabilitation or reintegration into society, which could amount to cruel and unusual treatment.
A sentence must balance the gravity of the offense with the circumstances of the offender, while still allowing for hope and redemption. A life sentence without parole forecloses this balance.
It's always struck me as odd that the United States - a nation that is packed with far more Christians than Canada - doesn't shape its system of incarceration to be more inline with Christian values and the teachings of Jesus.
Canada's explicit rejection of life sentences without parole (LWOP) through decisions like R v Bissonnette more closely aligns with Jesus's teachings about redemption and mercy. In Canada, even those convicted of the most serious crimes retain the possibility of parole - not a guarantee of release, but a recognition of the potential for rehabilitation that echoes Jesus's teachings about transformation and second chances.
This philosophical difference manifests in several ways:
- In Canada, the emphasis on rehabilitation over retribution is reflected in the term "correctional services" rather than "penitentiary system"
- Canadian prisons generally offer more rehabilitative programs and education opportunities
- The Canadian system places greater emphasis on Indigenous healing lodges and restorative justice practices that align with Jesus's focus on healing broken relationships
- Canadian courts have explicitly recognized that denying hope of release violates human dignity, which parallels Jesus's teachings about the inherent worth of every person
The contrast becomes particularly stark when considering multiple murders. While many US jurisdictions impose multiple life sentences to be served consecutively (effectively ensuring death in prison), the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled this practice unconstitutional, maintaining that even the worst offenders should retain the possibility - though not guarantee - of earning redemption through genuine rehabilitation.
This doesn't mean Canada is soft on crime - serious offenders still serve lengthy sentences, and parole is never guaranteed. But the maintenance of hope for eventual redemption, even in the worst cases, better reflects Jesus's teachings about grace, transformation, and the limitless possibility of spiritual renewal.
The irony is particularly pointed given that the US has a much higher proportion of self-identified Christians than Canada, yet has adopted a more retributive approach that seems less aligned with Jesus's teachings about mercy and redemption.
But hey, you just have to wait for the right president to be elected and you might get your chance. So I guess that's something.
> It's always struck me as odd that the United States - a nation that is packed with far more Christians than Canada - doesn't shape its system of incarceration to be more inline with Christian values and the teachings of Jesus.
Canada didn't have Prohibition to the extent that the US did, which in turn led to the rise and financing of organized crime. All the rest of it fell out of that: Organized crime was violent and ruthless, so people started demanding oppressive laws and harsh penalties to deal with it.
One of the major problems with this is that the cycle is reinforced by law enforcement. You sensibly get rid of prohibition, but then the mob is still around and starts looking for a new source of funding, so you get more extortion rackets etc. Then a law enforcement bureaucracy is created to deal with it, but long-term the mob was going to die out without prohibition anyway and the law enforcement efforts just speed it up a bit. Except now you have a law enforcement bureaucracy with nothing to do, so they lobby to recreate Prohibition in the form of the Controlled Substances Act, which reconstitutes the mob in the form of the drug cartels.
But now instead of saying "prohibition failed, let's repeal it" they say "we need more resources" -- institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are they solution. So the Feds fight any attempts to legalize drugs because it would put them out of a job, but as long as there is prohibition there is organized crime, and organized crime is violent and terrible and a ratchet to ever-harsher penalties.
> Canada didn't have Prohibition to the extent that the US did, which in turn led to the rise and financing of organized crime. All the rest of it fell out of that: Organized crime was violent and ruthless, so people started demanding oppressive laws and harsh penalties to deal with it.
Canada definitely had (has?) organized crime in that era, although maybe not to the extent the US did. Check out the Papalias[1] (my great great uncle was a quasi-crooked cop on their payroll), as well as the Musitanos and Luppinos, for a couple southern-Ontario examples. There’s still a (relatively) small but fairly influential Italian mafia presence in a lot of smaller southern Ontario cities, and at least a few of the Papalias are still living off of family money (my family’s cottage, ironically not the side with the crooked great great uncle, is next door to one of the Papalia’s cottages).
Hamilton is the way it is today in large part due to the mob activity from the 40s-90s.
The article describes a crime family whose roots started in Canada's shorter and less comprehensive experiment with prohibition, after which they got involved with smuggling heroin into the US.
If something happens to a lesser extent and what does happen has a lot of the consequences spill over into the US, it's not that surprising that the backlash is more severe in the US.
> As an aside, in Canada, a sentence of life without parole is considered unlawful because it conflicts with Section 12 of the Charter guarantees that individuals have the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Courts have ruled that life without the possibility of parole deprives offenders of any hope of rehabilitation or reintegration into society, which could amount to cruel and unusual treatment.
Germany's highest court has held the same thing.
This is right and proper. We need to defend these principles, now more than ever.
On the surface but then they label you a dangerous offender and they keep you in jail. Paul Bernardino is a good example.
The differences in the system probably have more to do with electing vs appointing. Electing is more likely to send someone tougher on crime vs well balance.If officials were elected in Canada you would see the same outcome.
Not to mention private vs public prisons and when you make it a business you have to find new customers vs a cost center you want to limit.
It's very rare to see someone commenting on a HN from a orthodox (small o) Christian perspective. Thank you - some good points.
But I'm very suspect that Trump made his decision on Ulbricht based on Jesus teachings, and even more suspect that the people who vote for him based their decision on Jesus teachings, despite any religious affiliation they may have. I think Paul Graham's recent article on the original of wokeness is very instructive here - there's always someone or some group to look down on, to make ourselves feel better, whatever side of the fence we are on. Cancel culture of the far left or progressive Christians, look them up and throw away the key, lack of grace by conservative Christians, it amounts to the same thing. (I'm a British Christian)
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
What has always sat odd with me regarding this, is we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this. They stole, so it's not hard to imagine they planted evidence too.
I assume that the feds corruption is as bad as it is in every other high profile case case involving fed informants and politically charged topics. Randy Weaver, all the muslims they radicalized and then goaded into doing terrorist things post 9/11, the Michigan Fednapping. It seems like every time these people have a chance to entrap someone they do, but they do it in a "haha, jokes on you we run the system so while this probably would be entrapment if some beat cops did it the court won't find it that way" sort of way. They just can't touch anything without getting it dirty this way and the fact that that is a 30yr pattern at this point depending on how you count speaks volumes IMO. While I'm sure they can solve an interstate murder or interstate fraud or whatever just fine I just don't trust them to handle these sorts of cases.
It seems like all of these people they wind up charging probably are questionable people who wanted to do the thing and probably did some other lesser things but they probably would have given up on the big thing if there wasn't a federal agency running around doing all the "the informant says the guy is lamenting not having explosives, quick someone get him some explosives" things in the background.
It took a bit of tracking down, but I finally found an apparently egregious example of this sort of thing I had vaguely remembered: Iraqi citizen and legal US resident Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab was sentenced last February to 14 years in prison for his role in an alleged plot to murder George W. Bush, and his involvement in smuggling terrorists into the United States. [1] But his sentencing (after his guilty plea) contains an interesting caveat: lifetime supervised release.
Why is a terrorist and would-be assassin of a former President getting lifetime supervised release? None of the media coverage of the case, going back years, makes that clear. However, a footnote in the original criminal complaint against[2] him offers a likely explanation:
"In or around the end of March 2022, United States immigration officials conducted an asylum interview with SHIHAB. After the interview was conducted United States immigration officials advised the FBI that SHIHAB may have information regarding an ISIS member that was recently smuggled into the United States."
With a little reading between the lines of the criminal complaint, a very different story emerges: Shihab never dealt with any terrorists. He was a paid middleman between two government informants or agents pretending to be terrorists. He took their money, played along, and ratted them out to INS during an asylum interview. After that, once they realized the jig was up, the FBI arrested and charged him at its earliest opportunity - for the plot they had created and paid him to participate in, and which he in turn had informed the government about.
Agreed. He willingly engaged with the alleged hitman (which ended up being the FBI contact). He didn't need to do anything or not have the thought to murder others cross his mind.
Allegedly. The 2 rules of his Fight Club were no underage sex stuff and no physical harm. That hitman claim was not part of his charges or sentencing. The heavy sentencing was to like "send a message" the judge said.
They weren't part of his sentencing because a different court entirely was pursuing the hit for hire attempt charge, but because another court in NY got the book thrown at him for running the site, they decided to drop it because it didn't seem necessary anymore.
In hindsight, the prosecution probably wished they didn't do that, since they are said to have had overwhelming evidence and proof, and there is even a Wired article about chat logs pertaining to DPR seeking services, but those are the breaks! If you don't do your due diligence, criminals can be let off on a technicality too!
I haven't looked into the case(s) for years, but prosecutors don't often just drop charges because other charges were found guilty. People get charged even after life sentences have been handed down.
And you don’t think the prosecutors consider the interests of the FBI when deciding what to prosecute? In cases where they want to use FBI evidence and probably want ongoing cooperation of the FBI for future cases?
Many people, including myself, do not believe that he really did any of the activity related to the assassination attempts. Demonstrably corrupt law enforcement agents had the opportunity to do it all themselves and it would be typical behaviour for those agencies. He is (and was) politically passionate about non-violence and it would go against everything he stood for. I cannot believe he would do it. What do you mean "openly"?
I can't say anything about these journals because I cant even remember anything about them. It certainly isn't obvious to me, since the case is incredibly complex and objectively fraught with corruption
But the feds would never attempt shading means of solving a problem that they're being heavily pressured to solve in a timely manner! Don't be a hecking conspiracy theorist.
Unmitigated nonsense. The evidence that he was involved in this is somewhere between unreliable and nonexistent, and he (and the supposed victim) have disputed it since day one. WTF do you mean "openly"?
- Log files found on Ulbricht's laptop with entries corresponding to the murder-for-hire events
- Bitcoin transaction records showing payments
- Messages between DPR and vendors/users about the situations
The court found this evidence admissible as:
- Direct evidence of the charged offenses
- Proof of Ulbricht's role as site administrator
- Evidence of Ulbricht's identity as DPR
- Demonstration of his willingness to use violence to protect the criminal enterprise
The court determined that while prejudicial, the probative value of this evidence outweighed any unfair prejudice, particularly since the government would stipulate no murders actually occurred.
Except the government blocked a codefendant from testifying that Ross wasn't the current DPR. The person who set up the fake murder was a Secret Service agent who went to federal prison. The target, Curtis Green, said the alleged diary was suspect. The court also kept out the role of the two convicted federal agents, not to mention 8+ other federal employees who committed crimes or unethical behavior.
And an indictment is not proof that the allegations are real or not manipulated. US Attorneys are a deeply amoral group, they don't care about truth or justice, just winning at any cost.
He organized and operated a global criminal drug ring and conspired to have people killed. The only difference between DPR and Pabla Escobar is that DPR was running his drug business in the 2010s instead of the 1980s.
> The only difference between DPR and Pabla Escobar is that DPR was running his drug business in the 2010s instead of the 1980s.
Asserting moral equivalence between someone who ordered dozens of innocent women and children not just killed but dismembered - solely as a lesson for others. Orders which were actually carried out multiple times and DPR who was never charged, tried or convicted of conspiring with a supposed online hitman to kill a competitor (who both were actually FBI informants - clearly making it entrapment). Yeah, that's quite a reach.
Sure, DPR was no saint but why push for the absolute maximally extreme interpretation? Even asserting he "organized and operated a global criminal drug ring" is a stretch. My understanding is he ran an online marketplace which drug dealers used to sell to their customers. I'm not aware that Ross ever bought or sold drugs as a business or hired others to do so. There is more than a little nuance between 1) buying drugs from distributors, delivering drugs to buyers and collecting the money, and 2) running online forums and messaging for people who do those things. At most, #2 is being an accessory to #1.
> My understanding is he ran an online marketplace which drug dealers used to sell to their customers. I'm not aware that Ross ever bought or sold drugs as a business or hired others to do so.
Ah yes, he accumulated over $5 billion in Bitcoins by entirely legal means. He didn't facilitate the wholesale distribution of illegal (and dangerous) drugs at all. He never contributed to the massive distribution of Fentanyle-laced dopes to the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. He was just the online guy!
> he accumulated over $5 billion in Bitcoins by entirely legal means.
I never claimed he didn't break the law. I said the opposite, that he's guilty of being an accessory to drug dealing.
> He didn't facilitate the wholesale distribution of illegal (and dangerous) drugs at all.
I said "he ran an online marketplace which drug dealers used to sell to their customers."
> He was just the online guy!
I said he's "no saint" and in an earlier post in this thread I also said he deserved a jail sentence and that "ten years was enough" for what he was charged with and convicted of as a first-time offender.
I challenged your assertion of "no difference" between DPR and Pablo Escobar as extreme and your response is to mischaracterize my position as DPR committing no crime instead of responding to my actual position that he's a criminal who is guilty and deserved ten years in jail but not two life sentences plus 40 years without parole. There is a middle ground between "completely innocent of anything" and "no different than Pablo Escobar." I don't understand why you can't acknowledge such a middle ground might exist - and that it is my position.
I think you might be a better fit for reddit than hackernews. The lack of thoughtfulness, heavy use of signalling and petty insults are more normal there.
You appear to be confused about the difference between a pardon and parole (and even parole doesn't entail monitoring "for life").
Also, your response didn't respond to what I said (which was about previously only responding to a straw man I didn't say). I like to think we strive in good faith for a little higher level of discourse here on HN. Try to do better.
Bravo to you - I don't think I could have been as mature and respectful as you in the face of these repeated refusals to respond to what you actually said.
Thanks for saying so. I'm human like anyone else but practice helps. We all need to be the change we want to see. Also, my internal goal is rarely to convince anyone who disagrees with me. My focus is articulating my position clearly along with my reasons for currently holding it. Then to understand their position and reasons. This is sometimes surprisingly difficult. Other times it's enlightening and occasionally leads to adjusting my own position.
I try to interpret what others say with maximum charity and construe their arguments in their strongest possible form, even if they weren't expressed that way. I'm interested in discovering why we disagree, not winning debate points. The hardest discussions are often those where they never seem to understand my position or are unwilling to respond to it. This leaves me with little choice but to meta-up to the 'protocol level' to re-establish productive communication.
In the conversation above, I suspect, based on hints in the last response, that the root issue may have been that a moral equivalence between Ross and Pablo Escobar was neccessary to make Trump pardoning Ross a maximally negative talking point against Trump.
If so, the discussion could never really be about what it appeared to be about: the relative criminal or moral weight of Ross' crimes or the appropriateness of the sentence. Which is a shame because it prevented ever reaching more interesting ground. For example, I wish the pardon had been a commutation instead because Ross was justly convicted of significant crimes before he was over-sentenced. The wrong which needed to be righted was the sentence not the conviction.
Tbh you probably don't know what your talking about. Silk road and fentanyl in drugs didn't over lap. Fent really showed up a couple years after the market was shut down.
PE put bombed newspapers and killed hundreds, if not thousands of people unrelated to any criminal enterprise or to arresting him. I mean, actual innocent, minding their own business civilians. Over 4000 murders have been directly attributed to the actions and orders of Escobar. Estimates to the actual count range closer to 8000.
DPR went over to the dark side a bit in that entrapment racket, or at least it seems so.
Thinking that someone needs to be murdered isn’t necessarily a character flaw, imho.
It depends on what DPR was led to believe about this fictional person. It is reasonable to imagine that the FBI took every possible measure to make their fake victim seem as murder worthy as possible. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that the “victim” may have been painted as a purveyor of child trafficking, CSAM, or other things repugnant. My point is we don’t know. And if we don’t know, we should reserve judgment.
True enough, but if every first step taken meant committing to that path, the world would be a much, much darker place, I would think. I know at least for me, it would.
I think if you've committed to having someone killed to the point that you have pulled the trigger so to speak, you have crossed a line that most humans do not. I sure hope you have not crossed that line before
A lot of very good people have crossed that line, and they did so -because- they were good people. They may have done it in defense of loved ones or strangers. They may have done it in service to the nation or community that they were born in.
When having these conversations, it’s easy to stand on the moral high ground and forget that we also live among monsters, and alongside organizations that turn regular people into the instruments of monsters. There are a lot of people in this world that have chosen to be incompatible with coexistence in civil society, or to be part of an organization that has chosen to be so.
These people actively do grave harm to other people. Sometimes, the only way to prevent more harm to innocent people is to remove those individuals from the world.
That said, I don’t know anything of the veracity or motivations behind the allegations brought against DPR in this regard, and for whatever reason, his legal circumstances were crafted so as to make sure that the public would also remain ignorant of the details of those circumstances.
While I do not know any of the details involved, I am deeply suspicious of the manipulations of the FBI in cases such as this, having been in proximity to some of their other shenanigans. It’s definitely inside the realm of reasonable speculation to imagine that they may have created a situation where not only was it convenient for DPR to eliminate his “competitor”, but he would be doing a noble thing in the process.
As an example , one of their “successful anti terrorist operations” a few years back involved a mentally challenged person was manipulated by the FBI into a “terrorist” plot where he thought he was “saving the world”…. So they -definitely-do that kind of thing. The Walmart judiciously wouldn’t sell him a gun (he is obviously and apparently challenged) so they sent him back to buy a bb-gun and arrested him coming out of the store.
Because of this and many other examples of behavior with depraved impunity, I am inclined to give DPR the benefit of the doubt on this, in the absence of much more specific and reliable information.
I'm sorry. Your argument sounds like it's reasonable but I can't accept it and it is full of strawmen. Very few people confuse 'good people that have crossed the line ... in defense of loved ones or strangers' with killers and murderers. Obviously killing is wrong but most people make moral allowances for such cases where it seems necessary or even for cases where it is mistaken or a so called 'crime of passion'. These are apples and oranges and not the same thing. As for standing on an easy moral high ground, uh yes, I'm reasonably certain that I will never reach the level of ordering a hit on an associate to protect my drug business so I will stand on that moral high ground, as will probably a very large majority of people. I have certainly entertained the thought of strangling quite a few people - past co-workers, strangers to death, and some of them I could even make a reasonable case at least in my mind, that they would've deserved it, but it has never crossed beyond a thought - and that is the case with most people in society, thankfully or we would live in a world of murderous chaos.
As for the FBI possibly cooking up most of it or manipulating it to look worse than it is, maybe. But from the transcripts of DPR's emails and online conversations regarding the allegations, it doesn't look very good for DPR either. In fact I think those transcripts was what soured the general public on DPR when many people like myself at first thought (and still think) the punishment seemed really excessive for what he was charged and tried for. That said I do think he has served reasonable time and the pardon at this time is not a bad thing.
I don't think anyone in here is making the case that Ulbricht is a "good person", but comparing Escobar to Ulbricht is next-level delusional.
One of these people attempted to place hits on 3-4 individuals, the other one planted a bomb on a passenger plane that resulted in the deaths of over a hundred people.
Because in my opinion the ethics of operating a drug ring is not as black as white as you state.
The existence of drug rings is an inevitable outcome from the war on drugs and I would argue the blame lands on the politicians who maintain the status quo that incentivises the creation of the black market for drugs.
He did order (and pay for) at least one murder. It just happens that both the victim and the would-be hit man were both informants so they staged the murder. Ross’ argument is that he knew it was fake, but that makes no sense in context.
It was right that they dropped the charge because it was quite obviously entrapment. But none of it reflects well on Ross Ulbricht’s character.
>we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this
the corruption what we do know about already tainted the case to the point that it should have been thrown out.
I don't care about Ulbricht, and whether he is guilty of all or some of the charges or innocent. What bothers me in this case is that the government can get away and in particular can get its way in court even with such severe criminal behavior by the government.
"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump said in his post online on Tuesday evening."
Trump even personally called Ulbricht mother. I start to wonder whether i have been all that time in blind denial about Trump.
> A heartbreaking story is currently unfolding that’s sure to have devastating ramifications for years to come. Just moments ago, without any warning, the worst person you know just made a great point.
You shouldn't necessarily change your negative opinion of someone, just because they're right about something. To invoke Godwin's law: Adolf Hitler was a staunch opponent of smoking, in a time when many Allied cultures thought smoking was great, but that doesn't mean you're wrong about him.
imagine if your physical theory of Universe works perfectly for the Universe at all scales, all times, all places except for one small star whose behavior contradicts your theory - that means that your theory at least requires an adjustment and at worst it may be total thrash. Your smoking example doesn't have such contradiction - whether he was anti- or pro-smoker is orthogonal to the rest of the story. On the other hand Trump showing empathy and correcting gross injustice stemming from the gross government corruption doesn't fit well into my perception of Trump and thus seriously challenges it.
If your model of Donald Trump is "cartoonishly evil and incapable of empathy", then yes, of course you need to adjust your model – but that's a bad description of Adolf Hitler, too. He genuinely cared about the welfare of certain people, and opposed smoking because of the harm it caused those people: if you pegged Hitler as generally pro-death, you'd be wrong. But that does not in any way redeem him, and it shouldn't cause you to update your "Hitler wants to kill a whole bunch of people" prediction.
Suppose it's 1940. You know that Hitler ordered Aktion T4, and conclude that Hitler wants to kill people. Then, you learn that he opposes smoking because he doesn't like it killing people. You shouldn't start doubting that he's the sort of guy to sign mass death warrants: you've learned some information about his internal thought processes, but it's not very useful information if you want to predict his future actions.
"Orthogonal" is subjective. All things are interrelated. That does not mean that our descriptions should be highly-sensitive to noise. Update your internal model of his behaviour, by all means, but if you have predictions that don't require that internal model, consider whether or not this evidence should actually affect those predictions.
>You know that Hitler ordered Aktion T4, and conclude that Hitler wants to kill people. Then, you learn that he opposes smoking because he doesn't like it killing people. You shouldn't start doubting that he's the sort of guy to sign mass death warrants: you've learned some information about his internal thought processes, but it's not very useful information if you want to predict his future actions.
you've just described orthogonality between his stance on smoking and his real-life mass-murderous actions. And as far as i see it is very objective orthogonality.
Your perspective on Hitler is based on the work of many historians, allowing you to easily see the orthogonality – but every seeming-contradiction like this is actually orthogonal. Remember: you don't observe people's intentions, only their actions. Even if somebody does something you consider "compassionate", that doesn't mean it's based on what you'd call "compassion".
A 10 year prison sentence was apt. He did knowingly break the law (the marketplace defense doesn't really apply, since admins had to create the categories that were obviously illegal). A life sentence was ridiculous, and added punishment for unconvicted crimes, however likely, is a gross violation of constitutional protections.
Why this person specifically? And why at this time? Perhaps the discussion shouldn't be about the actual subject of the pardon, and perhaps more about the motives of the pardoner...
Trump came to the Libertarian Party convention and specifically promised to free Ross if he got their support. He actually promised a commutation; I wonder why he upgraded to pardon. He also promised a libertarian in his cabinet; oh well.
The LP chairwoman has made very interesting political moves this election.
Yeah, I'm pleased that Ross is out after serving over 10 years, but I wish it had been a commutation. He was guilty. The problem is the judge wildly over sentencing. Ten years served is about right for what he was convicted of.
Guilty of what exactly? Facilitating drug dealing? Something we both know is going to occur whether the nanny state permits it or not. Ross made it safer for those involved, and even those not involved. Inner cities are war zones because drug deals must be done in person. He deserves a full pardon.
These two thoughts are incompatible though, aren't they? Politics and shenanigans around the case aside, the original sentence should have taken into account the possibility of rehabilitation. But he got life without parole.
That said, it was entrapment and everyone involved should be deeply ashamed and prosecuted. At least those two agents did get some wire fraud charges [0], but the entrapment angle got explored because the charges were dropped.
According to Reuters he was found guilty of "charges including distributing drugs through the Internet and conspiring to commit computer hacking and money laundering." In addition to running an illegal market bazaar for 4 years.
Yea right. Drugs and violence are never mixed together /s. Just because he didn't commit violence himself (let's exclude his murder for hire. ahem.) does not mean no violence was ever caused because of his market place.
I'm not pro life sentence but the guy who was selling literally tons of narcotics online from which people overdosed and died and the guy who was ordering murders of his narco enemies gets to spend only 10 years in jail is indeed ridiculous. Imo he should've spent 10 years more because this way it seems like he "just" robbed a bank or something and got 10 years and now it's like nothing happened.
I'm stressing it out again, multiple people died from overdose because of him and multiple people were about to get executed because he hired hitman to kill them.
They wouldn't get their supply elsewhere? The junkies liked it because they didn't have to worry about getting robbed. You want to get rid of junkies? Enforce capital punishment of possession like Singapore.
That argument doesn't have any validity taking in consideration that it was still illegal to sell drugs online. In another words; legally it doesn't mean anything that it was safer to sell drugs online than it is on the streets, both are illegal. I have no sympathy for such "noble" entrepreneurs.
Did he actually sell the drugs, or did he just create a communications platform? Should all communications platforms be liable for what people do on them?
He actually sold a ton of drugs too.. you don't need to raise these questions as unknowable hypotheticals, it's literally a google search away to find out. The first sales on the site were trashbags full of mushrooms that he grew in a cabin in Texas.
- sackler family engineered opioid crisis and went unscathed
- hacking is a bogus charge applied to everything touching PCs
- money laundering is another victimless crime that very few actual money launderers gets charged with, for some reason
Case law obsessively cites other case law. So yeah, that's how it works. His trial was a farce and was meant to send a message to others to not, um, do drugs online or something.
They dropped the contract killer charges - it appears that they were fabricated to try to turn public opinion against him and get him jailed. But as soon as they went to trial the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
They were not fabricated although it may have been challenging to secure a conviction and in any event Ross was going to be sentenced to many decades in prison.
Do you have a reference which shows they weren't fabricated or is this just your opinion? Because I feel if we know for sure they weren't fabricated they'd have at least proceeded to trial with it. Particularly considering they claimed they posed as hit-men to entrap him, which would be solid evidence. But later they dropped that claim entirely.
I personally find it ridiculous that people agree with the sentencing when you compare to sentences for tobacco industry practices, opioid epidemic, etc..
So many people are in jail for crimes they didn’t commit, or for non-violent offenses that were committed out of hardship and a need to eat.
They gave evidence he tried to have someone killed, and that he saw confirmation it had been done.
Even if the accusation is somehow false and he didn’t order that killing, how many people did he actually kill just by running Silk Road?
I’m so sick of the narrative that aww shucks he’s a good kid from a good family and he just made a boo-boo and didn’t mean to build a multi-billion dollar illicit fortune from trafficking deadly drugs and outright poisons all over the world.
If this dude wasn’t a money-raised white kid from California no-one would care.
He didn’t deserve to be imprisoned that long in the first place, ergo, he deserves to be released. The fact that nearly half the US prison population deserves to be released doesn’t change anything about this guy being deserving too?
People generally don’t get locked up for life even if they do kill someone (in civilized countries), as long as they can be rehabilitated.
What? - whatever nasty stuff happened because of those drugs being distributed and sold still falls back on that guy, and lets be real, some shitty stuff has to have happened with a direct link back to those drugs.
This was the first time many people had access to clean drugs in a comfortable way. It's easy to blame him, but the reality is that the alternatives are worse for customers.
> I think it's clear he did many things in the same vein
It is clear as mud. We now know:
* At least four other people had access to the DPR account, by design.
* One of those people (the person whose murder was supposedly ordered, who has vehemently defended Ross!) asserts that he knew that Nob (who we know who was a DEA agent) was one of those four people.
* Nob is a serial liar, and is now in prison for having stole some of the bitcoin from this operation.
...what about that make clear that Ross was within a mile of this supposed 'murder for hire' business?
The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty.
Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the trier of fact (a judge or a jury). If the prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is acquitted of the charges.
> The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty.
That should be "considered innocent by the legal system". People are still free to come to their own conclusions--and act on them--even without a jury rendering a verdict.
Rather famously, for example, OJ Simpson was acquitted by a jury of murdering his wife. But most people these days would agree with the statement that he murdered his wife.
It is also the case that prosecutors need to decide both the probability of conviction, the effort needed to do so and whether likely conviction on other serious charges are sufficient for the people to feel that justice has been done.
My understanding is they never brought the charges in the first place. The supposed online hitman and the victim were both FBI informants. They never filed any charges because it was clearly entrapment and no one was ever in any danger.
The prosecutors later used that evidence as support for their sentencing request after Ross was convicted of only non-violent offenses, which has a much lower standard of evidence. The allegations of murder-for-hire were never tested at trial. They may have evaporated under cross-examination by a competent defense. Our system of justice holds that Ross is innocent of those allegations unless convicted at trial.
You don't become guilty or innocent based on legal proceedings. The point of a case is to establish guilt for the purpose of punishment.
But an innocent person doesn't become "guilty" even when the evidence shows that in the court. A guilty person remains guilty whether a court can prove it or not.
He should be considered innocent by the courts - and he was (innocent of the murder for hire charges, I mean). In the public we aren't obligated to follow the same standards of evidence as the courts. I think he almost certainly did pay to have those people killed, and that can shape my opinion of him.
That's perfectly reasonable - but I don't think it should really have a bearing on whether he should be pardoned. That is not exactly a matter of the courts (by definition), but I think as an official public act it should be subject to the presumption of innocence as well.
What makes you think I support those people being locked up either? Also, afaik Ulbricht didn't sell drugs himself, he simply provided an unmoderated marketplace.
If the law is unethical then you may be pushed to do "bad" things. For example if you are a Jew living with family in a Nazi Germany and someone know your secret and he feels he need to disclose it to the authorities then you may consider... murdering him. Would you really be a bad guy?
Ross Ulbricht was widely regarded by friends and family as a fundamentally decent and idealistic person—if admittedly naïve about the implications of his actions. Those who knew him personally describe him as thoughtful, intelligent, and motivated by a vision of a freer and more equitable society. His philosophical motivations were rooted in libertarian ideals, particularly the belief that consenting adults should have the right to make decisions about their own lives, including the substances they consume.
I just learned that he was an Eagle Scout.
Not exactly the résumé of someone getting locked up and the key thrown away.
This argument is problematic because it implies that a person from a different background who committed the same crimes (e.g., a poor, black, uneducated person without any fancy philosophical ideals) /should/ be locked up and the key thrown away. It doesn’t work that way. The law applies the same to all, and that’s the way I like it.
The problem is that if the law is arguably unethical or arbitrary, you're going to catch more "good" people in it. My comment was not so much a defense of Ross as it was an accusation against unjust drug law.
Imagine a hypothetical law which arrests anyone who trades in red shirts. Someone comes along and doesn't see what the big deal is and decides to trade in these shirts on the black market. Lives are saved because it is impossible to get shot at while paying for red shirts over the Internet instead of in person. Then the dude who ran the red shirt marketplace and seems like an opportunistic idealist gets locked up with the key thrown away.
Anyway, it is arguable that the Silk Road saved lives, given that black markets are persistent regardless of legality.
Seriously, that was pretty blatant "he was one of the good guys like me and so the law shouldn't really punish him, not like one of those other people with different value that should be punished to the full extent."
I mean there's a legal concept of motivation. A murder is sentenced very differently if it's premeditated, or not.
The idea of looking at someone's motivations to determine their sentencing is critical to our legal system - otherwise important defences like the "Battered Wife Defence" wouldn't work.
I think most of us can also see a difference between a poor person stealing some gloves to stay warm in the winter and a rich person stealing those same gloves for the thrill. The only difference here is you don't like the fact that Ulbricht's motivations were more high minded than your average crack pusher (cough CIA cough) - the judge didn't either - in fact he sentenced him harder for it to make an example of him.
First of all, leniency is usually expected (and this was the exact opposite of leniency) if it is someone's first offense or if they seemed like a good citizen prior.
Then why did he run a site which allowed people to order hits on people? If it was just an online drug marketplace, that would have been a different matter.
I disagree, the lukewarm emotion driven campaign ("we're not the other guy!") and lack of any rational strategy or arguments from the oppositon is how these people won in the first place.
Appeal to emotions stands on the trustworthiness/track record of the pleader. The opposition, full of public/private office musical chair players, has been in the pocket of lobbyists/corporate interests - they don't have any standing to plead to emotions (not saying the incumbents do but they have been successful in harnessing their already enraged supporters).
Pleading to emotion works only if the target audience is not ideologically possessed, and by ideologically, I mean that they hate the mere thought of voting democrat even if they support the democrat’s agenda.
The Democrat agenda has far far higher approval ratings than Democrats, and that says a lot about the current state of affairs.
To add, conservatives voters often claim they vote they way they do because "the other side" makes no attempt to understand them. I think GP is asking an honest question. If nothing else, I had the same question because I want to understand what the conservative voters want in this case, if not the surface level racism.
To anyone who voted for Trump because he said he'd be hard on drug dealers: how do you feel about him pardoning a top level drug dealer?
The answer is that what they want isn't ideologically consistent.
They want him to be hard on criminals who do things they don't like. The biggest drug dealers alive are the Sacklers or maybe McKinsey, and they're not in scope either.
Progressives aren't consistent either. No one is. For example, Dems keep screaming about being a country of laws when referring to GOP antics, but want to ignore certain immigration, anti-abortion, and drug laws (in some cases by just refusing to enforce them).
Unfortunately what's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they say.
Yes, yes but children detention center which separated kids from their parents and then lost the paper work connecting them back to their family, even some kids died of neglect in the detention center...cruelty.
Trump clearly values favoritism to a high degree. He is doing exactly as he has promised, running the country like a businessman. If you scratch his back, he will scratch yours. Principles take a back seat to "getting the job done". For other examples, see his changed stances on TikTok, various foreign interests, cryptocurrencies, EVs post Elon support, etc. And in the opposite vein, he abandons support for anyone who challenges his authority on principles.
Principled politicians are very rare. Do you think the outgoing administration was particularly principled?
People need to stop thinking of politicians as their friends and having parasocial relationships with them. They're public servants and should be treated as such.
Pardoning Ulbricht was a campaign promise he made at the Libertarian National Convention in response to it being a popular demand among the libertarians.
And more importantly, among the crypto crowd that dumped millions into his campaign. Libertarians have essentially no clout or money on their own. This was a pardon bought by Coinbase and Gemini and A16z.
Why would Coinbase and Gemini and A16z care about an obviously shady person who reportedly tried to hire a person to kill someone? surely they could find a more legitimate hero to advance the legal crypto case? i mean, it's kind of like them - companies trying to do legit crypto - rallying today around SBF when they already have image problems from other exchanges?
Because much like the billionnaires already flanking Trump, the heads of Coinbase and A16Z are out-of-touch charisma black holes that have no clue how to talk to the average Trump voter to get them on their side. Ross Ulbricht is the avatar for their ultimate goal of legitimizing crypto in the US financial system.
Not sure, but when they have various political candidates getting millions from the crypto PACs and all of them in unison talking about how Ross Ulbricht needs a pardon, I'm not sure what else to tell you. Maybe someone just knew Ulbricht personally and is using their money to spring him.
But unless you can point to any other group with actual power and money who was pushing for it, the most obvious answer is that the main funders of the crypto PACs were at least ok with it. There's no way they couldn't have subtly squashed this pardon with Trump if it was just the Libertarians asking for it given that they seem to have gotten him to commit to do literally everything else they want.
There is no "legit crypto" - it's a myth. Every single exchange that swaps spit with the Bitcoin ledger is laundering money made by criminal (often violent or fraudulent) means. Many if not most altcoins are equally as fraudulent, or used to launder ("tumble") other suspicious coins.
Let's be honest anyways, the cryptocurrency "industry" as we know it is less than 4 years old, and in 4 years it may be gone. Exchanges like coinbase and so-called defi innovators like A16Z need this legally-dubious signalling or they'll risk never having another leader corrupt enough to sanction their behavior.
I got cash out of an airport currency exchange ATM the other week, and when I tried to use it to by groceries yesterday, the cashier tested it for cocaine and it came back positive. There is no "legit cash".
I think that might be a myth? If I tried buying a $0.50 candy bar with a hundred-dollar bill, I think that the cashier might refuse it and I don't think they'd get in trouble for doing so.
I thought the "legal tender" argument only worked in regards to debts to the government, though IANAL.
no it literally happened at publix the other day, its like a mall cop mentality I guess. I suppose it is not that strange because most bills have traces of cocaine on them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency
It's confusing because there's no logical point to it nor does it follow along as a regular conversation.
"Some cash has cocaine on it" has no logical relationship to "all cryptocurreny use is illegitimate".
If they wanted to refute the original claim and say that cryptocurrency has legitimate uses or if they wanted to make a separate point to say that cash is similarly only useful to criminals, they failed.
> the cashier tested it for cocaine and it came back positive
There is no commercial product capable of testing cash for drugs. Anyone claiming to sell such a product is lying.
There is a wipe, like a baby wipe, that is sold as a "cocaine detection wipe". It is a lie.
It uses a dumbed down version of a spot test that is very good at detecting cocaine, but it also reacts with many other substances that are not cocaine.
The test was dumbed down because the substances needed to make it more accurate are much more dangerous than the cobalt thiocyanate (which is STILL not good for you) used in the "safe" tests.
There are thousands and thousands and thousands of substances that will cause a cocaine detection test to return a positive reaction. One of them is Benadryl. Benadryl causes such a strong and vibrant reaction that you would think the entire object being tested was made of pure cocaine.
If you keep a single packet containing one Benadryl pill in your bag and you use it and while taking it a handful of diphenhydramine (Benadryl) molecules get transferred from your fingers to the outside of the packet, and then you toss the packet into your bag and they get transferred from the packet to the interior of your bag, to a wallet in your bag, to the cash itself, testing the cash in that wallet with a cocaine field test will produce a stronger positive result than if you had rolled up a bill and snorted a line immediately prior to the test and there was still powdered cocaine on the bill.
This is not a joke or exaggeration. If you touch a single Benadryl pill with the tip of your index finger, then poke the tip of your finger to a sheet of paper, then you put that sheet of paper in a printer and a rubber roller in the paper-handling mechanism rolls over the spot you touched, every single sheet of paper printed by that printer for MONTHS will test positively for cocaine. (using the tests that don't require training, PPE, and expensive lab equipment).
Did your totally real and not bullshit cash have drugs on them, or Benadryl, or ANY substance with the ring of carbon atoms that the test detects?
"But this study found 80% of bills had dru..."
Buddy 100% of all bills that have been used just once have actual literal shit, feces, dookie, poop, (and staph!) on them.
They rubbed some sort of pen thing on it, and they took the bills to some machine in a back room. At the time, I figured it was because they thought the bills were fraudulent (I was paying with 100s because my card didn't work).
Maybe the pen thing was only to test if the bills were fraudulent, and then the machine in the back of the store could also do drug tests? Or maybe it was all a lie and they were just bullshitting me.
No love for Trump or libertarians but I am a cypherpunk[0] at heart. I'm on board with the idea of ensuring that things can happen online outside of the jurisdiction of any nation[1], so for his part in building towards that I'm happy Ross is free.
On the other hand, it's clear to me that the correct amount of jail time wasn't zero either, given everything else he allegedly did.
[1] I think about this in the same way that we accept the possibility of bad things happening because people can have private conversations in their own home, or are able to have complete control over potentially dangerous tools and vehicles. IMO the risks are worth the trade-offs and these are important rights to protect in the relationship between people, technology, and government (or whoever wields power).
I’d like to know who wrote that speech. A lot of talk about how libertarians are domineered and persecuted. Something like “after criminal prosecutions, if I wasn’t a libertarian then, I sure am now” in front of a very idealistic audience whose skepticism of government is unrelated to how many billionaires it fingerprints. So, they booed and heckled him, and in hindsight I wonder if he was grasping for concessions.
> I don't think you increase demand by ease of access.
Well that's the entire principle of price elasticity. The less costly (not only in terms of money, but also in terms of risk and time) something gets the higher the demand, at least up to a point.
> Don't online drug marketplaces lead to reduced gang activity?
Online isn't the important factor here.
> One does not need a gang and violence to sell drugs online.
Gangs and violence aren't there to support a marketplace. They don't help you find customers or customers to find you. They don't improve the efficiency of exchange. They're there to enforce outcomes. Selling drugs leads to outcomes that don't care whether the buyer and seller found themselves online.
I don't think he knows who RA is, I'm betting the cryptobros who ran his rug pulls and NFTs for the last year have his ear after making him millions of dollars.
I mean, I don't know why it's a full pardon, IMO Ulbricht's sentence was far too long and harsh, I'm sure it was to make a point that others should not replicate it, but wouldn't a stay on the remainder of his sentence been a better option here ?
You’re assuming the reason for the pardon is “the sentence was unfair” rather than “some people that cheered at my rally said they would like me to do this”.
My understanding is that it’s more Trump generally attempts to keep campaign promises, he doesn’t always succeed, but when all it takes is an executive order, he generally does it pretty quickly.
In instances where it takes more than his signature (e.g. the wall) he has failed to make good on many promises but he definitely put in effort to trying to make them happen.
No no no, my friend. Ulbricht was not a lowly drug trafficker (also, incidentally, not black or latino). He was an _entrepreneur_ who built a _marketplace_ that would bring together buyers and sellers, cutting out the middleman, and driving _efficiency_! Basically trustedhousesitters.com, just for illegal drugs instead of pets ;)
He said he would do this during his campaign as a promise, a lot of libertarians voted for him based on this. He delivered on the promise after he won a convincing majority. I'm not sure why democracy offends you this much.
what's it like to be poor in a rich country? the libertarian party supported his reelection bid and by support Ross he garnered more of their votes. this couldn't be more obvious. he did the same for crypto.
according to Trump: "A promise made is a promise kept", he is keeping his promise to his constituents.
So that's the interesting thing about it; he gets the votes from it, so apparently many people agree with him? Only in public nobody seems to agree with him? How is that possible?
Most of his voters have no idea what his campaign or promises are, and that's intentional, see mexican voters apparently surprised by his anti-mexican stance now.
> see mexican voters apparently surprised by his anti-mexican stance now.
Source?
And it seems people don't particularly like Trump, but vote on him because he seems to be the only one that wants to do something about illegal immigrants:
And I understand that it's even frustrating for legal immigrants, who waited for years to get citizenship, that illegal immigrants don't have to do anything and get it right away.
So yeah, we can argue about the details, but it is clear that during Biden's administration it was way too easy for illegal immigrants to get into the US, which is unfair for the legal immigrants that went through much more trouble to get there.
Aside from that, the constant flow of illegal immigrants also caused a lot of issues in the states near the borders, and obviously for the country as a whole.
> Sorry I really don't like YouTube for political content. Any text summaries of how they get citizenship quickly after crossing illegally?
Sorry, I looked for it but it seems it's not easy to find mainstream newspaper articles about this. It seems this topic is heavily being censored. Which is interesting in it's own right. But it does also mean that I can't deliver all this information on a golden plate for you, and you'll have to do a little bit of research and analyzing and personal thinking, instead of just reading the headlines that the media is feeding you.
Watch the video, it really gives you might insight into the complexity of the situation, or at least how it was.
And how else would you explain that first the borders were constantly flooded with illegal immigrants, and now not anymore? Something must have changed that has made the illegal path less interesting than the legal one.
> And how else would you explain that first the borders were constantly flooded with illegal immigrants, and now not anymore?
It could just be the news coverage. Maybe they wanted people scared before the election. Do you have sources with actual numbers? What is the percentage decrease?
> It seems this topic is heavily being censored
Then how are the illegal migrants "easily" getting citizenship finding out about it?
> Then how are the illegal migrants "easily" getting citizenship finding out about it?
They hear it from each other. They know, it's a whole business, with coach busses taking immigrants to the border where they continue a common path take daily by many people. It's all in that video.
This is representative of the dichotomy we face within society, in that we rarely associate with people who have different opinions than us, even when we think that we do regularly. It is the paradox of our social circles that overlap but never interact.
The trick is inside or brains. We’re having trouble dealing with detailed percentage breakdowns and differentiating between groups of people.
Instead we think of “the average person” and project that on everyone.
You looked at the small libertarian interest group, and based on that projected how everyone is. Now you look at hacker news and you’re projecting how everyone is. This projection is where our reasoning fails.
Yeah but to be honest, most mainstream media channels that I see criticize Trump a lot. And the media that praises him is often seen als radical / extreme / whatever right.
So, either the old government is in power of the mainstream media, or people are secretly on the right and don't speak out about it. Or maybe a combination of the two.
It’s the selection of media that you see. Try watching Fox. Try listening to Joe Rogan. Try going on a clean YouTube account and watching random videos for a week. It’s there.
You made a false dichotomy, but I’m sure you can figure that one on your own.
There’s also the other aspect where you align your views to the views of your group.
There are places in the US, where being a Republican is absolutely the core of what you are, and you will adopt and genuinely love any candidate from that party.
Trump yesterday: “I like both sides of the argument, but I also like very competent people coming into our country, even if that involves them training and helping other people that may not have the qualifications they do. I don't want to stop…”
"We want competent people coming into our country. And H-1B, I know the programme very well. I use the programme. Maître d', wine experts, even waiters, high-quality waiters, you've got to get the best people. People like Larry, he needs engineers, NASA also needs... engineers like nobody's ever needed them"
I make and sell soap. The soap contains an ingredient that anyone can use to make bombs. Some people buy my soap only for that purpose. I know because they literally tell me how they use my soap. I can remove that ingredient but I would loose a lot of sales.
The police finds my soap in the lab of someone who blew up a building. Some people died. Was it my fault, knowing how it was being used? Did I do anything illegal? Unethical? Immoral?
Interesting thought experiment, but no, I don't think it's llegal/unethical/immoral to sell that soap. But in practice this sort of business will change their formula to avoid bad press and regulation.
Having done some internet things (email stuff) that have been abused by others I always felt obligated to make the abuse as hard as possible once I found out about it.
I am not sure about the legal standpoint, but from a moral one I would have felt bad running the business knowing it's regularly abused to harm others and I am not doing anything against it.
If you set up what is clearly a perfect marketplace for drugs, and you know it's going to fill up with drug dealers, and it does fill up with drug dealers, and there's one goofball that decided to sell a hamburger.... you're not an innocent guy who is running a hamburger marketplace.
It just allowed unrestricted trade outside of regular economy. In a world where the governments themselves are corrupt and criminal, you could argue over the ethicality of the concept. But comparing it to drug cartels is unfair I would say.
To me what is weird is the "complete" pardon from a president that is supposedly going after immigrant drug dealers and murderers.
Basically, if you've done something wrong, but can drum up enough support for the winning political candidate, you get a chance to cut a deal and wipe the slate clean.
To those that say he's rehabilitated etc, I'm sure there were other worthy prisoners too, but why does this particular guy happen to get the pardon on day one?!
Same with the pardoned capitol rioters.
It just feels like a very slippery downwards slope, where political back scratching trumps everything else.
He did also try to get someone killed. It didn't happen, but can you see how the non violent guy was slowly turning to violence too?
I'm sure the initial narco kingpins were nice, non-violent people too, but rarely do the people involved with supplying drugs stay that way - regardless of whether you're Pablo Escobar or just some kid peddling weed in a sleepy village in the south of France.
> rarely do the people involved with supplying drugs stay that way
I'm really intrigued how people can say these things like they're facts. That's really happening a lot more nowadays. It's an opinion you have.
Or am I wrong, and do you have a source or personal account of some kid in a sleepy village in the south of france?
Or could it be that the people who DO stay that way don't reach the media, because they DO stay that way?
One example that stands out: I was playing pool in a quiet bar in a sleepy village. The next thing I know, a sixteen year old walks in and attacks another 16 year old. They are at each others throats, smashing cues on each other and throwing pool balls at each other. They are absolutely battered and bleeding by the end of it. One of the kids was the barman's son. As they finish their fight and are dragged out, another barman says to me "there's no need for that in here" and adds "you know what it's all about - who owed who money for drugs".
I think it was a pretty quick transformation. One half of the LucyDrop account threatened to leak real-world names, because he was threatened over deals his partner made out of his control. Plan A for Ross was to arrange real-world harm.
That was never proven. A key reason why that was never proven was because a proven, as in proven beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted, corrupt federal agent had access to everything needed to fabricate the extremely limited evidence they used to insinuate it.
Do you know how rarely LEOs getting convicted of anything? If there wasn't a mountain of evidence that Ulbricht ran the silk road, the entire case might have been rereparable tainted.
Regardless, but my point stands - he was heading down a bad path.
Quoting from Wikipedia: The district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Ulbricht probably commissioned the murders.[41] The possibility that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life and was a factor in the Second Circuit's decision to uphold the sentence.
That's why commutation is a thing. The courts have ruled this as within the pardon powers. His sentence could be changed to reflect something much more aligned with other convictions for the same crimes.
Commutation is not considered during sentencing or mandatory minimums or anything like that. It's only an option for very popular cases and even then it's rare.
It’s not expunged but you have a letter from the president saying you shouldn’t have been convicted in the first place. The meaning is different even thought the legal outcomes are the same.
It’s always interesting to see how he’s become a folk hero to some people who can do a lot of mental gymnastics to downplay the fact that he tried to hire a hitman to kill people. It’s weird to read all of the comments trying to discount the attempted murder because it didn’t actually happen.
Me too. 12 years seems like enough, especially considering the sentence lengths other people get. If he tries again, they can catch him again. But running an illegal marketplace with clearly allowing whatever goes, and not receiving any punishment for it? That is wild.
He served 12 years. Feels about right for the crimes he committed. Depending on your political association feel free to put quotation marks somewhere in the previous sentence.
I’d argue the President should not be allowed to issue pardons that are:
(1) Preëmptive (i.e. absent conviction);
(2) To himself, his current or former Cabinet members, or to any of the foregoing’s current or former spouses or children or grandchildren (or their spouses); or
(3) Issued after the presidential election in the final year of their term.
Furthermore, pardons for violent offences or corruption should be prohibited; provided, however, the President should retain the power to commute such sentences, and the Congress should have the power to regulate the manner in which the President may commute such sentences.
(Notably, I don’t believe this would apply to Ulbricht. He wasn’t convicted of a violent crime.)
While I would tend to agree with the first one, and preventing someone from pardoning himself or herself, the rest is a bit much. But it's a moot point anyway. At this point amending the constitution is virtually impossible.
Cabinet members are close to the President and in commanding positions of authority; if they’re scared of a law they should work to change it.
Lame ducks, on the other hand, aren’t subject to the single veneer of a check on Presidential pardons: popular outrage. Limiting it in that span, when a President is unaccountable, and where we have ample history of silliness, seems warranted.
Note that I’m not proposing restricting commutations in any of those cases. (I suppose we should add a clause prohibiting the President from preëmptive commutations, too.)
> amending the constitution is virtually impossible
Not true. We’re probably closer to the end of our Constitutional stasis than at any time in our lives.
Hell, you might be able to ram something like this through today if you added a clause that nullifies past pardons per those standards.
I'm curious why you think we're close to an amendment being passable? 2/3rds Senate and 3/4th of the states does feel impossible for anything with even a slightly partisan angle to it?
An example of someone who could be pardoned would be someone committing an act of violence towards police to prevent them from enforcing a law which was later considered to be unjust and worthy of revolt against.
I think this is necessary class of pardons. A hypothetical example of a good preemptive pardon would be Congress repealing an unjust law, and the president pardoning anybody who broke that law before the repeal.
>(2) To himself, his current or former Cabinet members, or to any of the foregoing’s current or former spouses or children or grandchildren (or their spouses)
Agree on not pardoning himself or cabinet members. Maybe could extend that to include all political appointees. Politicians shouldn't enjoy special privileges like these. But I'm less convinced about preventing family pardons. Those people (generally) aren't politicians. And, if they plan to abuse the president's pardon to commit crimes, they'd either be asking after the crime and risking the president refusing, or asking before and leaving the president open to conspiracy charges.
>(3) Issued after the presidential election in the final year of their term.
I've grown too cynical about the voters to believe this would matter. Most people don't follow politics closely enough to know who's been pardoned, what they did, and any political/personal connections they had with the president.
If I may suggest a limitation, how about allowing the House or Senate to veto a pardon with a 2/3 majority?
> hypothetical example of a good preemptive pardon would be Congress repealing an unjust law, and the president pardoning anybody who broke that law before the repeal
Congress could do this when they pass the law. If they didn't, they specifically chose not to.
> less convinced about preventing family pardons. Those people (generally) aren't politicians
What if we invert the question: in what case would the family require a pardon such that their spouse or parent in a position of massive power couldn't help them out of a legitimate scuffle?
> Most people don't follow politics closely enough to know who's been pardoned
Then why do most of the controversial pardons come in this envelope?
> how about allowing the House or Senate to veto a pardon with a 2/3 majority?
Regarding the substance of your comment, we do not have (IIRC) established judicial precedent for the constitutionality of preëmptive pardons. The practice originated with Ford pardoning Nixon, and has not yet been challened nor withstood judicial examination.
Personally, I'd like to see some of Biden's pardons challenged.
> (3) Issued after the presidential election in the final year of their term.
This is an interesting one for those who are seeking a second term but are at risk of losing
honestly guys, its time to download Truth Social so you can see what the President and the right is really saying
by the time it hits your feeds elsewhere, it is often times altered just to inflame you and whatever segment of the algorithm's tree you are already pigeonholed in
The main reason all the subs made this change today is because of the elon nazi salute, not the fact that twitter is hostile to unauthenticated user agents.
I've been on HN since the very beginning and the solution has always been simple: if the post is auth/pay-walled then post archive links or copy paste the text in comments.
I get why there's noise about banning X suddenly but lets not pretend it's for sudden technical/UX concerns. No one is calling for NYT, WSJ, or WaPo submissions to be avoided. Twitter had auth gating for many years before Elon.
Am I remembering correctly that when Elon first took over, he took that gate down because of his whole free speech thing. I'm guessing they re-instated it as soon as it hit the bottom line. Makes me wonder if government should still rely on it for comms.
One of the first things Twitter did post Elon was remove sign in gating then I guess the bankers pressed Elon and it went back up. Can't always do everything you want in business, I guess. Bills come first.
Obama, Warren, Hillary Clinton and Harris have all made the same salute. If Musk is a Nazi because of that, then where does leave all these politicians many of us votes for...
It's an interesting thing to see happen. In seconds, people snapped it and flooded the internet with it. But nothing will happen, because doing a "nazi salute" on accident means nothing.
I don't think this is responsive to my comment. I'm happy to trust reporting from NYT, Reuters, AP, WSJ, Wapo, Bloomberg, major regional newspapers... it's not a super high or politicized bar. Just something other than "a single twitter account."
In one message, Ulbricht informed ELLINGSON that “[the murder target] is a liability and I wouldn't mind if he was executed.” In another message, Ulbricht stated: “[the murder target] is causing me problems . . . I would like to put a bounty on his head if it’s not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him?” ELLINGSON responded, “[the p]rice for clean is 300k+ USD,” and the “[p]rice for non-clean is 150-200k USD depending on how you want it done.” ELLINGSON further explained, in part, that “[t]hese prices pay for 2 professional hitters including their travel expenses and work they put in.”
Ulbricht later sent ELLINGSON $150,000 worth of Bitcoin to pay for the purported murder. ELLINGSON and Ulbricht agreed on a code to be included with a photograph to prove that the murder had been carried out. In April 2013, ELLINGSON and Ulbricht exchanged messages reflecting that ELLINGSON had sent Ulbricht photographic proof of the murder. A thumbnail of a deleted photograph purporting to depict a man lying on a floor in a pool of blood with tape over his mouth was recovered from Ulbricht’s laptop after his arrest. A piece of paper with the agreed-upon code written on it is shown in the photograph next to the head of the purportedly dead individual.
Later in April 2013, ELLINGSON and Ulbricht exchanged additional messages regarding a plot to kill four additional people in Canada. Ulbricht sent ELLINGSON an additional $500,000 worth of Bitcoin for the murders. ELLINGSON claimed to Ulbricht in online messages that the murders had in fact been committed.
James Ellingson is a convicted federal criminal charged with numerous crimes related to this case.
Tasked with investigating Silk Road he ended up in jail himself, along with his co-workers.
There's a very good reason none of this stuff ever went to trial, it would be incredibly embarrassing for the agencies involved to see the light of day.
No, generally a pardon does not eliminate any civil liability or entitle you to refunds once the assets have been transferred to Treasury. He would still have to answer Yes to having been convicted of a felony and he would still not be entitled to vote in states that do not permit felons to vote.
> Where a person has paid a monetary penalty or forfeited property, the consequences of a pardon depend in part on when it was issued. If a monetary fine or contraband cash has been transferred to the Treasury, a pardon conveys no right to a refund, nor does the person pardoned have a right to reacquire property or the equivalent in cash from a legitimate purchaser of his seized assets or from an informant who was rewarded with cash taken from the pardoned person before he was pardoned.
This is obviously incorrect. Actually pardon means the charges filed has been voided, hence anything happening afterwards has had no merits and court decisions made are now rendered moot. For example, Roger Stone was charged and found guilty of multiple crimes and Trump pardoned him; he still brandish guns and was "proudly voting Trump" in 2024 in state of Florida. Getting pardon is literally like it never happened in the first place.
The pardon can restore certain rights in some cases, I'm not entirely familiar with the Stone shenanigans, but knowing the parties involved I can't assume that Stone was legally entitled to do what he did after the pardon, and maybe he was.
That said, the recovery of assets after transfer to Treasury is settled law. [1]
> More broadly, the Court ruled in several cases during this period that pardons entitled their recipients to recover property forfeited or seized on the basis of the underlying offenses, so long as vested third-party rights would not be affected and money had not already been paid into the Treasury (except as authorized by statute).
Was covered in Osborne v. United States, Knote v. United States, In re: Armstrong's Foundry, Cent. R.R. v. Bosworth and Jenkins v. Collard
Subsequent cases make it clear that the offense is not in fact "gone."
> ... the Court in Burdick stated that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it."
> ... then, in Carlesi v. New York, the Court determined that a pardoned offense could still be considered “as a circumstance of aggravation” under a state habitual-offender law, reflecting that although a pardon may obviate the punishment for a federal crime, it does not erase the facts associated with the crime or preclude all collateral effects arising from those facts.
The court holds that it is not in fact as if it never happened.
No, because he was never found guilty of anything, or charged with anything. Pardons before a conviction are somewhat different than pardons after a conviction in that the state never established the facts. There's also a difference between blanket pardons and specific pardons.
As I referenced in a peer reply.
> “[A pardon] carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it."
I am not sure of the legality around his possessions but they are long gone. Even the ones stolen by FBI officers during the course of the investigation.
"Two former federal agents have been charged with wire fraud, money laundering and related offenses for stealing digital currency during their investigation of the Silk Road ..."
I'm more than happy to have the discussion with you but I have no requirement to provide all of the information that is widely available in the public domain.
Civil asset forfeiture should not be considered constitutional, and some day a test case will make it to the SCOTUS. As for this case though... the pardon does not make Ulbritch innocent! On the contrary, accepting the pardon implies guilt. So the pardon need not and might not extend to forfeitures. Though it's also possible that the presidential pardon could extend to the forfeitures, but I suspect that's a constitutional grey area.
Cases have made it to the Supreme Court --- recently! --- and it held up just fine. This is another message board fixation. I'm sure it's abused all over the place. It wasn't in this case.
What part of this makes you thing CAF is on shaky constitutional ground? This is a CAF case with reach-y fact patterns for the government and they won it handily. We didn't even get close to the question of whether CAF is itself constitutional; the court simply presumed it.
This was about the timing of a hearing about forfeiture, not about whether forfeiture is ok. Though I've not read this case yet, but now that I'm aware of it I'm keen to read it. I'll comment again later.
“A pardon is an expression of the president's forgiveness and ordinarily is granted in recognition of the applicant's acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence. It does not signify innocence.”
Pardons are forgiveness. They don’t roll back the clock, although the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that acceptance of a pardon is not an assumption of guilt.
Was acceptance of a pardon an "assumption" by the court? Is it not "admission* of guilt", which I believe itself was never the case as this was based on a judge's aside that people didn't accept pardons because it was *percieved* as "an admission of guilt", i.e. the "percieved" part was not actually articulated in court but rather the judge was completing a thought before it was fully articulated.
What I find interesting is that the 5th amendment no longer applies after a pardon. The pardoned can no longer claim that protection for the crime he was convicted of.
My apologies I made a mistake. The Burdick SCOTUS case from 1915 said “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it”
In 2021, an appeals court opined that: “not every acceptance of a pardon constitutes a confession of guilt.”
I thought the 2021 case was a Supreme Court case, and I was incorrect. I think in the public eye the pardon is viewed differently based on however the story is told.
That would arguably create some of the worst perverse incentives, as far as financial crimes go.
Any two-bit governor could team up with some criminal, and make enough money to be set up for life against a pardon. Even worse if it's a president, as they could likely get off scot-free.
Trump could literally scam everyone and everyone, step down, receive a pardon from the VP, and happy days.
That’s exactly what it’s doing. As long as you misbehave in Washington DC or commit a crime not chargeable in a state or too complex to prosecute, you’re good.
For example, you could defraud suckers into buying a pump and dump memecoin. Elon has repeatedly demonstrated that nobody will prosecute, and POTUS is above the law for as long as he decides to stay in office.
Until now I oddly never questioned how any government could seize someone's bitcoin and how a government keeps the private keys of their crypto wallets secure.
a lot of known best practices were not followed in 2013.
Every advancement in crypto was done after the government made a move. And all subsequent moves netted the government less.
Now it takes more agencies to seize darknet markets, and most merchants and consumers get their money back because it was a multisignature transaction and the server stored nothing. Even domains have been seized back from the government.
The crypto space calls it "antifragility", as in the idea - and now history - that the asset class and infrastructure improves under pressure.
I was referring to hot and cold wallet practices, methods for unlinking transaction activity from your KYC’d funds, and the immaturity of multi-signature at the time
I suspect there'll be a lot of people very carefully watching for transactions from wallets with some sort of links to Silk Road that have been dormant for 12 years or so.
In 2021, Ulbricht's prosecutors and defense agreed that Ulbricht would relinquish any ownership of a newly discovered fund of 50,676 Bitcoin (worth nearly $5.35 billion in 2025) seized from a hacker in November 2021.[78] The Bitcoin had been stolen from Silk Road in 2013 and Ulbricht had been unsuccessful in getting them back. The U.S. government traced and seized the stolen Bitcoin. Ulbricht and the government agreed the fund would be used to pay off Ulbricht's $183 million debt in his criminal case, while the Department of Justice would take custody of the Bitcoin.[79][80]
Bingo. US always has been about commerce and money. It wouldn’t shock me if Ross has at least a few million hidden in some “lost wallet” printed out in a vault some where. He was smart enough to know he would get caught one day.
It's unlikely he has a hidden stash that is truly hidden. Back then the government wasn't all over the blockchain (compared to today) and obfuscation was not like what is available today.
So even if he does have a stash, it is likely marked, and he will get a knock on the door real fast if it starts moving.
I'm no blockchain forensics...icist, but coins were moved from let's say one main Silk Road wallet to many other people's wallets legitimately, or as legit as a illicit drug transaction can be. Silk Road wallet A transfers coins to rando person's wallet B. Also, wallet A occasionally transfers to wallet F which he owns. Who's to say which wallets he controls?
One of the possible ways Ulbricht got caught was a single Google Captcha that showed his IP address (San Francisco, go figure). So he covered his tracks pretty well.
I’m not suggesting that. I’m trying to understand what benefit you believe Trump received out of this whole scenario, and specifically how the handling of the bitcoin played a role.
Because in absence of this there was zero benefit to anyone with any power to make it happen. Getting clear $5bln without any legal objections is a clear benefit to many parties involved. I'm sure many people close to it have many ideas how to skim some off the top for themselves.
I’m all for the freeing him of his crimes when it comes to his crypto anarchic philosophy. But I find it hard to pardon someone for contract killing essentially. Also I’m not an apologist for the FBIs handling of this case either.
The charge was dropped, but the court did hold a hearing on it when deciding on sentencing. They heard the evidence for and against and ruled by a preponderance of the evidence that he did in fact do it.
Separate courts. He was indicted and tried for all the non-murder stuff in a New York federal court. He was indicted separately in a Maryland federal court on a murder-for-hire charge.
The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. He appealed, and the Second Circuit upheld the sentence.
The prosecutors in Maryland then dropped the murder-for-hire charge because there was no point. They said this would allow them to direct their resources to other other cases where justice had not yet been served.
Ironically, he was only pardoned for drug related crimes, so he could still be charged with murder related ones if they were not dropped with prejudice (i didn't look)
This is all AFAIK, they haven't released the text broadly yet, but his lawyers/etc say he was pardoned for crimes related to drugs.
Even what people call a 'full and unconditional' pardon is usually targeted at something specific, not like "a pardon for anything you may have ever done, anywhere, anytime' which people seem to think it means sometimes.
It's more of a legal term of art to describe pardons that erase convictions, restore rights, etc.
Rather than clemency which, say, commutes your sentence but leaves your conviction intact.
One issue with any potential trial for murder-for-hire is that the allegation as presented in the Maryland indictment has two problematic witnesses: DEA agent Carl Force who acted as the hitman, now in prison for embezzling cryptocurrency from the Silk Road case, and Curtis Green, the would-be victim in this case, who has previously insisted that Ulbricht was innocent of plotting his murder (and was also recently imprisoned for cocaine distribution last year, although I don't think that would be too relevant). Maybe the other allegations might have more meat on the bone, but they didn't make it on to any indictment.
The judge wrote at sentencing the murder for hire 'counted' as an element of the criminal enterprise. So if he was pardoned for his crimes that includes the murder for hire per the judgement of his case.
So depending on the pardon text and interpretation, he may or may not be chargeable with this statute still federally.
I agree this has zero effect on charging him at the state level, and most states do not have statute of limitations on these types of crimes (or they are very long)
> so he could still be charged with murder related ones if they were not dropped with prejudice
They were dismissed with prejudice.
> “We are pleased that the prosecutors in the District of Maryland, after almost five years, have dismissed their indictment against Ross. Holding this over Ross’ head, without taking it to trial where he could defend himself, has been very damaging to Ross and his case, especially because it contained the only charge of murder-for-hire. Of course, this charge was never proven or convicted, but was very effective in smearing Ross’s reputation and hurting him in the legal process”.
> She said, “We had some good news recently. The indictment and superseding indictment against Ross in the District of Maryland were dismissed ‘with prejudice,’ meaning they can never be re-filed. This is especially good because those indictments contained the only charge ever made that Ross engaged in murder-for-hire. This was a serious allegation that Ross denies. It was never prosecuted or ruled on by a jury but was trumpeted by the government and the media as if it were proven fact”.
> Following his arrest in 2013, prosecutors also alleged that he planned murder-for-hire although, curiously, he was never charged or prosecuted for it at trial (and the allegations were dismissed with prejudice by a U.S. District Judge in 2018).
> The allegations were never charged at trial, never proven, never submitted to, or ruled on by, a jury, and eventually dismissed with prejudice. Ross consistently denied the allegations (which relied on anonymous online chats never proven to have been authored by him) and those who know him never believed them. The only alleged victim ever identified, Curtis Green, is a fervent supporter of Ross’s clemency.
Most recent pardons have been announced in documents labeled "Executive Grant of Clemency", so I don't think "clemency" and "pardons" are as distinct as you're saying.
And while I know you said "usually", I can't help but note that Hunter Biden was pardoned for any federal thing he may have done, anywhere, anytime in the last 10 years. Some of the last-minute pardons were pretty broad as well.
Fascinating. It is news to me that a federal court can consider the evidence for crimes not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal sentencing. Learn something new every day.
Since he was sentenced federally, he'd be under the federal sentencing guidelines, but I imagine those are pretty harsh around the money laundering and drug trafficking (since they're tuned to provide a hammer to wield against mostly narco-enterprises). I suppose the additional preponderance of evidence gave the judge justification to push the sentence to the maximum allowed in the category?
It’s extremely common in for example diversion cases and others, where the defendant has to stipulate that they are agreeable to things being presented as in charging documents and evaluated based on preponderance by a court, not by a jury and not subject to principles of reasonable doubt.
> The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole.
How is that not a massive violation of due process? Imagine you are at trial for something and get convicted. Then during the sentencing, some other unrelated case's evidence gets used by the Judge which was never introduced during trial and defendant never had any opportunity to defend or cross-examine. Judge uses that to sentence you to 2+ life sentences. After that, the other unrelated case gets dismissed WITH prejudice. Huh??? So the evidence which got used to sentence you was never ever cross-examined or tested in court. "preponderance of the evidence" is not what's used in criminal trials but just because it was introduced in sentencing, it's somehow okay?
Though an article by CBS (transcript is an interview) has this:
“THE HUNT FOR DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS
In 2011 there was a new bad guy in cyberspace behind the website Silk Road. He oversaw more than $200 million in illegal transactions on the dark web, involving the sale of drugs, weapons and illicit services such as computer hacking. Even murders for hire were discussed on the site.”
“Milan Patel: We saw murder-for-hire postings, hacking-for-hire postings, which was, "hey, pay me two bitcoin, and I'll hack into your ex-wife or ex-husband's email account." … and I suspect people were using it because it made a lot of sense. It was totally anonymous. And you could never trace it back to the person who asked for it.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ross-ulbricht-dread-pirate-...
It stands to reason that given criminals buying and selling drugs online that the adjacent work of hacking or even murder for hire would be sought or facilitated given the fact that folks on the platform thought they were anonymous as they were transacting in bitcoin.
So someone should call the FBIs bluff and given this pardon either Ross himself or one of you — his fans — could go spin up a server and restart silk road. Trump’s basically saying it’s legal. As he’s got the power to enforce or not enforce the laws this pardon basically is saying start selling drugs online. Let your libertarian freak flag fly.
This. Evidence that isn't strong enough to criminally convict can be used for other purposes (e.g. sentencing, knowledge/intent, civil forfeiture, civil damages etc).
(see OJ Simpson paying money damages for a crime he was acquitted of)
Wonder if he can be charged with that now? Was there anything in the pardon related to this? AFAIK there is no time limit on bringing charges related to murder?
According to Wikipedia[1], he was convicted of charges related to hacking, narcotics, money laundering, and more.
But during the trial, evidence was presented that he made murder-for-hire payments, the court found that he did by a preponderance of evidence, and the court took this into account when sentencing him.
So, he wasn't convicted of it, but it is part of the reason he was sent to jail for a very long time.
It was not entrapment. There is mention of undercover purchases and a controlled delivery by law enforcement, but these are not entrapment. Most of the evidence came from his own laptop.
It was entrapment because federal agents posing as crime bosses were threatening Ross that if he didn't hire the hitman there would be serious consequences. He was manipulated and forced into the position he was in.
This is not necessarily true. In Burdick v. United States it does say "an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it" but there is debate about whether it is binding of not.
Apparently, there is something in Lorance v. Commandant, U.S. Disciplinary Barracks that indicates that accepting a pardon does not imply guilt, but I am not very knowledge on that.
Yes the FBI had root or admin access to the Silk Road system and could have very easily changed or otherwise affected logs/record IDs that the technical case rested on. Two of the FBI agents on the case were later punished for corruption on the case.
The judge factored it into the sentencing, though. He likely did actually try to hire a contract killer - twice. In both cases he sincerely believed the murders were successfully committed, and he sent a lot of money to the assassins after being sent (doctored) "proof" of their killings.
I think it's fair to say judges shouldn't factor non-charged allegations into sentencing, but I think he's at least morally culpable, here, and should at the very least be expected to now show public contrition for repeatedly trying to murder people drug kingpin-style.
I doubt he will ever admit it, but now that he's free I still would like it. I don't care about people enabling drug sales but I do care about people with a God complex who feel entitled to end the lives of those they oppose (in one case because he thought someone stole from him, and another because he thought they would dox him).
A judge and system who would give him 2 life sentences for this should not be trusted when he also factored in things which he wasn't charged and convicted of.
It is common that several outcomes are subject - with the defendants specific agreement - to be evaluated by a court on preponderance, not a jury. This was not judicial malpractice.
I am sorry but there's no way giving him more than 2 life sentences has any justification whatsoever. Even the people who actually sold drugs on his site got out in 2 years. And the person who hired someone for hitman also only got 6 years. This is exactly the type of case where pardon makes 100% sense.
> Even the people who actually sold drugs on his site got out in 2 years.
And Ross made millions from those people selling drugs on his site. Quite possibly more than any person selling drugs on his site.
And attempted to hire hitmen to prevent anyone stopping it. Not even as a potential "crime of passion", but solely to protect his money train.
And there's this whole false narrative of "youthful indiscretions". He didn't start building the site til he was 28 and was mostly running it in his early 30s.
What would give you a hint that attempted murder conviction would prevent his pardon? Trump pardoned over a thousand attempted murdered already this week.
It might be visible. Just not a large amount from one account to another. Thats not how laundering works and definitely not how trades work that are supposed to go unnoticed.
Trump promised to do this at the Libertarian Party convention. This case is very important to the libertarian crowd. He is a martyr for many of their ideals. After Trump was so well received at the convention the LP, recently taken over by the right faction of the party, put forth a candidate specifically chosen to not get votes so that members would vote for Trump. Trump seems to be a man of his word.
It seems like the voters that were being referred to value restoring rights. How can something immediately achievable be balanced with "the economy", a thing so broad and deeply systemic?
It isn't clear from your original statement that those voters aren't from Pennsylvania. I interpret your statement as discounting the weight of their vote on actions they care about. There are many perspectives, and the values of those who did vote in that direction are being addressed in some way.
wow, not even god could eliminate sin but apparently the republicans can?
how do you envision that being enforced? death penalty for any sin? You've never made a sin yourself? If so how could you live in sin-free city? sounds sick and dystopian.
anyway, the point i wanted to make was that when you vote for somebody, you are the one giving that person the authority to take actions on your behalf. if you voted for T, you shouldn't complain about anything he does, because he can only do so because of your vote. learn to be wary of politicians, they treat you right during the dates (election) but after the wedding the true person comes out.
We're talking about Libertarians and not Republicans, atleast that is what the parent comment was referring to. I don't know what Republicans what or believe vs what they say. The action to pardon directly addresses the Libertarian ideals.
The people in Pennsylvania knew they were voting for an out-of-control, unpredictable, felonious septuagenarian with fascist tendencies. Complaining now that he is all of those things before he is someone who may or may not do other good things, is just silly. Either they knew, or they've been had.
He promised to pardon the rioters during the election and it didn't hurt him. I think he decided it wouldn't hurt him (and Trump cares bout that first) and if he thought about the midterms ... maybe won't hurt then either.
Congress isn't directly involved in any of this anyway.
Congress is involved. They have to prove they can govern. It's hard to be the party of "law and order" if you need only to kiss the ring for your release.
October of 2001 they were up to 80% approval. Left to their own devices by Aug 2002 they were below 50%.
There's an argument to be made that congress doesn't really represent the people at large. Some people go on to make the argument that through gerrymandering politicians choose who's elected, and not the people.
The LP candidate was nominated due to some fluke/shenanigans/dealings between candidates. Based on the right-leaning demographics you would not expect him to win. It just happened to work out perfectly to get the people who would never vote for him anyway to vote for Trump. (Meanwhile the chairwoman encouraged Biden supporters to vote for the LP candidate).
Also, Trump actually got a mixed reception at the convention at best.
You may not like Trump but I remember he fulfilled or attempted to fulfill a lot of his campaign promises back in 2016 as well. Biden, the career politician, talked a lot about many things before election and then forgot about them after he was elected. For example, universal health care. Obama promised to enshrine a woman's right to abortion as law, and then when he had the House and Senate after he was elected, he said "it's not a priority for me." Then we lost Roe V Wade.
That's a really low bar with that bit added. "I didn't say it would be easy" was his line about his token tariffs the first term ... then he never tried again for the rest of that term.
Trump did just about what every president does - makes promises and then does some of them, tries to some others (successful unless thwarted by Congress), and ignores others.
Obama didn't have the votes in the Senate (to overcome the filibuster, also not as many Dems congressmen supported it as you might think). Neither did Clinton (people thought it would happen then)
Let's go through Trump's campaign promises: Infrastructure, Border wall, increased US manufacturing, repealing ACA, "drain the swamp". He achieved zero of those.
Biden in contrast followed up on his campaign promises: Infrastructure, increased US manufacturing, expanding ACA plus lowering costs. Among others.
Biden delivered on the IRA and climate change bill.
Trump promised to "drain the swamp" and filled it instead. I can't think of any major campaign promise that he fulfilled - he didn't even build the wall (probably his main promise).
I can't think of any major campaign promise that he fulfilled
Renegotiate NAFTA
Lower Taxes
Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem
Nominate to the Supreme Court from the list he shared
Kill TPP
No Social Security Cuts
Take No Salary
Where he failed, it generally wasn't for trying, but because he was getting blocked by Congress, the courts, and the general bureaucracy. You only have to look at the last 48 hours to see a better prepared Trump committed to his promises.
I'm not sure "No Social Security Cuts" should count, because (1) he did try to cut it in his proposed 2020 budget, (2) he did nothing to try to address the shortfall that is expected in the social security trust fund around 2033, and (3) he said that if he was reelected in 2020 he would get rid of the payroll tax, which would have moved the depletion of the trust fund up to around 2026.
This is 100% true. I am posting from an anon account (obviously), but I was heavily involved in this. I worked with members of the party to push part of their strategy - mainly the coalition with trump and an effort to get vivek and elon involved. We spoke about this in 2023. I didn't care about Ross, had my own motivations, but I wrote some of their playback with AI and it worked. I didn't know about certain things (like the losing candidate for example). I wrote strategy that seems to have made its way all the way to Trump's team.
"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump said in his post online on Tuesday evening. "He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
They seem to be pandering to the more libertarian tech community. This guy appeals to that and to the more radical maga types who want a revolution. I’m sure we’ll see more.
The Biden DOJs bungling of the insurrection, turning a jail into a martyrs club, slow rolling prosecutions, etc is ultimately worse than the insurrection for democracy.
> The Biden DOJs bungling of the insurrection, turning a jail into a martyrs club, slow rolling prosecutions, etc is ultimately worse than the insurrection for democracy.
I'd argue promoting that narrative was ultimately worse than the insurrection for democracy.
Whether or not he was the sole or even primary reason, he knew about it beforehand as seen by his tweet last night saying it was coming soon. Love him or hate him, it's a bit concerning that he has that level of access IMO.
The clips of him rolling his eyes and head around in boredom at the inauguration definitely looked like he was suffering from some kind of withdrawal symptoms.
He promised international canvassers that we'd have peace in Ukraine on his first day in office. Whatever he arranged with druggie libertarians is chopped liver from a policy perspective. On the international stage it's the dictionary definition of a nothingburger.
as somebody with family members who are "republicans in idaho" they mostly won’t care. many if not most republican idahoans think you should be able to own machine guns and do whatever you want without hurting others.
the mormon ones would be the most likely that would object, but even plenty of the republican/libertarian mormons i know are happy to have the massive government overreach corrected.
Well even if he bet on going that route he wouldn't have to be "elected", and my last line applies none the less, it didn't hurt him during an actual election.
Yes. Except, "neutralize?" I don't know why the federal government would bother with the pretense of a 22nd Amendment when they demonstrably do not care in the slightest about the 14th or most of the Bill of Rights.
What do you mean? Trump just pardoned or commuted pretty much all of the J6 crowd. One guy convicted of crimes that don't require proving violence beyond a reasonable doubt is pretty tame in comparison. He is one of thousands.
Trump know the Jan 6 rioters and supported them. Pardoning is important to justify his claim that nobody did anything wrong as that the election was "stolen by the Dems".
I can't imagine he would have known Ross Ulbricht's case.
I'm just shocked it was a full pardon instead of a commutation or something. I don't think the US is gaining a ton from keeping him locked up but he still did run an organization he knew was used for selling drugs and other illegal things and a full pardon for that seems weird. I feel like I mainly heard people talking about commuting his sentence
He built a website. He didn't dictate how people used it. That was the point. He was charged as a drug kingpin with mobster era consequences. His sentence didn't fit whatever crimes he did or didn't commit.
If someone facilitated a transaction of goods that were illegal between two people and received a cut of the sale, do you think they deserve some culpability?
Trump killed Net Neutrality during his first term and you think he would use it to justify the actions of someone running an internet black market that trafficked in drugs, prostitution and murder?
The difference between Obama’s ideal Section 230 and Trump’s is a good point. Even though the President doesn’t enact legislation, Trump issued a formal paper calling for changes to Section 230. Looks to me like DPR was more innocent under Obama.
No one said anything about voting or benefits? That's an entire different discussion.
It's just that, in layman's terms, a pardon means "you did nothing wrong", whereas a commutation means "you did something wrong but were sentenced too harshly". As far as I know that's also what it more or less means legally (with some nuance).
I'm absolutely not a fan of "tough on crime" sentencing, but he absolutely did do something wrong, even if we ignore the contended "murder for hire" claims he should have been sent to prison for a number of years (personally, I'd say about 5-10 years). This is also by Ulbricht's own admission by the way.
What do you mean "lightly?" He ran an illegal drug market and tried to assassinate a competitor. We gave him the punishment that society has determined one should receive for this. Revoking his punishment is "light."
The judge issued the punishment at their sole discretion. The legislature sets the laws often without any input from the constituency.
Meanwhile a sizable campaign has materialized around this case and many people do feel he has done enough time and should be free without any restrictions
Which is why "jury nullification" still exists. Just because a law exists does not mean the public good is automatically improved by blithely enforcing it with zero tolerance.
Hence why, if DPR was going to get off somehow, a sentence commutation would have been better rather than an unconditional pardon. The latter implies he did absolutely nothing wrong, which hilariously runs counter to Trump's supposed tough on drugs and crime shtick he has.
Someone might have already pointed it out but for me, the sentence of RA is not the main issue, the issue is allowing a single person to stamp through an entire legal system and undermine all of the time and money that is invested in it, even if that person is a president.
I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve but if it is used more than a few times by a President, it makes a mockery of it and it should be removed as a power. How can a President ever decide that the entire legal process is flawed and their opinion is right? If the sentence was too long then change the sentencing guidelines.
Why is it not a bad idea? Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?
Taken to the extreme, we could have an impartial legal system putting in prison criminals from an even mix of society, and then the president pardoning everyone from the majority group, leaving in prison only the minorities.
"Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?"
And how would you call a justice system, so complicated and convulted and therefore expensive that poor people (from minorities) don't really stand a chance to get their justice there?
Obviously Ross was not in that group, but I see presidential pardon as a potential tool to counter the flaws of the justice system.
And till those steps are implemented, don't you think you would enjoy it, if the next president would pardon Snowden, or your personal favorite case of unjustice?
As if the laws and justice of a nation are a questions of personal favorites! Maybe I have read too much enlightenment philosophers, but I happen to think in terms of general principles in this case.
This might be a good first step, too. Read more books from a time when people were struggling with arbitrary justice.
So you don't have them. That's ok. And thank you, but I did read a lot of books. History, politically, .. I just apparently came to different conclusions, but it is ok for me to not take this deeper here.
In a similar situation a majority could simply make it illegal to belong to the minority group. And without a way to pardon them the damage would be permanent.
You want a majority to be able to decide who gets punished and who goes free, and even the best designed laws will have unforseen consequences. If the majority is 'evil', well there's just not all that much that can be done in a democracy. Yes it would be better to live in a dictatorship of the most virtuous person in existence, but if you ever figure out how to do that please let me know.
Which is exactly what we do have: a president pardoning everyone from the majority political group. It's not consolation that the majority/minority groups are roughly equal.
Personally, I view the pardon as a form of veto power on the judiciary. Why is it reasonably that a president can veto controls, but not the judiciary?
All of the presidents pardon tons of people unpalatable to the other side of the political spectrum. They usually just save it for the end of their term so it doesn’t cause too much noise.
While it is true that there is always controversy, this does not mean that there is equivalency.
Yes, every president has pardons that are arguable (Biden pardoning his son, for example). And anyone pardoned has been found guilty of a crime, by definition. But not all crimes are equal.
Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal.
Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) is not the same thing as pardoning the head of the worlds biggest guns and drugs marketplace. Even if he did not kill anyone himself (it was proven, just to a lesser extent, but fine). Those drugs and guns most definitely did kill people.
> Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal.
Because you’re political view of it is indeed that they were having an insurrection. To the right they were just having a protest that got violent but not anymore violent than any of the others throughout the country that year.
> Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did)
You mean he pardoned a bunch of drug dealers who will now go back selling drugs to children?
Do you see the issue here? The justice system is to try to cut through the bias and selectively choosing which part of the justice outcomes to ignore is going to be extremely political.
Anything clearly obvious is usually resolved by higher courts so the pardons are completely for when the president just decides “fuck the law in this particular way”.
Sure. It is true that violence and unrest is something that happens more often. And not everyone that day came to storm the senate.
But, as usual, this is a case of false equivalency.
Can we agree that when violence results in penetration of the national seat of power, during the transfer of power, that changes from "civil unrest" to "insurrection"?
This is like saying "but your honor, fights happen all the time", when trying to defend yourself after robbing a bank.
I won't even go into the fact that there is ample evidence that it did not "just got violent". Even if not everyone came there to storm the senate, there is ample videographic proof of people arriving geared up and organized.
Now. Regarding those "bunch of drug dealers". In fact, Biden commuted the sentence of 1500 non-violent offenders so that their punishment was in line with the punishment they would receive today. He pardoned 49 people that mostly have already purged their sentence and today are productive members of society (and there were being kept back by their record)
Really. Spend two minutes reading through the list of pardons, and after reading about the lives of these people, then tell me if you still think those people will sell drugs to children.
Honest question/thought experiment: if we only elected people who are qualified for their job (assume we can measure competence at least in some dimensions like we do for a myriad of other professions before we allow people to work in them) and if the election process was set up in a way where when casting your ballot you have to take a multiple choice quiz which tests for basic knowledge on what you will vote for and the country you’re in (as in “what is the household budget roughly, is this candidate in favour or against x, did the crime rate increase or decrease nominally” take these as rough examples of what I mean), to ensure that the people who vote for something have some clue what they are voting for and the broader context it’s embedded in (we require a license to drive a car, this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not? I would assume it would make democracies significantly better than they are now. Imagine going to a doctors office to find out your doctor is a Plummer and he was voted into this job and that the people working for him and handling your prescription is a random assortment of people he seems to like.
I'm sure there are benefits and that might it help overall if implemented here and now in our current America with our current levels of public access to civics and career education (MAYBE.) However, this change would be the exact opposite or a total repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which good people died for. At a meta level, I trust those who died for voting rights to care more and know more about the correct answer to your question than I do, and I guess I would recommend to look back at historic speeches from MLK and other leaders to understand their full reasoning about why literacy tests were either irredeemable or undesirable, and their reasons for thinking so.
If we assume that both you and MLK were right, but that different policies better suit different conditions, then your proposal could maximize meritocratic effectiveness in an already-very-fair society, whereas MLK's way (the Voting Rights Act) provides a better minimum standard of human rights (similar to 1st and 2nd Amendment protections for people).
Thanks for pointing me to that. One thing that stands out about that argument though is that voting is already discriminatory, right? Permanent residents and minors are not allowed to vote (the latter because we take age as a proxy of competency, no?), despite facing the consequences of elections just as anyone else does. I do understand that a risk for misuse absolutely exists, but at the same time it looks like populism, social media abuse, smear campaigns, science denial and plain old corruption in sheep's clothing are rampant enough that we can agree that many many votes are cast by misled people, who would have made another choice if they really understood what they voted for. I guess it would boil down to the difficult question of which harm is greater.
I've had this thought before and my tentative conclusion is "no". It boils down to the purpose of democracy which is NOT to produce the best government but to make people feel ok about having a government at all.
The Ancient Greek experiments with democracy seem to culminate in a system that “gives you the government you deserve”. But those citizens also faced dire consequences for causing any harm to society—-that’s an important characteristic we’ve lost.
"this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not?"
The idea has been around for a bit and I call it interesting, but also with huge potential of misuse.
Change the test slightly, so your target audience will yield better results, giving you a better result.
Either way, as long as climate change and darwinism are controversial topics, I see it hard to implement in a meaningful way.
While I can see this preventing many of the current issues, I can't help but wonder who will serve the interests of the people that are not allowed to vote.
Would it be a better system if the not-allowed group is totally dependent on the people that are allowed to vote?
I see. In a sense we are already doing that. Minors can not vote (and if I am correct the reasoning is that they don't have the competency to cast a proper vote) and even foreign permanent residents can't either, even though the outcome of the elections totally influences their lives. In a sense these not-allowed groups are already totally dependent on the people that are allowed to vote.
I guess my argument boils down to: We already discriminate. My thoughts are that the way we do it is not optimal.
Assuming a sufficiently functional congress[0], why not require that pardons go through congress as well rather than be unilateral presidential actions?
Yep. The problem is the system of elections itself. Biden and Obama also issued a lot of dubious pardons and commutations. The incentives of elections naturally favor short-termism and populism. Instead of having the people vote on candidates, we should randomly select citizens to an elector jury, which would carefully research and deliberate on the candidates before choosing.
> I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve
That reminds me of the early 2000s, where there were a lot of US debates around around terrorism and "harsh interrogations" i.e. torture.
A certain bloc of politicians and commentators kept bringing up a hypothetical scenario where there was a nuclear bomb counting down, and some guy wouldn't admit where it was hidden in a major city. My favorite response to that involved presidential pardons, something along the lines of:
1. "So what? If everything you say is true, then the authorities would simply torture the guy and seek a pardon afterwards. We already have an exceptional mechanism for those exceptional situations, meaning that's not a reason to change it."
2. "Conversely, any interrogator who isn't confident of a pardon is on who does not believe it's at ticking-bomb situation, meaning they cannot justify torturing someone anyway, they just want to do it to make their job marginally easier. That's bad, so it should stay illegal."
It's part of the separation of powers and the system of checks & balances against powers of branches of government.
Congress makes laws and impeaches presidents, courts judge constitutionality of laws and try cases of treason and presidents appoint judges and grant pardons.
You can't have impeachment without pardon, otherwise, there wouldn't be a check against judicial tyranny.
It's a system of checks and balances. The Presidential pardon power is specifically a check on the power of the Federal judiciary.
Regimes have toppled in response to popular uprising against imprisonments perceived as unjust. Having a system of governance without a way to rectify that seems unwise to me.
The check on Presidential authority, in turn, is impeachment. It's not a perfect system by any means, but in my estimation it's a good one.
They literally gave the power of pardons so that one person could right wrongs. Previously, it was used a lot more than it is now. There are lots of people in prison on unfair sentences which are technically legal but still wrong. Sentencing guidelines are just guidelines.
Legal system is very often at odds with public perception of justice, changing the law is slow and does shit for people currently in jail - having veto power for elected officials is a good safety mechanism and helps perception of justice.
In the context of a deeply vindictive successor surrounded, it seems like the entirely rational choice to make.
It's not one that should be needed or acceptable, and had his successor been someone who seemed to respect law and order I'd have agreed with you, but in the present circumstances it'd seem crazy not to.
Because of very legitimate threats of politically motivated prosecution against them. Hell, his son was was prosecuted and dragged through the mud publicly, including in fucking Congress, for run of the mill regular crimes. Why was there such a treatment for a regular criminal?
Come on, that's such a cop out. Like even with an extremely partisan lens, it's a very very weak argument. Like yes, presidents and their family will be targets of more scrutiny (as you said, for political reasons). That's normal. What's not normal is pardoning your family to avoid said scrutiny.
Trump was also the target of "politically motivated judicial scrutiny" (and rightfully so!) So I guess he would be justified in pardoning himself and his entire family, right?
I'm not American and even I can tell you that this is a terrible attempt at false equivalence.
Trump was president and commited a ton of crimes while being one, and a ton of others before and after. He was rightfully prosecuted, but unfortunately escaped any real consequences. His trials were mediatised and saw big attention form politicians because he was a former president, who was impeached being sued for a ton of different criminal activities, including multiple directly related to his job (the top job in the US). His trials were directly relevant to the wider public and political establishment, and should have prevented him from ever running again for even a school board.
Biden's son is a nobody. No high positions in government, no power, no shady deals getting billions from Saudis or whatever. Run of the mill small time criminal who got paraded through Congress simply because his father was president.
It's really absurd to try to compare the two, or claim that the myriad of trials against Trump were "politically motivated". The man is a fucking convicted criminal, rapist, absurd creep, tax cheat, stole from a children's cancer charity, plan and simple and obvious for anyone. And uet he's back at the top job, publicly promising vengeance to all those who wronged him. He directly and publicly threatened Zuckerberg and others.
It's really absurd trying to compare the two, and I refuse to believe this can be done in good faith.
We have to. Short of arguing on first-principles, agreeing on them, and then using those principles to evaluate everything done on both sides, this is one of the top mechanisms we have to bring a spotlight to the contradictory mess we have on our hands.
Personally, I blame lawyers and prosecutors. A law should be simple, easy to evaluate if it was broken, and always prosecuted. And when it comes to punishments, they should be explicit and without the possibility of being altered.
We've gotten too complacent with making all these arbitrary rules, then fiddling with their non-enforcement and severity by virtue of reduced sentences.
Actually in matters of law (which this definitely is), "whataboutism" is just judicial or executive precedent.
This is like crying about whataboutism when a judge cites judicial precedent to justify a sentence. Good luck with that, it might work as a "nuh-uh" in online discussions but in real life, precedent does actually matter.
I understand what a precedent is in law and in life :) It seems like an illogical position to hold here.
Biden did bad pardons, now Trump has no other course (eg fix the system), but to do bad pardons as well? Except when Trump does it it is not bad because Biden did it first?
Maybe the legal system shouldn't have been used to go after individuals based on political reasons? Wouldn't that be a good start? Fed always win, so send Fed after someone and they will be in jail soon. It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do, this is sadly the way it's done now.
1500 in jail for protesting in DC? Really, less than that in jail after months BLM riots afaik. Sure, jail a few bad boys, but 1500? No way.
Throw a rock at people in power and go jail. Rape and murder is fine, no threat to DC.
The number of people is irrelevant. What is relevant is what each one did. If they did something illegal that is punished with prison time, they go to prison.
Trying to justify stealing the election, then trying to rewrite history saying the other side broke stuff when they prostested is the laziest sort of whataboutism I've seen on this site.
Trump and his minons tried to undo the results of an election. An election he lost. Lost even while abusing his power as president (see his calls in Ukraine and Georgia as evidence).
Nobody on the left supports looters or rapists. If there is evidence someone committed a crime, prosecute them. Trump is the only person I know that supports rapists (see Epstien and Gaetz). He says if you are loyal to him, you don't have to face the consequences of your actions. That to me is what is most scary.
I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover, during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure he won't do anything like this again.
A pardon is not used when you think the crime occurred but the punishment is too harsh. That's a commutation (which the president also has the power to do). It can replace the punishment with a lighter one or none at all.
A pardon is used when you want to erase the criminal record on top of that.
In his promise Trump said exactly "I will commute the sentence of ... "
I don't know the differences but also from my perspective they don't seem to differ that much. Might as well be that Trump said "yeah and pardon that guy Ulbricht ... " while doing tons of other stuff wielding his new powers like he's doing now and his word was taken exact, given there's little difference
I guess he promised to commute his sentence, then later changed his mind to pardon him:
>I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!
Nobody will undo whatever has been done to him. I don't know all of the specifics but I have spoken on HN here about my incarceration at much much much lower level facilities.
This man was at a USP and at other times other facilities. Those are places where even with the best intentions you are not expected to move in any capacity without serious safety concerns. We're talking "shower with your boots, a spotter and and a shank on you" environment without the slightest joke.
It took a while likely because Ross is non-violent and smart, but eventually he was unable to stay in general population to some capacity. My understanding is he has spent significant time in solitary confinement or PC - effectively the same thing at these facilities, very small single cell rooms with a slot in them and the minimum required 1 hour of "yard time" per day, most of which has been suspended to some degree due to COVID and the slow response.
The end result is this guy for sure has spent months to years in a very small cell, possibly without even seeing the sun. I didn't see the sun "for reals" for 6 months. A keyboard warrior can swoop in here and talk about how they cannot do this or how X time restrictions exist, but the reality is they just need to move you back to your cell on paper for a day and then back in or trick you into signing some kind of paperwork consenting.
My heart goes out to both of them and I am reminded that I was the person that help mined the first 1FREEROSS Bitcoin vanity address to help crowd fund his defense. Lyn never gave up the slightest even during times that were fucking impossible to imagine.
I am curious if this matters for the purposes of the Bitcoin "damages". By today's exchange rates it could be an insane amount of money. If the "crime" is supposed to be wiped clean as if he never did it, then in theory it would mean give him back his property, etc. I don't know the specifics about that or if it would change with respect to clemency or commuting of a sentence.
That's transparently obvious if you read the press release: Trump analogizes his own personal treatment by the Justice Department with that of Ulbricht c.f. "weaponization of the justice system".
Seriously? What a weird suggestion, crypto now has nothing to do with crypto back when he was running Silk road, and there are tons of crypto bros to pick from if the Trump team wanted someone to help run "their crypto shenanigans". I don't think anyone involved in crypto back in 2013 could've seen how much of a mess it would become anyways
He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.
He killed children.
- "During the sentencing hearing, Forrest heard from the father of a 25-year-old Boston man who died of a heroin overdose and the mother of a 16-year-old Australian who took a drug designed to mimic LSD at a post-prom party and then jumped off a balcony to his death. Prosecutors said the two victims were among at least six who died after taking drugs that were bought through Silk Road."
It's squarely within the Overton window to impose extremely harsh sentences for people who sell heroin*. Most (?) Asian countries *execute* people who sell heroin. Trump himself has proposed, multiple times over the years, executing US heroin dealers[1,2]—which underscores the incredible degree of hypocrisy behind this pardon.
*(It's also within some people's Overton windows to contemplate the opposite of this, in a framework of harm minimization. I can't steelman this argument in the specific case of Ulbricht. Is it harm reduction to sell heroin? Is it harm reduction to sell fatal drugs to high-school age kids?)
"He killed children" is a pretty massive leap- he didn't sell heroin, he sold shrooms. Other vendors on the site sold heroin. And there is the matter of personal responsibility to consider- nobody forced those people to take heroin, and if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere. The Sacklers are responsible for far more human misery in that regard, to an almost inconceivable degree, and they never have and never will see the inside of a cell
- "and if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere"
That's very unlikely to be true in the case of the high-school kid who died buying a synthetic drug off the internet. They almost certainly did not have a dealer connection sophisticated enough to sell that. They almost certainly would have lived, if Silk Road were not available to them at that point in their life.
You're advancing an argument about drug markets and personal autonomy in the general case, but it's a very poor fit to the concrete facts in the specific situation we're looking at.
IMO these are circumstances too far removed from Ulbricht to hold him directly responsible. How many people bought drugs from the Silk Road, used them safely and responsibly, and in doing so avoided contact with violent criminals who they'd otherwise have to buy from, potentially saving them from the violence/misery/blackmail/overdoses that so commonly accompanies association with drug dealers IRL?
Though I think this argument is tangential to the point on proportionality- Ross's sentence is an affront to justice when considered in the context of the Sackler's treatment
if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere
"If I don't do it, someone else will" - I suppose this is a convenient excuse that can be applied to anything unsavory, from the little guy selling shrooms at the street corner to nation states making nasty biological and chemical weapons?
Not saying there isn't truth to it, just wondering how as a society we seem to accept that doing unsavory things is a necessity because others are doing it (or they will be doing it soon, so we better be the first)
I say that less to justify Ulbricht's conduct and moreso to hold people responsible for their own actions. "If I don't do it someone else will" is a pretty flimsy moral justification for anything. But accusing someone of murder because they facilitated a transaction between two other parties they never met is a bridge too far, and IMO ignores the responsibility and agency of those parties who willingly participated in the transaction
Plus he didn't even sell the drugs. He created a technology platform that facilitates it. I can think of many other communications platforms that also do this, for example Google, email, Verizon, etc.
So by your logic, a drug kingpin who doesn't actually handle the drug-selling transaction should not be liable for anything, even though the money rolls up to them?
Ross directly profited from the sale of those drugs. So, yes, he was "selling the drugs".
Google and Meta also profit from selling ads to the people who use it to trade drugs. All I'm saying is there's a rough equivalence. Perhaps the Silk Road platform should be banned but he was not a drug dealer himself. Creating a communications platform is not the same thing as being a drug dealer.
He created/operated a platform with the primary purpose of facilitating the sale of drugs. He profited from those transactions. That makes him a drug dealer.
Comparing Meta and Google to Silk Road is a bad faith argument. You might as well compare Silk Road to the phone network at that point.
I’m generally lasseiz-faire when it comes to most drugs, although I do think some drugs like opioids are rather objectively a cancer to society and anybody in that pipeline needs to be punished.
So. Comparisons to Google, Verizon, etc?
While his actions aren’t equivalent to a “direct” old-fashioned drug dealer selling fentanyl, they’re clearly also not equivalent to providers like Google or Verizon.
They provide truly general purpose communications networks. Common carriers. That’s different from a marketplace explicitly designed to facilitate a particular thing like selling drugs.
I mean, you can upload non-porn videos to PornHub, or attempt to met platonic knitting circle buddies on there. But let’s not sit around and pretend the entire operation isn’t designed around the explicit purpose of selling porn.
This. With taking in to account how much criminal exposure Silk Road removed from the whole equation, saying "he killed them" is like saying Elon Musk kills everyone who dies in an FSD accident even if the system is safer than human drivers by average.
> Some of us see a major difference between selling heroin to someone, and building the marketplace from which these victim's freely bought drugs.
Let's say I "build a network" of mules, planes, trucks, trafficking routes, and people who handle the distribution of drugs. I provide all the logistics to make the drugs go from supplier to end user.
So, a marketplace of sorts... in the real world, not on the Internet.
But, I don't actually sell the drugs to the end user on the street corner. That's someone else.
But a cut of each of those sales rolls up to me, and without me, those sales aren't happening (sure they could happen via someone else, but this particular network exists because I built it and I run it)..
I am what is referred to as a "drug lord".
How am I not responsible for heroin getting into the hands of vulnerable addicts?
Pray tell, what is the difference between operating an electronic market where people can buy drugs and operating a physical one (say, a street corner) where people can do the same?
Operating a street corner? You mean like in the capacity of a city municipality, providing sidewalk, road, drainage infrastructure, perhaps some street lighting.
What does it mean to be "operating an electronic market"? Are you under the impression he was physically intermediating these transactions in some way? That the drugs passed through his hands?
> What does it mean to be "operating an electronic market"?
Ask Ross Ulbricht
> Are you under the impression [...] That the drugs passed through his hands?
They never said that, and it doesn't have to for being partially responsible. The Pirate Bay didn't host any copyrighted material, but the founders "were found guilty in the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden for assisting in copyright infringement and were sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine." Hosting the website where the issue is rampant is sufficient; no infringing material (drugs or movies) have to pass through your hands
But I think we might be in agreement here since you said above that Ross had some responsibility. I also don't think it's the same as handing out the drugs yourself
huge difference. People can sell drugs on facebook marketplace but that doesn't mean that Zuckerberg is a drug dealer. The difference is you bear responsibility for what you do.
> People can sell drugs on facebook marketplace but that doesn't mean that Zuckerberg is a drug dealer
In our legal system, they are in fact partially responsible if they don't disallow it and don't act upon reports. I'm not sure there is a difference whether it's physical or digital
How so? Why would an owner of a market with physical dimensions, held every Saturday or whatever, be any more or less responsible for what changes hands there?
if the owner of a market isn't actually dealing drugs, whether the market is physical or electronic, that is different than if the "owner" of a street corner is either dealing himself or actively supervising those who are dealing for him
Isn't scale a difference? How much damage can one guy do from a street corner VS the other guy operating a large marketplace where anyone can buy anything from anywhere?
> Some of us see a major difference between selling heroin to someone, and building the marketplace from which these victim's freely bought drugs.
I kinda do see your point, but I think I reach the opposite conclusion. If you are one person on a street corner it's one thing, if you enable a whole electronic marketplace you have a much larger effect.
Then again we should decide whether it's a bad thing to sell drugs, but if it is I would see him as more culpable than a random street dealer.
Yeah, that’s the part the legal system has a hard time with. We don’t have definitions or suitable penalties for these things
I mean, I’m not sure Pablo Escobar ever sold drugs or murdered anybody with his own hands. Metaphorically though there was a ton of blood on his hands. Charles Manson allegedly never killed anybody himself either. But we generally agree these guys were bad for society.
I’m generally lasseiz-faire about drugs, and I generally put the onus of responsibility on the person choosing to ingest them.
But there are some drugs, like opioids, that kind of transcend that. They cannot reasonably be safely used in a recreational manner, and are objectively a cancer to society.
I don't see the difference between building a marketplace in which people freely buy drugs from you and building a marketplace in which people freely buy drugs from people who aren't you.
> He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.
> He killed children.
Nit: People died, who may not have died, because of his actions but he didn't kill them. Very few people are forced to take drugs.
It's worth noting that darknet sites have at every point in their history provided higher-purity drugs on average than what was available elsewhere[1]. It's hard to say whether or not more people used drugs because of the Silk Road. But without question, many people who purchased drugs on the Silk Road and survived, would have purchased those drugs elsewhere and died from impurities in the Silk Road's absence. I think there's an argument to be made that Ullbricht saved lives by purveying safer drugs.
- "But without question, many people who purchased drugs on the Silk Road and survived, would have purchased those drugs elsewhere and died from impurities in the Silk Road's absence. I think there's an argument to be made that Ullbricht saved lives by purveying safer drugs."
But how's that different from arguing that every crack dealer who doesn't cut their crack product is a utilitarian, net-positive life-saver?
Alice sells pure crack. Bob one street down adds fentanyl for the extra kick. It's a reasonable inference that Alice's clients, deprived of Alice, would switch to Bob and promptly off themselves. Does it therefore follow, that Alice-who-sells-crack is an upstanding, lifesaving even, member of society, who should be left free to sell more crack? If not, then what's the differentiation between Alice-who-sells-crack and Ross Ulbricht—what innovation has that cryptocurrency startup innovated, that makes it it a substantively different moral scenario?
Certainly, no crack dealer has ever, in the history of the US, tried to advance this specific utilitarian argument, which Ulbricht attached himself to (as Judge Forrest pointed out—it's a privileged argument of a privileged person).
> Certainly, no crack dealer has ever, in the history of the US, tried to advance this specific utilitarian argument, which Ulbricht attached himself to (as Judge Forrest pointed out—it's a privileged argument of a privileged person).
Tell me more about how a judge is calling people privileged.
I mean, do you have any discussion of the idea at hand, or are you just going to appeal to how we feel about hypothetical people who might have said the idea? Either the idea is correct or it's not, it doesn't matter if it's a crack dealer, a darknet market administrator, or a judge who makes it.
- "Tell me more about how a judge is calling people privileged"
ok
- "The family received food stamps for four years beginning when Katherine was 12. They were homeless for six months. "I came from nothing," Forrest said. "I came from a father who made no money. He was a playwright and then a writer, and even though he published a lot of books, I was a complete scholarship student all the way through."
Yeah, I read that before I said that, and I said it anyway, because that in no way changes anything. The accusation against Ullbricht was uttered by an adult Federal Judge with net worth in the millions, not a 12-year-old on food stamps. Just because she started out underprivileged, does not make her underprivileged now.
And look, I don't even agree with the narrative of "privilege". I think if you see someone being treated badly, the solution to that is to treat that person better, not to adamantly insist that people who are treated better are privileged. Calling someone privileged is pretty much always an ad-hominem argument to discard what they have to say.
I disagree with Forrest, not because she's privileged, although she IS privileged. I disagree with Forrest because the argument that purer drugs kill fewer people than cut ones is just as valid coming from a street crack dealer as it is coming from Ross Ullbricht. I don't care who says an idea, I care whether the idea is true or not.
Do you have any actual refutation of that claim, or are you going to continue to insist that who said it is more important than whether it's true or not?
EDIT: Ironically, the argument Forrest is making here is actually a particularly offensive appeal to privileged (read: racist) misinformation. She references "crack dealers" specifically because crack has a reputation as the worst of the worst of drugs, when in fact crack is extremely similar to regular cocaine. The difference is that crack is used by poor, often black users, whereas cocaine is used by rich, often white, users. But criminal charges for crack vs. cocaine are still drastically different, although this has improved[1]. This is part of a larger pattern where drugs are prosecuted with more severity if they're used by poor black people than if they are used by middle class white people. For example, PCP is a whole schedule higher than, although these are chemically similar drugs with similar effects and harms in any of the scientific literature I can find.
> Just because she started out underprivileged, does not make her underprivileged now.
No, but it does mean that she knows what privilege is and is able to make assertions about it. And being in a good position such as being worth millions and being a judge isn't a privilege if you've earned it.
> I disagree with Forrest because the argument that purer drugs kill fewer people than cut ones is just as valid coming from a street crack dealer as it is coming from Ross Ullbricht.
Purer drugs can kill more people as I pointed out about tolerance levels. Even then, it's not like Ullbricht knew or cared about the quality of the products being sold on his site. He just cared he got his cut.
> Purer drugs can kill more people as I pointed out about tolerance levels. Even then, it's not like Ullbricht knew or cared about the quality of the products being sold on his site. He just cared he got his cut.
At least you're engaging with the topic at hand instead of making ad hominem attacks now.
And... I partly agree with you! If you look at my comment upthread, you'll note I tried to make it clear that there's some ambiguity in whether the Silk Road, and the rise of darknet markets as a whole, has been a good thing. I'm certainly not holding up Ullbricht as some moral hero--that's entirely perihelions' hallucination.
The question in my mind, is whether what Ullbricht did is worth putting a 30 year old in prison for the rest of his life. I fundamentally disagree with two things which were involved in this sentencing:
1. Accusations that Ullbricht paid for murders should have no bearing on the court system. From what I've read, it seems like those accusations are probably true, but in the United States of America, we don't sentence people on "probably true" for crimes that weren't even prosecuted. If we're at all committed to the presumption of innocent until proven guilty, we can't be allowing prosecutors to convict for a crime, vaguely insinuate that a worse crime was committed, and get a sentence based on that worse crime's severity. If Ross Ullbricht was being sentenced for murder, he needed to be convicted of murder.
2. Making an example of someone isn't justice for that person. Our court system should not be engaged in sacrificing individuals for political goals, no matter how noble those political goals might be.
In my mind, it's pretty hard to justify a life sentence without accusing Ullbricht of murder or saying we should make an example of him. Everything he was accused of was a nonviolent offense for which he was a first-time offender. The only argument I can see for a harsher sentence is the scale of his operation--but when we compare to SEC cases for example with similar scales, we're still not seeing this severity of sentences.
Ullbricht served 11 years in prison before he was pardoned, and I don't think anything our current justice system does is "fair", I think that's about as fair as we can expect given what he did.
> Ullbricht served 11 years in prison before he was pardoned, and I don't think anything our current justice system does is "fair", I think that's about as fair as we can expect given what he did.
I would say he deserved about 20-25 years. He engaged in a large-scale drug operation. He explicitly set out to start a drug operation. He operated a drug operation that was larger than most could even imagine. And the fact he tried to put hits out on people really seals the deal, while it doesn't matter legally it does matter when we think about how much time did he really deserve.
> And the fact he tried to put hits out on people really seals the deal, while it doesn't matter legally it does matter when we think about how much time did he really deserve.
Do you believe in the presumption of innocence or not? This isn't an ambiguous thing.
This isn't about what he legally should have gotten but what he deserves. Rapist even if found not guilty still DESERVES to go to jail. They shouldn't legally. But however, they did not get what they deserved.
Furthermore, they had the evidence, they just dropped the charges because he had multiple life sentences.
The purity can also cause overdoses and deaths because they're not used to it being that pure so they took the same amount they would take with a less pure so took a substantially larger dose. Especially with opium based drugs that would be a big problem.
At a systemic level, this is dependent on what "normal" purity is for users. First-time buyers on darknet markets probably are more likely to overdose because they're used to less-pure products, although I don't have any statistics to back up that guess. But if people are buying on the darknet consistently, they'll be unlikely to overdose due to unexpected purity (though they might still overdose for other reasons).
I'll admit I haven't done much research on opiates specifically for the simple reason that I have never known any active opiate addicts (though, I did get trained to administer Narcan). However, in my understanding of drugs such as coke, MDMA, or speed/adderall, which are more common in the tech scene, higher purity is unambiguously a net positive. It's been a while since I was actually involved in the overlap of the tech/festival scene but when I was around that more, I made anyone I knew used drugs aware that I had drug test kits and would let you borrow them no questions asked. I can't claim I ever saved a life, but I can say for certain that ~30 people at a festival I went to ended up riding out bad trips in medical tents or being transported to the hospital due to MDMA cut with DOC, and none of the people I let borrow my test kits at that festival did.
My knowledge is mostly from living in an area where most addicts were heroin or other downer drugs. While there were a few who had problems with coke and speed most of the junkies I knew were on heroin. And when a strong package is released to the street people start dropping. There are even signs in prisons telling people to be careful when released because the stuff on the street is stronger than in prison.
If you look at who generally dies from drug overdoses it's largely opiate-based drug users. I once listened to two junkies who hadn't seen each other for quite a while talking and letting each other know about who died. They were mostly talking about overdoses, the conversation went on for about 30 minutes non-stop with different names non-stop. None of the cokeheads, eckyheads (MDMA), or speed freaks I knew ever had conversations like that.
Judge Forrest absolute nailed this, in her withering response to one of Ulbricht's appeal attempts:
- "“No drug dealer from the Bronx selling meth or heroin or crack has ever made these kinds of arguments to the Court,” she said. “It is a privileged argument, it is an argument from one of privilege. You are no better a person than any other drug dealer and your education does not give you a special place of privilege in our criminal justice system. It makes it less explicable why you did what you did.”"
That judge is just wrong. Ulbricht was not selling drugs. Conflating running a market place vs drug dealers on the street is just wrong. Craigslist has tons of illegal stuff. Even FB and Twitter do.
Isn't the australian other story _LITERALLY_ the age-old "a friend of a friend's cousin jumped out of a window on LSD because they thought they could fly?"
I'm surprised they didn't call in the witness who thought they were a glass of orange juice.
Other than the fact that he was not a drug dealer and other criticism others have already pointed out, Carnegie Mellon University's researchers did an analysis of Silk Road gathering data on a daily basis for eight months before it was shut down. Some of their findings include:
> “‘Weed’ (i.e., marijuana) is the most popular item on Silk Road” (p.8)
> “The quantities being sold are generally rather small (e.g., a few grams of marijuana)” (p.12)
2+ life sentences for a website which sold weed is just outrageous. Also note that since 2012, people have become a LOT softer on weed and even other drugs have been legalized since then. Trump himself has said that he has friends who have benefitted from weed.
This is so stupid. By this standard, automobile manufacturers kill 44,000 people in the US every year, including countless children. 3,500-4,500 people in the US are murdered by swimming pool contractors every year.
True. If he is culpable for other people dealing drugs on his platform, then so is Meta and Mark Zuckerberg for allowing WhatsApp to facilitate drug trades.
Actual murderers get out in the time that Ross served.
The concept of justice must include an element of proportionality, I would argue that Ross's sentence, for a first time non-violent criminal, was over the top. Without proportionality justice becomes arbitrary, based more on luck and your connections to power.
We punish those we can punish: the little guy. Whilst those running governments, corporations and networks that facilitate repression, hatred and genocide go scot free.
We punish people all the time for non-violent, white-collar crime; often very severely. Bernie Madoff got sent to prison for 150 years and died there and, as far as I know, he never solicited a murder for hire.
Madoff is the exception rather than the rule--and even Madoff operated his Ponzi scheme for over 40 years before being prosecuted.
Madoff's arrest and prosecution was actually pretty ineffectual in my opinion. If an amoral person can live as one of the richest men in the world for 40 years in exchange for spending the last 10 years of their life in minimum-security prison, I think a lot of amoral people would take that trade.
Bernie Ebbers and Jeff Skilling both got more than 20 years for Enron. The CEO and co-owner of NCFE got 30 years and 25 years respectively for their role in a securities and wire fraud relating to that business.
> In December 2019, Ebbers was released from Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, due to declining health, having served 13 years of his 25-year sentence, and he died just over a month later.[1]
...living until the age of 61 as one of the richest men in the world, then spending 13 years in minimum-security prison.
> In 2013, following a further appeal, and earlier accusations that prosecutors had concealed evidence from Skilling's lawyers prior to his trial, the United States Department of Justice reached a deal with Skilling, which resulted in ten years being cut from his sentence, reducing it to 14 years. He was moved to a halfway house in 2018 and released from custody in 2019, after serving 12 years. [2]
...living until the age of 53 as one of the richest men in the world, then spending 12 years in minimum-security prison.
Re: NCFE: Lance K. Poulsen went to jail at 65, and while I wasn't able to find out his current situation, he's about due to get out of jail if the other cases are any indication[3]. Rebecca S. Parrett, 60, fled after her conviction and was arrested at age 62 in Mexico, largely due to fleeing to a country with robust US extradition (why?)[4].
If a Mafia boss never strong armed a merchant, never busted any kneecaps, and never pulled a trigger but simply paid other people to carry out various crimes, should the law give him a short sentence because he was non-violent?
I don't know what the appropriate sentence for Ulbrecht, but I think your claims about proportionality are missing the fact he didn't just direct commit a few crimes, such as trying (unsuccessfully) to hire a hitman, but he facilitated hundreds of thousands of crimes. Maybe you think selling drugs and guns to randos should not be illegal, but that is a separate question of whether or not he broke the laws as written.
As for your last point, I don't disagree that the wealthy/powerful/connected live under a different justice system than everyone else.
Wasn't silk road selling way more than just drugs ? Like, pornography and gun, worldwide. When you facilitate both sex trafficking, organized crime and potentially terrorism you can't exactly be surprised you get hit with everything.
> Carnegie Mellon University's researchers did an analysis of Silk Road gathering data on a daily basis for eight months before it was shut down. Some of their findings include:
> “‘Weed’ (i.e., marijuana) is the most popular item on Silk Road” (p.8)
> “The quantities being sold are generally rather small (e.g., a few grams of marijuana)” (p.12)
> In Table 1, we take a closer look at the top 20 categories per number of item offered. “Weed” (i.e., mari- juana) is the most popular item on Silk Road, followed by “Drugs,” which encompass any sort of narcotics or prescription medicine the seller did not want further classified. Prescription drugs, and “Benzos,” colloquial term for benzodiazepines, which include prescription medicines like Valium and other drugs used for insom- nia and anxiety treatment, are also highly popular. The four most popular categories are all linked to drugs; nine of the top ten, and sixteen out of the top twenty are drug-related. In other words, Silk Road is mostly a drug store, even though it also caters some other products. Finally, among narcotics, even though such a classification is somewhat arbitrary, Silk Road appears to have more inventory in “soft drugs” (e.g., weed, cannabis, hash, seeds) than “hard drugs” (e.g., opiates); this presumably simply reflects market demand.
> Silk Road places relatively few restrictions on the types of goods sellers can offer. From the Silk Road sellers’ guide [5],
“Do not list anything who’s (sic) purpose is to harm or defraud, such as stolen items or info, stolen credit cards, counterfeit currency, personal info, assassinations, and weapons of any kind. Do not list anything related to pedophilia.”
> Conspicuously absent from the list of prohibited items are prescription drugs and narcotics, as well as adult pornography and fake identification documents (e.g., counterfeit driver’s licenses). Weapons and am- munition used to be allowed until March 4, 2012, when they were transferred to a sister site called The Armory [1], which operated with an infrastructure similar to that of Silk Road. Interestingly, the Armory closed in August 2012 reportedly due to a lack of business [6].
No, silk road did not sell weapons. There was legal content like pornography and other media on there, but Ulbricht was an idealist and excluded material with "intent to harm".
Notably, as Ullbricht predicted, the Silk Road was immediately replaced by sites which did not have such ideals, and openly sold weapons and illegal pornography.
plus in North America you don't really need a darknet market to get a gun illegally. US FedGov ain't gonna get to involved in illegal gun sales in Europe.
Interesting and surprising they really had rules, thanks for the clarification. I'm ashamed to say I opened this page and read it wrong the first time by skipping the first sentence.
I once noticed (in the UK) that two people who I read news stories about in the same week got similar sentences. One for breach of copyright, one for sexually assaulting a teenager.
That said, I think Ross did knowingly enable violence?
The issue is that so many of the officials that investigated him were corrupt.
How can we be confident any of the evidence was real. He is obviously not innocent but when at least 2 of the investigators went to jail for crimes committed during this investigation it casts serious questions on the validity of the case as a whole.
The police, DEA and Secret service have vast power they can use against the populace. If those same agents are committing crimes then it taints the entire investigation and prosecution. If a cop is found to have planted drugs on past arrestees, quite often a good portion of his other cases are thrown out as well as he has corrupted everything he touched.
It likely doesn't rise to the legal doctrine of "fruit from a poisoned tree" but its in the ballpark.
For the people downvoting me for some reason:
A DEA agent involved in the investigation "was sentenced to 78 months in prison for extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice"
A secret service agent involved in the investigation "was sentenced to 24 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco following his earlier guilty plea to one count of money laundering."
A few moments' research reveal many reasons to think the evidence was real, eg:
Ulbricht's right-hand-man Roger Thomas Clark, who was involved in one of the murder-for-hire conversations, admitted the conversation was real during his trial:
"In his own remarks, Clark didn't comment on that murder-for-hire conversation—which he at one point claimed had been fabricated by Ulbricht but later conceded was real."
Ross is no angel. I'm not disputing that its real, I'm just saying I have a real issue convicting someone when the investigating officers are committing crimes during the investigation. Law enforcement has almost unlimited power. Corruption should be a massive red flag in any case.
Because the federal government would never plant a log on his computer in order to obtain a conviction. Next people will be saying the CIA killed JFK. How can we lose faith in the judicial system, fuck, the very government considering how consistently benign and trust worthy its been time and time again.
I honestly have no idea what the truth of the case was, but it is crazy to me how people never seem to update their priors on what the US gov is capable of. Everytime they get caught doing something like this people go "wow thats crazy" and then immediately go back to telling everyone saying non-mainstream ideas to take their meds
Genuinely thought we’d never see the day. My feelings on Ulbricht are mixed and have evolved over the decade he’s been in prison.
However, the Silk Road allowed me to try LSD as an 18 year old in a safe(r) way than those that came before me.* It was those experiences that revealed I’d been depressed most of my life, and that it also didn’t have to be that way, by way of experiencing what that would feel like. I went on to seek new experiences, make new friends for the first time in my life, engage with professional mental health support, went to university, and started multiple businesses. It also introduced my staunchly-atheist self to the experience of spiritual/transcendental experiences, and how those can exist separately from, and don’t require, belief in deities or religion.
It can’t be said where I’d have wound up without those experiences, but my own understanding of myself feels pivotally tied to something I couldn’t have gone through without Ross’ actions. Still, I acknowledge it appears more likely that not he tried to have people killed, and regardless of the circumstances surrounding this, that is condemnable.
*Had it not been for an anonymous group at the time, The LSD Avengers, posting reviews using gas chromatography mass-spectrometry and reagent tests of suppliers on the site, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to take the risk of trying what I’d received. LSD is physiologically safe, not to say anything of any psychological risks, but knowing the dose allowed me to enter into the shallow end of the pool, so to speak. Common substitutes however cannot have the same said of them.
If I’d lived in a time and place that allowed for state-funded drug testing (something my own state has in fact recently abolished despite wildly successful trials), perhaps things would’ve not required a Ross Ulbricht to exist in my case, but I see this as a failure of the system and of drug prohibition as a whole.
Ross would’ve existed one way or another I believe, for better or worse, by another name, had he chosen another path. Now he gets the chance to try his life again. I felt the same way.
Great question, I’m not sure about the answer. I’ve heard those that meditate describe similar experiences, and have had some profound perspective shifts trying it myself years ago. I can’t also rule out the age I was at the time, being one where’d you’d expect to go through new and transformative experiences anyway by virtue of still growing and maturing.
But my intuition says no, it really does feel like those were peak, pivotal experiences that still stand out as some of the most significant in my life. Not to say it’s not possible, but maybe more so that in my little corner of the world with the relatively limited experiences available to me at the time, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have simply continued to tread the very uninspired life path I was on.
In a way it felt like waking up in the middle of a dream, and realising I could go back to sleep, or get up and change my circumstances. Probably a bit of a cringe analogy, but it feels about right — it was still work and a conscious choice to make positive changes, but prior to then it hadn’t even occurred to me that I could. It’s not lost on me that for positive stories like mine, there’s many people that could counter with negatives.
Drugs aren’t safe, but neither is a life unchallenged I think. In my case that was what I needed I suspect, a challenge to my own views on myself, other people, the world, and what’s possible. Therapy might’ve gotten me there too, for all it’s worth, but I don’t know that I would’ve considered it prior.
I would find this easier to celebrate if it was a commutation and not a pardon, or if it was a pardon that went hand in hand with a change in the laws he broke.
I thought it was a ridiculously long sentence compared to what other people have received. 10 years was right. That's enough time. I know that he was accused of hiring a hitman, but he was never convicted of that. It should have never been used in his sentencing. I think the government tried to make an example out of Ross Ulbrich, and it was a miscarriage of justice.
So does this mean the war on drugs is finally over and we're going to stop mass incarceration for non-violent drug offenses? If so, that _would_ be good news.
He also just classified drug cartels as terrorist organizations so drug dealers are now technically facilitating terrorism. Apart from liberating this white collar drug dealer, all of his other actions have escalated the war on drugs. While he was signing these orders, he claimed that drug cartels were responsible for up to 300,000 American deaths annually (a completely fabricated number.)
Feel like you have already made up your mind on what you want to believe, but he has actually helped a lot with non-violent drug offenders. That’s part of the reason poor communities (especially Latino) have voted for him despite harsh border policies.
Justice reform is generally positive for the country and not just individual cultural groups. I just don't expect those reforms to apply to drug offenders when so many of his supporters seems like they are seeking retribution for the loss of loved ones that killed themselves with drugs to the extent that they celebrate calls to bomb neighboring countries.
I don't think we're going to see clear messaging on this from Trump.
Not going to post this link to every post where it's relevant, but:
Trump returned to that theme in November 2022, when he officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign. "We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," he said.
You'll note there are comments here saying saying that he generally keeps his campaign promises. On the bright side I don't agree, but on the other hand I think he does often enough, especially for the "well of course he didn't literally mean that" ones.
Neither Obama nor Biden would ever pardon Assange, because it would not win them any votes with the constituencies they are really after. At least Manning carried some trans votes.
Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in how this issue is seen on here.
I'd be wary of drawing correlations like this. The people who commented on that thread are not going to be the same people commenting on this one. The topic isn't even the same; in the first thread the topic is his sentencing, and in this its his pardon.
The attraction for people to post on Hacker News is mainly to complain, and so in the first you get complaints the sentencing is too harsh, and in this one you get complaints that he shouldn't have been pardoned. Its not necessarily a cultural shift, just an artifact of the types of discussions people have online.
> and so in the first you get complaints the sentencing is too harsh, and in this one you get complaints that he shouldn't have been pardoned.
You can also hold both positions simultaneously without contradiction. That is to say that you can think that his sentence was too harsh while at the same time being of the opinion that what he did was a crime (and should be a crime) and that he should remain convicted and un-pardoned, just with a different sentence than the one he was given.
Making a distinction of whether individuals have changed perspective on the topic, and whether a community has are different levels of examination, and both may provide insights. In this case, Hacker news is an emergent phenomenon of individuals; it's OK to examine its evolution as whole.
I thought it was parallel construction from illegal NSA surveillance then, I think it is that now. Once you have the suspect in custody and his belongings examined it's "oh, see, we found this Stackoverflow post, that's how we knew".
It's absurd. Even the non-Silk-Road charges look as if they were tacked on so that people like us weren't sympathetic about what were only non-violent drug trafficking charges ("look, he also hired a killer to murder an enemy!").
that's what has me worried about the kohberger trial. the prosecution's delayed it for years; if he gets out, the techniques that caught him so quickly will potentially have done more harm than good.
> The attraction for people to post on Hacker News is mainly to complain
I mean, I won't admit it openly but something like that yeah. It doesn't help either that the way to show you disagree is by sharing what you disagree with (which is great) but the way you show you agree is by upvoting (which others don't see).
So one comment with three complaints in the replies but 100 upvotes might look like "people wholeheartedly disagree with this person" but in reality, most readers actually agreed. Comments that are just "I agree" are kind of pointless, so I prefer how things are, but useful to not read too much into "X people said Y" on HN.
It's interesting to consider how the tension in the design choices for HN's discussion board have affected the perceived & actual tenor of the platform:
1. Votes are not shown, but they affect the rank of posts.
2. Every post regardless of rank is shown beneath its parent, as in a tree.
3. Only highly downvoted posts are grayed out or hidden.
4. The community considers simple agreement to be low value noise.
It doesn't seem like a stretch to guess HN's flavor from a handful of these facts...
its crazy to look at this old thread and know that i almost certainly left a comment in it. although ive created and left behind hundreds of accounts in the meantime. i first got on HN feb 2015 when i read an article about “famed god” getting arrested in las vegas… his shirt had “hack the world” written on it and when i googled “hack the world famed god,” not knowing about the movie reference, it gave me a HN thread about the incident. and then HN became my home for almost ten years… i didnt have facebook or instagram or vine. i literally just spent all my time on HN. now that the displacement of programmers by AI has begun, somehow my interest has waned.
at the time, the murder for hire accusations seemed legitimate and they still do today. hopefully they charge him with attempted murder if the statute of limitations isnt up.
ok. so for some reason the federal government indicted him on attempted murder in 2018(?) and for some reason the charge was dismissed… on what grounds was it dismissed? and i believe he could still be charged by the state of California or another state so hopefully we will see that
edit: this section of reasons’ article summarizes the situation nicely.
“Now that Ulbricht has no chance of having his initial conviction and sentencing overturned or adjusted, it's likely the feds out of Maryland decided the indictment no longer was needed to make sure the government had some further means in their back pocket to punish Ulbricht for showing a safer, saner way around their insanely damaging drug war.”
the reason the charges were dismissed is similar to the reason he wasnt charged initially: because attempted murder charge was unnecessary from the prosecutors point if view. not because he is innocent of the charge. the article also notes that torture was an element in those murders. this guy should not be walking free
Doesn't "dismissed with prejudice" usually mean something like "the evidence presented for the charge is so lacking that the charge should never have been brought in the first place"?
see my edit. i am a full supporter of letting adults have freedom to buy and use whatever drugs they want but i also think murdering and torturing people should not be allowed
> the reason the charges were dismissed is similar to the reason he wasnt charged initially: because attempted murder charge was unnecessary from the prosecutors point if view
But why were the charges dismissed with prejudice? That's not the normal way to dismiss charges.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur has filed a motion to dismiss the pending charges filed against Ross Ulbricht
Last week, Hur sought “to dismiss with prejudice the indictment and superseding indictment” pending against Ulbricht
in the motion that he filed, which is linked above, the reason he provides is that ross had already been sentenced and all his appeals had been denied. the motion never mentions lack of evidence or the corrupt investigators. this isnt mentioned in the freeross page
the idea that chat logs were forged or that someone else was using his account are plausible but just barely. its much more plausible that a powerful drug lord ordered hits. its practically unavoidable in the course of running a large, high volume illegal drug operation. its routine. and the feds didnt need a murder charge to screw him, not even a little bit. i havent seen enough evidence to dismiss either camp but i think it should go to trial so the public can see all the evidence and the matter can be settled. there certainly is grounds for further investigation.
>It was dismissed with prejudice, and can’t be tried again
But there were in total six murder-for-hire allegations against Ross Ulbricht. That Maryland case in your link [0] was only one of them.
That Maryland one was also a case in which Carl Force, a corrupt federal agent, was deeply involved. The New York trial which incarcerated Ulbricht avoided considering that single allegation, specifically because of the corrupt agent's involvement. [1]
(Confusingly, there were also six allegations of drug-related deaths. These were completely unrelated with the six murder allegations.)
It's notable that, in that Maryland document you linked, the US Attorney could have moved to dismiss the charge without prejudice, meaning that it could be retried, but he chose not to do that.
But he then continues, to say, without explaining why, that Ulbricht was already serving a life sentence which had been affirmed on appeal in New York. The implication is that the US Attorney is hinting that there's no point ever pursuing the 'attempted murder' angle, because Ulbricht is already locked up for life (Narrator: he was wrong).
Here's a summary
* One murder-for-hire allegation (Maryland): Indicted, but dismissed with prejudice by US Attorney
* Five murder-for-hire allegations (New York): Not indicted/charged, not decided by jury, but included in sentencing decision
* Six drug-related death allegations (New York): Not indicted/charged, not decided by jury, but included in sentencing decision
*
What I understand is that the New York jury was allowed to know about the attempted murder-for-hire and the drug-related death claims, but not about the corrupt federal agents.
The murder-for-hire allegations, meanwhile, were allowed to influence his sentencing (and the rejection of his appeal) due to "a preponderance of evidence" as decided by the judge, which would not be sufficient grounds for criminal convictions such as murder, which require evidence "beyond reasonable doubt".
> The people who commented on that thread are not going to be the same people commenting on this one
This is the point. HN readership has changed dramatically in the intervening years. I don't buy at all that the difference is solely due to comments tending to contradict the article.
> Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted
I'm not sure. I have two questions on that. Is there the appearance of a sentiment shift? I see plenty of people arguing both against and for incarcerating him in both this thread and that old one.
And then if there is an appearance of a sentiment change (which I'm not sure about) is that evidence of a sentiment change or just selection bias? People who are okay with an outcome are much less likely to write a comment than people who are upset. That alone would change the bias of the comments.
To suggest there hasn't been a cultural shift is insane, imo.
I wouldn't argue that both sides have gotten more extreme, rather the political spectrum curve has flattened. There is much less rational discourse in general.
Reddit is a great example. Even 10 years ago you could have mostly rational discussions. Now its no better than Facebook. I saw a post today about people being upset the government is giving OpenAI half a trillion dollars. They didn't even realize it wasn't government money. They didn't want to be corrected.
the internet has a lot more people on it, it is much less self-selecting than in the past. even this website is a lot less self-selecting than in the past
As someone who's been following this since the beginning, the most striking difference is the assumption that Ross was in fact the DPR ordering hits, which he repeatedly denied. Obviously, he could be lying, but that's the main question for me. Since people now assume he was the one and only DPR (I wonder if people didn't get the concept from The Princess Bride), they assume DPR chat logs where murder-for-hire occurred must have been him as well.
Both threads seem to share a similar sentiment: he should not serve much time for the drug marketplace but should for the murders-for-hire. There's just a difference in how many people believe those allegations and to what extent they should factor into the sentence given the charges were dropped despite the allegations almost certainly being true.
I know it seems almost impossible, but it might be that the group of people who complained about the sentence, may be a different group than the one who complain about the pardon.
you know there's a pretty massive gap between "double lifetime sentence + 40 years w/ no chance of parole is too harsh" and "10 years w/ full pardon expunging the record is bad". A really, really fucking massive giant gap between those, in fact.
But surely it's just that people love to complain, right? Can't possibly be that they thought something like 25yr was more reasonable?
Pardons are inherently political. If your guy does it, it's good. If other guy does it, it's bad. And like most political topics, it's hard to have a earnest convo divorced from that simple dynamic.
This debate about IQ could have been had yesterday, and I‘m pretty sure I saw a pretty similar debate a few months ago on this site. Not much has changed there at least.
I don’t disagree but I also don’t agree with the life sentence. If he was charged properly with the crimes stated during his trial, maybe that would be warranted but he wasn’t charged with it, only the website charges and conspiracy. Which some of them could apply to meta or craigslist if you got creative.
He’s famously flexible based on whatever he thinks is advantageous now. This could be as simple as his claims to have been unfairly persecuted by law enforcement, it could be part of his wealth gained from cryptocurrency, or it could simply be that he thinks it’ll make his opponents angry. Rich people often act on whims just to show that they have the power not to need to justify their actions.
It could be any of that, but it could also be as simple as libertarians requested it, he told them he would, and he didn't feel any reason to renege on that.
(I do think there's probably an element of deliberate disrespect to federal law enforcement and the justice system, but that alone doesn't answer the question why Ross specifically?)
AFAIK, it wasn't done because he wants to be lenient on drug traffickers, but because the overall case of Ross Ulbricht is huge in certain political circles that he was pandering to during the presidential race, so seems he's "paying back" for those votes or something.
> “Ross Ulbricht has been a libertarian political prisoner for more than a decade,” said a statement from Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McArdle. “I’m proud to say that saving his life has been one of our top priorities and that has finally paid off.”
Seems the US-version of libertarians is that group.
There is a high correlation between his condemnation of drugs and characterizations of families, many poor and desperate, illegally crossing the border.
Most illegal drugs by far go through regular border crossings, but he hasn’t obsessed about them in the same way.
I don't think I buy this. He doesn't need to care about citizen votes anymore, and how big is the libertarian with a capital 'L' true believer block in Congress? Is there any? I'm not sure there was ever any political support for Ross Ulbricht.
Has to be something else going on here, none of the explanations in this thread are hitting it on the head for me.
If he wants to make the most of his next/last four years as president, then he needs to keep his supporters happy enough to vote in Republican congressmen in two years. Many of his supporters are the type to not vote at all because they think politicians are all two-faced liars, so it's important to keep them sufficiently moralized to vote in 2026.
Trump has never been a big drug warrior (against drug users). His social views are basically late 80's 1990s Democrat and not out of line with Clinton, etc.
Clinton was a drug war supporter. He started the whole "Yea But it is Still Federally Illegal under Federal Law" in response to proposition 215 in California in late December of 1996.
It was a big cause that many libertarians cared about. I'm sure all the crypto people who have Trump's ear have been pushing him on this. There are also rumors that some state-level libertarian leaders promised not to promote their candidate if Trump promised to free Ulbrecht.
Trump is predictable. This was his side of a transaction designed to secure support from a voter contingent. His personal opinions don't matter much when he is making a deal.
Perhaps, but I'm of the opinion that if a sentence is unjust, or if the means to convict violated the defendant's rights, then the defendant should walk. While this may seem unreasonable, it's the only way to check the state which has unlimited resources when it decides to go after somebody.
I don't really have an opinion on this case because I'm not completely familiar with all the details. It's certainly going to be contentious.
The idea of a pardon is exactly that: it erases the record of the crime/conviction.
I think you are thinking of a commutation. That ends the punishment while not absolving the person of the crime.
So the January 6th criminals who got pardons no longer have a criminal record (on this count at least). The 14 people who were only granted commutations are still counted as felons.
> As these opinions confirm, a presidential pardon removes, either conditionally or unconditionally, the punitive legal consequences that would otherwise flow from conviction for the pardoned offense.
A pardon, however, does not erase the conviction as a historical fact or justify the fiction that the pardoned individual did not engage in criminal conduct. A pardon, therefore, does not by its own force expunge judicial or administrative records of the conviction or underlying offense.
If you're wondering like I was why he is able to tweet from prison, this article explains that he's dictating tweets via phone to his family, and they are sending back comments to him via mail. [1]
This is the first time I’ve seen it and in the pre-Elon years there was also not much reason to do that. I don’t think the perception was bad more than > 5 years ago.
Crypto currency proponents benefit from the existence of dark net marketplaces because they are some of the main places for the non-speculative use of crypto currencies. I think Ross and his pardon represent a sort-of metaphor in crypto-currency proponents' eyes for the government's toleration of these dark net crypto marketplaces.
If you meant Trump, it's not hidden, they released a Trump meme coin and the rug pull was after the inauguration timed with the release of the Melania meme coin, though entirely speculatively makes more sense for the investors to be foreign governments buying influence less obviously than the last Trump administration like Saudi Arabia hiring his son in law.
I doubt Trump cares about Ulbricht as much as he cares (for whatever reason) about the continued support of various American libertarians (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and various crypto elites).
While he has made many promises this is significant for being one that he has kept.
RFK Jr is definitely not a libertarian (even compared to someone mainstream like Gary Johnson or Jared Polis), he supports strong state intervention in many areas of the economy and society
It's odd because libertarian candidates usually only garner 1% to 3% of the votes. It does appear that there are a lot of libertarians that vote Republican because of the stigma third parties have, though. As someone who often votes for libertarian candidates, I can't understand it. Republicans are about as libertarian as a cheese sandwich.
Trump went around to a huge number of niche communities and promised to fix their core concerns in exchange for their support. The crypto and libertarian communities are obsessed with freeing Ulbricht. It was honestly a brilliant strategy, and probably the reason he won. Ironic that an authoritarian fascist was able to get elected by enlisting the help of anti-authoritarian communities with a single issue promise.
It’s not ironic at all. The MAGA movement is really similar to how Mussolini came to power.
The campaign against barbarians (Steve Miller’s) crusade, Elons “not enough white babies” stuff, sucking up to the church (Vatican City is a Mussolini scheme), aspirations for conquest of Greenland and Panama, etc are all analogous to the maga playbook.
Most people are clueless. There are idiots who think they are getting $1 eggs next week. Riling up weirdos like libertarians lets the movement punch above their weight.
'Left-libertarianism' and 'classical liberalism' as a philosophy (not as a party affiliation) are arguably the dominant perspectives on HN. You've been on here for more than a year, you've been talking to them the entire time.
However, most of them wouldn't ever use the term libertarian, for not wanting to be associated with right wing libertarians.
There were a few articles on this in the media a day or two after the election that had lists in them, but I can't find them anymore because this new news overwhelmed the search terms I remember.
Many of the promises were directly conflicting, and/or upsetting to other groups that also had promises made to them. One example would be he promised some groups to push for the death penalty for anyone involved in selling drugs, in conflict with his pardon of Ulbricht here.
Wouldn't surprise me the slightest. Politicians' promises are weak signals to begin with, and we're talking about a politician here who's explicitly labeled as populist. I found a similar inability with search.
Unfortunately you could level the same type of name calling towards Democrats. It's now public record they colluded with all the major media outlets, coerced big tech to censor and debank opponents, imprisoned whistleblowers, violated bodily autonomy with unconstitutional mandates, weaponized the courts to conduct lawfare, and now issued an unprecedented number of pre-emptive pardons for unspecified crimes committed by Fauci, Hunter Biden, et al.
I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but Biden was escalating the Ukraine war in the final days of his presidency, and celebrated Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Crazy how things have changed so much. The left unanimously viewed Bush and Cheney as obviously psychopathic war criminals, and now almost all the Neocons have jumped over to the Democrats. The left used to be extremely skeptical of globalization as evident by the Seattle WTO Protests, mass immigration as evident by Bernie Sanders' comments on its effect on workers' wages, and Big Pharma's perverse incentives to keep people sick and regularly consuming drugs. Yet the media has utterly psyop'd the progressives... it's kinda disturbing.
Authoritarianism is also popular with the democrats right now, but I don’t see how anything I said is name calling: I used terms with a specific meaning appropriate for the context- the only reason they have a negative connotation is because of what they actually mean. Do you know of other terms with the same meaning and more neutral connotations?
If you go by Trump's actions in his first term he was a pretty standard Republican, and mostly just cut taxes, with a lot of wild rhetoric which is part of his deal making shtick. In real terms I don't see Trump as uniquely authoritarian, probably less so than Biden, Obama and Bush. He seems to support free speech far more, which is the foundation for all other freedoms. He makes his money from the leisure industry, so his interests are aligned with Americans doing well and having disposable income. And he supports decentralization, so liberal states can adopt liberal policies, and so forth.
It seems people forget about the insane infringements of civil rights through the Patriot Act, NDAA, mass surveillance, lockdowns, firing people over vaccine mandates, etc. A poll showed about half of Democrats supported putting Americans into camps if they didn't take the vaccine, and a third supported seizing custody of their children. Democrats supported mass censorship and state control over media, which is far more authoritarian and fascist than anything the Republicans were doing.
I'll leave the authoritarianism aspect to someone else but I'll point out that the part of your comment where "he makes his money from the leisure industry, so his interests are aligned with Americans doing well and having disposable income" is not representative of his ability let alone judgement in planning/making decisions that reflect those interests. You can be in favor of something and completely botch the execution.
The PATRIOT Act was introduced by a Republican and signed into law by a Republican and had wide support from both parties. 62 Democrats and 3 Republicans voted against it in the House (there was only a single senate vote against it), and you can't have a discussion about the Patriot Act's introduction without bringing up the fact that it was enacted at the height of the post-9/11 fear. It has always been a controversial and flawed bill.
Most of today's social issues aren't about left versus right, they are about class.
The democrats are broken. They keep running women, and not getting messages out that appeal to the average voter. They lost their core reliable voters (old people, Catholics, unions) and are alienating more traditional voting blocs like African Americans and some Hispanic populations with the constant drama over trans issues. Nobody heard about anything this election cycle other than abortion and transgender issues. It’s a big tent party, but when progressives steal all the oxygen, the wheels fall off the train.
They need to run a tall white dude with good hair who talks about economic opportunity, fair play and protecting the future.
My parents live in the country. A farmer (whose father was the county Democratic Party chair) has a massive sign “Trump. I don’t like him, but we need him”. That’s the 2024 election unfortunately.
Ask the swing voters. The republicans seized the narrative.
I bet you 100% of democratic voters could accurately describe the maga platform. The number who could describe the democratic platform would be far less.
That's because the Democrats are corrupt and have no platform beyond managed decline. We just had sickly king Theoden in office with a coven of Grima Wormtongues controlling the executive. Kamala Harris is an empty suit devoid of original thought, and quite obviously only selected for her identity. When asked how she would be any different, she said Biden was an old white man and she was not. She couldn't speak even in the most favorable venues like Oprah, and refused to go on Joe Rogan's podcast because she would have obviously imploded and humiliated herself.
It's stunning how far the Democrats have fallen. They've been completely co-opted by the PMC class and simply use identity politics to distract from their utter inability to deliver on anything. One need only look at the sad state of California, its massively delayed and over-budget high speed rail to nowhere, homelessness and decay, over-regulation inhibiting everything including the beloved green energy projects, etc. Texas literally has more green energy and cheaper electricity than California because they let people build, which can even be seen in their falling rents. Progressives can't allow that because it might 'change the character of a neighborhood', which is ironically one of the most conservative and anti-progress positions you could take.
True, much of that is because old people are the only ones still watching legacy media like cable news, which have repeatedly torched their credibility. Young people tend to get their news from podcasts and social media, which tends to not be as blatantly controlled.
I am active in libertarian circles and Ulbricht was a cause celebre. The 2024 election was a game of inches, and many libertarians I know voted Trump purely on this issue. It is possible this was a key way Trump eked out a victory.
They just won something they cared about: perhaps you should be taking them even more seriously than you did.
And even if you are not a fan of a political group, you are the one being judgemental here on a factor that is very unlikely to be universal within the group.
Treating anyone according to political labels is divisive.
They got a single guy out of prison, but pretty much everything else in Trump's platform is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. It's hard to think of anything less libertarian than tariff-funded big government!
Tariffs are not good for free market diehards. However the nuance is that foreign countries like China do not operate on a fair playing field, they want free access to our markets but prevent our champions from entering their's. Something must be done here. I'm not convinced tariffs are the best tool, but at least it's something.
In terms of small government, there is news about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) every single day. There will be a massive downsizing in the federal workforce and the regulatory state over the next 4 years. This move towards small government is the thing that excites me most.
> In terms of small government, there is news about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) every single day.
Just to be clear, all they did is rename the US Digital Service to the US DOGE Service. The Digital Service already existed; it hires tech workers from industry on short-term rotations to work on government projects. Now that thing that already existed is called DOGE, and it will continue to do nothing more than bring in industry engineers to make websites for the government. If there’s a “massive downsizing in the federal workforce,” it won’t be because of “DOGE.”
Trump has is proposing a 10% tariff on China, and a 25% tariff on Mexico.
Also he's handing out tariff exemptions to his political allies like candy.
There's not some high minded principal or strategy here. It's graft and spite. Trump even seems to be holding out the tariff threat as leverage to force the sale of TikTok.
Look you can agree with this stuff if you want but none of it is remotely aligned with libertarian principles. Even squishy ones.
He's said it a dozen different ways but as of yesterday it was 10% on China. Maybe tomorrow it will be 100%, it's not like the narrative is consistent apart from that there will be some level of tariffs.
Biden could have taken the wind out of Trump's sails by commuting Ulbricht's sentence when he was in office. If you don't think a group's interests are worth listening to, don't be surprised when that group votes for someone who does.
Very little about the Libertarian party is libertarian. Yet another party carrying water for authoritarianism, with the difference being that the implementation is through corporations.
Libertarians are a self selecting bunch. Very few were raised into this philosophy. You can appreciate that my self identification as a libertarian is a careful, reasoned decision and not one that was flippantly made. It is the philosophy that is the most accurate and truthful to me.
Read my comment again. I self-identify as a libertarian as I see individual freedom as paramount. But I kept going with the analysis to realize that the Libertarian Party does very little to represent that ideal.
My apologies, I thought you were accusing libertarians of authoritarianism (the irony!).
I find the Mises Caucus at least useful in pushing to do more than simply be an affinity group for people pretending to play politics. I find partying with LP officials to be very hilarious, what a group of odd balls. But the party itself has no hope of electoral victory, which is why everyone should vote Republican in the current iteration of two-party politics from the libertarian lens.
My point is that even if there were an electoral victory, the Libertarian Party would not bring individual freedom. They are operating from an assertion that starting with a list of moral axioms, every implication will be morally right by construction. By itself this is terribly mistaken (see Godel), but it goes askew even sooner when a few poor axioms are allowed to remain through "pragmatism", regulatory capture, etc.
As for the current political environment, I'd say that bureaucratic authoritarianism is at least the devil we know and can be routed around by individuals, whereas autocratic authoritarianism is at best a wildcard that stands to destroy a good chunk of the laws that have actually been restraining naked power.
Libertarians are a joke because they refuse to realize that allowing corporations unlimited freedom means that the individual has less freedom. Their entire ideology just removes the boot of the state and replaces it with the boot of the corporation.
Speaking of jokes, it's always funny to us libertarians when we see government proponents talk about "freedom" being lost to the corporations under a libertarian system of (non) government.
The government as it is the world over pretty much controls your entire life; It dictates what you can and can't do with your own body, it forces you into various forms of indentured servitude, it marks you and keeps track of you like an inventory item, it controls what you can say (where and with whom even), it takes your children from you and puts them into essentially indoctrination camps for "education", it comes up with arbitrary rules that you have to jump through hoops to abide by, and it can even take your children away if you don't teach them the approved things, it can take arbitrary control over any and all of your possessions for whatever reason, it orders you to harm your fellow man, etc... And most of all, it gaslights and forces you to go against your own morals or things you consider wrong, whatever that may be. And just to rub it all in? It says you have to do and abide by all these things whilst still loving government because it's "Democracy" and "Democracy" is pure and noble and fair.
Libertarians are not a joke. Some of the most powerful people on earth are libertarians. The people who write off libertarians are blind.
I prefer corporations because I can voluntarily choose to take my business elsewhere, or even better, create my own competitor. Why I dislike the government is that it's the ultimate monopoly, with guns, and operated mostly by power-hungry sociopaths who will use that power to destroy innocent lives.
Given the corporation or the state, I take the corporation every time.
Don't be fooled by powerful people who claim to be libertarian, but are actually only interested in promoting freedom for themselves while denying the same to others.
Your second paragraph is setting up a false dichotomy. It's not the corporation xor the state. Fundamentally, corporations as we know them are creatures of the state - government chartered legal entities, running on the government's legal system, with government granted liability shields. But the main point is that where the nominal state disappears, the corporation(s) step into the power vacuum and become the inescapable government. To be able to take your business elsewhere or create your own competitor, you need individual rights. While the underlying physics supports this directly for some abilities, for others you need coordinated collective action. This often takes place through the state, meaning that blanket calls to dismantle parts of the current government can often serve as cover for enabling newer less-constrained government. Think yin-yang and NP/Turing completeness circular reductions, not towering software builds.
I don't judge anyone too hard when they're willing to bend a bit to get someone out of jail after the key has been thrown away. I didn't vote Trump but I will admit the possibility of Ross being released made me pause when I marked my ballot, even his mom's image flashed in my mind and I felt guilty for not helping.
Of all the issues in this country that really has impact on millions of people, I am baffled when I hear people only caring about 1 person and not care about the common good of society and the hundreds of millions of people in the US who live in it. Fascinating and depressing.
Winning by 1.6% is not a massive victory. It's actually a smaller margin than Hillary won the popular vote by in 2016 (despite losing the electoral vote).
It's a trite thing to say, but when it comes to Trump it fits the pattern of inside dealing ... I'm guessing he personally will profit from this somehow / someone promised a donation / money.
Two life sentences was a bit harsh. 11 years seems about right to me.
I suspect the idea beyond "Free Ross" in some circles was that his conviction wasn't so much about drug dealing, but rather it was more a political prosecution for popularizing real uses of cryptocurrencies.
This might be a minor thing, but does anyone know if a full pardon will allow him to use an electronic device or access the internet? Often times, people convicted of crimes related to an online activity are forbidden this right, and I wonder if that's the case for him, and if so, what his life would be in this day and age.
That’s an expungement, which is not a power the president has. He can grant a pardon, which is forgiveness, but does not erase that a crime was committed.
It seems like a lot of the opposition to this I’m seeing online is because Trump is the one that granted it.
Ridiculous hyperbole about Ross ‘inventing the Dark Web’ or ‘Trump freed a sex trafficker’ is a great reminder that for some people, their ideological opposition can never do anything right and they’ll condemn anything they do without even a second of consideration.
I’m not an avowed Trump supporter (or even American) but believe this was the right call to make. The sentence was overly harsh and he has both served his time and reformed. I’m glad he has been released.
What’s the overall take of HN here? Was the government overstepping? Is everyone supporting this undoing of his sentence? Are we generally pro free drug trade? Or are we more anti-FBI?
This wasn't the case in the older thread. I've seen you mention that you think HN hasn't changed that much but I think juxtaposing this comment thread against the older one is illuminating. HN has drifted more toward a general news site than anything particular special. Like most news sites, comments are characterized by short, overly emotional comments that argue in borderline bad faith. Comments aren't particularly interested in discussion but instead just cathartic emoting.
From characteristics of HN that I can observe directly (stories making the front page, sites represented, classifications of those sites), relatively little change.
Mind, that's what a two-year-old historical scrape of the front-page alone shows.
What I don't see in that is voting behaviour, submissions overall, stories which haven't made the front page, etc., etc., etc. Much of that is only available within the HN server/DBMS itself, though some might be evident from a more comprehensive scrape of the site. Since items (submissions and comments) are assigned monotonically-increasing IDs, that's at least theoretically possible, though at 42.8 million items and counting it'd take some doing, and there is still a great deal of information concealed from the public: comment votes, purged content, flag detail, vouch detail, unannounced moderator activity.
What has changed markedly is the pardonee's relationship to the political system, and the political system's own degree of (dis)functionality. To that extent, HN both reflects, participates, and is a mechanism for influencing / being influenced by a larger system which has changed markedly.
HN has long been unable to discuss contentious subjects. It's particularly prone to status quoism, and in the present environment, the status quo is markedly authoritarian, fascistic, and personality-cultish, all of which HN's biases inherently (if not intentionally) support.
It disappoints me tremendously, as for all those faults HN remains one of the better online discussion sites. The bar is falling rapidly however, so cold, cold comfort there.
Late edit: Specifically as regards general news sites, those have always featured heavily on HN, with the New York Times specifically being among the top 3, if not the top submitted site. That changed markedly around 2019 not due to changes in HN, but as the Times significantly tightened its paywall, causing front-page appearances to drop to roughly 1/4 their previous quantity. To that extent, HN sees less general news, and less reasonably nonpartisan news now than in its first decade or so. The degree to which social media sites, and Twitter in particular, have themselves shifted rightwards, there's also a strong bias.
Specifically partisan "think tank" (read: propaganda) sites have long had a submission penalty, and don't seem to be more prevalent so far as I've checked. Partisanship has crept up on other sites/domains, however.
> From characteristics of HN that I can observe directly (stories making the front page, sites represented, classifications of those sites), relatively little change.
Right I'm specifically talking about comments here. I agree that the site, largely, posts and engages with very similar content as it always has.
> It disappoints me tremendously, as for all those faults HN remains one of the better online discussion sites. The bar is falling rapidly however, so cold, cold comfort there.
This sounds like your disappointment is largely that HN has high volume behind political opinions which you disagree. I agree with you and probably share very similar political opinions, but it's also true that fora throughout the net and web have always had resident biases oriented around the founding members. To me that is what it is and not necessarily an indictment on conversation quality which is distinct from the political and social environment it resides in, though I realize it's not completely possible to divorce the two.
> It disappoints me tremendously, as for all those faults HN remains one of the better online discussion sites. The bar is falling rapidly however, so cold, cold comfort there.
Perhaps, but for myself and I suspect many like myself, online discussion sites died years ago once they became dominated by the kind of comments you see on this thread. Knee-jerk opinion blasting and short, emotional posts rarely generate signal but only noise.
> Specifically as regards general news sites, those have always featured heavily on HN, with the New York Times specifically being among the top 3, if not the top submitted site.
My comparison with general news sites isn't to say that HN now has more of it; I've also done my own analysis of site submissions and I agree, I think there's less general news on the site than before. What I mean to say is, the comments here are generally indistinguishable from those you see on the Verge, NYTimes, local news sites, and even most of Twitter.
This sort of gets to the heart of what HN meant to me and I suspect many of us: HN was a unique gathering of tech and non-tech folks who discussed things charitably and in good faith. This means not responding with short, emotional comments meant to be more cathartic than explanatory. This meant that acknowledging that another poster may have a very different political or social lens than yours and that while a discussion may change no minds, it can educate participants in the various ways of thinking that manifest from these varied backgrounds.
Today's HN though is nothing special. I can get this quality of commentary from pretty much any large discussion site online. The only thing that's interesting here is the selection of topics, but that's never been HN's strong suit as it's fairly easy to curate tech topics through various socials and RSS. It's always the commentary and community that's given me, and I suspect others like me, value on this site.
FWIW I don't blame anyone or anything and this post is largely meant as catharsis for myself, much like all the snappy emotional shouting in this thread is meant as righteous catharsis for many of the posters. But I also think it's time to acknowledge that large scale discussion on the web in English is dead. The participants have become too balkanized, too angry, and too disinterested in learning through conversation to have any educational effect. Instead online English-language discussions on large fora largely function as catharsis.
EDIT: I see a lot of people very loudly proclaim how they've given up news sites and social media to read HN. This feels utterly nonsensical to me as there's pretty much no difference in comment quality. Instead, it points to some form of identity sorting where commenters try to "identify" as the kind of person who indulges in fora rather than news sites or social media. To me this feels even more counterproductive because the establishment of an "HN Identity" leads to even more partisanship than what we already have affecting discussions.
This sounds like your disappointment is largely that HN has high volume behind political opinions which you disagree.
No.
It's that there's little opportunity for meaningful, substantial discussion in a form that moves discourse forward.
HN's guidelines are reasonable. Their application is lacking. And where discussion occurs on controversial subjects which challenge the status quo, one example of which is the current governance of the country in which HN operates, HN's guidelines actively handicap those arguing against power.
The fact that those with the advantage of power also tend strongly toward nonsubstantive, partisan rhetoric, inflammetory baiting, and gloating ... helps little.
My comparison isn't of HN against discussion at other sites. Again, HN is generally better though the bar is parlous low. There are some other smaller discussions which seem better managed, the most notable of which I'm aware is Metafilter, for reasons which may merit further exploration. There are reasons to believe that any sufficiently large discussion will tend to a minimum viable standard for reasons I've discussed for many years though scattered amongst many comments here and elsewhere, ultimately having to do with media theory, power laws, and group dynamics.
What the HN of the past three days does suggest is at least four years of distressingly poor discussion quality. I hope not longer than that, and if at possible, shorter.
As for news: I read / listen to news media to some extent. Many of those are exceptionally poor, and my results recently writing a parser for CNN's "lite" page give measurable assessment of that. My own media selection is generally left-centrist, and includes numerous non-US venues. I can assure you that the general take on the US is somewhere between disappointment, shock, and horror.
I've pinged dang on some previous threads which I'd have liked to see discussed.
He's been commenting for a few years now about being pretty much maxed out on his moderation and email capacity, and intensive posts simply cannot get the moderation that's required for substantive discussion. He (and other mods, and member flags) can clean up the worst messes account bans are fairly frequent (107 public bans in the past year: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1737783933&dateRange=custom&...>
I'd been meaning to do that check for a few weeks (I'd asked dang about ban frequency and trends, he doesn't have data handy). At least over the past five years its ... reasonably constant. How many unannounced bans occur of course I don't know.
Overall results: ban notices weren't really a thing until 2015--2016. For years up to 2014--2015 I checked for comments additionally by pg as dang wasn't moderator in early years. There may be some additional notices by sctb, in total 344 from 14 July 2016 to 16 August 2019, see: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1737752605&dateRange=all&dat...>.
*: Most of these 11 results are discussion about bans, rather than ban notices. Following 2014--2015 the pattern matches are far more often about actual ban actions.
The US constitution increasingly seems like the principles of the Roman Republic after Caesar — a quaint relic that gets regular ceremonial lip service but provides no checks and balances on the leaders.
Presidents of both parties abuse pardon power with monarchic glee. The president now has full immunity. The incoming president and his wife launched crypto-tokens whose only utility is to allow foreigners to send billions of dollars to them anonymously (of course with full identification of the buyer in private communications thanks to the crypto private key, so you can be sure of who sent the bribe).
People are obviously tired and overwhelmed. It's hard to pay attention because Trump has recently threatened so much more: invading foreign allies, military trials for political opponents, using the army against citizens, and so on. When he carries through with just 20% of what he said, it's supposed to be no big deal. But the institutions and norms are destroyed and they don't magically come back if the other party wins.
I laundered money on The Silkroad (sent birthday cards filled with cash for bitcoin). It was a level of criminality I was fairly comfortable with. I do retain some fear that my door would be kicked in some day. Lawyers of HN, Am I in the clear now too? Ross tried to have a guy murdered, after all.
I wonder if the decision to drop the "murder for hire" charges was originally influenced by his existing life sentence, and whether the pardon now alters that reasoning. Is it still possible for him to be prosecuted on those charges?
I think they were dismissed with prejudice, which if true, is a “no”. That said, all prior charges and attempts were federal charges, and nothing in a pardon or federal dismissal prevents an individual state from bringing charges, IIRC. Would be a heavy lift though without cooperation from feds to turn over investigation materials.
Given the farcical nature of those allegations and all that we now know, including that others with access to the Dread Pirate Roberts account assert that the DEA agent making the allegations (who is himself now in prison for attempting to steal some of the silk road bitcoin) had access as well, it will be wonderful if DoJ attempts to bring charges, just to further clear Ross' name.
There are not a shred of evidence that Ross ever had the slightest thing to do with those conversations, and it seems much more likely that the DEA used the DPR account to frame him.
I think that we have to agree that anyone doing this today will definitely go to jail, and is my personal opinion that there must be a punishment. Now, the discussion could be if a life sentence is a fair sentence or not. I personally feel that a life sentence is a disproportionate punishment, moreover if the subject shows a different attitude after being in jail for more than a decade. Ten years time to medidate about what you did is plenty of time to change someone's mind, obviously if you are a person willing to do things differently.
I know values and priorities change over time. that gets reflected in the party platforms. But ee are in a weird place politically... where Republicans are now soft on crime? It's weird.
This is a general question for any reader here who disagrees with the original prison sentence. (Ignore the Presidential pardon for a moment.) What is a reasonable prison sentence for his crimes? 10-20 years?
...and the chemicals he would have supplied are being sliced and diced (padded out, to make more money), and you have to (in my country) go to some pretty dodgy areas to get what you want.
He has admitted his wrong doings and made efforts to change whilst in prison. I doubt he will go straight back to a life even remotely close to before. He was doing good in prison for other inmates and I imagine he will continue doing the same now he has this second chance.
What the future holds for someone who was pardoned is likely decided based on very different rationalization compared to how one acts while serving a lifetime prison sentence.
Whilst I understand your point of view that the change in circumstances can change how someone decides to act, I don't believe there is much history to show someone who gained a surprising second chance outside of prison has gone back to their previous life.
I'm wondering that too. I think there's three options: he either has secret money hidden away, is going to get a cushy job in tech by some fan, or he's going to be working as a walmart greeter in 3 years.
Honestly I'm hoping he gets an X account so I can follow him and see which it is lol
I don't think he should have done any time for the drug-related charges. And 10 years is more than enough for a murder-for-hire in which nobody got hurt. So this seems... just.
I believe the responsibility for the harm caused by addictive drugs lies on the user to such great extent, that whatever remains for the people who facilitate the sale is not enough for it to be a criminal offence. It's still immoral the same way it's immoral to operate a gambling shop.
But in Ulbricht's case I'd say even this part is mitigated by the fact that facilitating the trade of dangerous drugs was a side effect of running a useful service for responsible drug users.
Is it though? You might want to debate a moral philosopher over me, but I don't think you should make broad statements like that as if it was established truth.
This is a rare Trump win. There are many things to criticize him for, but this pardon isn't one of them. I don't think anyone, after researching this case, would be okay with the life sentence handed down to Ross.
Most people in real life don’t even know who this guy is. This is a guy that online people know. I will agree it’s a win, he was unfairly sentenced. I just wish I would have been able to buy from SR. I did get to browse it before it was seized.
When Snowden, is my question. RFK put a lot of words into "if I am in charge that'll be my first thing". Yeah, he's not the president but he's also not nobody anymore.
NGL it would be pretty funny if Snowden gets to return to the west but we hadn't actually fixed any of the stuff he brought forward in the meantime. Not sure what I would do in his shoes... I guess a pardon is pretty impossible for future presidents to get around, TBF
The courage a lot of these whistleblowers have shown is admirable. How the American public outrages, though: Facebook has targeted ads. How they don't outrage: their government is illegally tracking their own citizens' movements and communications including overseas.
Not going to say Ulbricht is a hero like some of the others, but he trail blazed like none before him! And he deserves his freedom years ago.
Why? He did nothing to deserve punishment in Russia. If anything, if Snowden left, I think Putin would be relieved he doesn't have to treat a potential nuisance with utmost care anymore. At the moment he can't really disappear him and has to waste resources monitoring him.
I will take this opportunity to reflect on the fact that I spent some time considering a purchase of certain controlled substances on Silk Road, but failed to recognize that my own purchasing impulse was a pretty good indicator that the currency involved might be worth a casual investment.
Legalities aside, is it more evil to hire a dude to kill your enemy, or to go kill your enemy yourself? (I'd go with the former because if you go kill your enemy yourself you're at least accepting that it may go the other way).
I guess this is why he was upset about Mexico sending drug dealers and murderers - he didn't want competition for our homegrown drug dealers and murderers.
To be honest if Trump would've pardoned him in his first term it would've been way too short of a sentence for what he did. Though I hate the usual libertarian defense that makes him out to be an innocent martyr, I think that 10 years is somewhat enough for what he did. It would have been a normal sentence in a lot of countries outside the US.
Thanks. I appreciate your view on the sentence, but I'm interested in why Trump would issue a pardon.
I'm unconvinced that Trump in 2020 thought Ulbricht's total sentence was okay, but four years later has apparently changed his mind. So who's the client here? It doesn't seem to be Ulbricht - is it libertarians in general? Why does Trump, as a second term president, actually care?
There are credibility issues if you make promises you don't follow up on, especially very public promises that are completely within your power to carry out; there are no limits on the presidential pardon power, barring that it only applies to federal crimes.
I wish this thread were discussing how in America you can get drunk in a bar, step into a 4,000 motorized bullet, kill someone or an entire family, and get a slap on the wrist.
Or it could be different people commenting than on that original thread? And people might have changed their minds? HN is not a monolith. Humans are not static. You don't need to blame it on "politics being a mind virus".
I don't know. I personally know people that lost their minds because of an election. Completely well off people, whose lives are not affected at all by national politics, apart from slight changes in tax rates. They live in a state and city that shares their politics. They're isolated from everything on the national level.
Yet some of these people have rearranged their entire lives around a singular politician. Ended relationships, moved, started therapy or medication.
>Completely well off people, whose lives are not affected at all by national politics, apart from slight changes in tax rates. They live in a state and city that shares their politics. They're isolated from everything on the national level...
>What else would you call that?
This is one of those comments that accidentally reveals more than intended because I would call that "empathy". You are revealing that the only reason you think people should be concerned about politics is when it directly effects them. Some people actually genuinely care about other people and seeing someone elected who has promised to hurt people is a disturbing and troubling turn of events even if they themselves are likely to be safe.
So you’re saying people are making a rational estimation of the various harms caused to their fellowmen, determining that political actions in Washington are the primary component, and feeling bad about the harm?
I don’t buy it. Citing empathy is moral language to justify bad actions.
>So you’re saying people are making a rational estimation of the various harms caused to their fellowmen, determining that political actions in Washington are the primary component, and feeling bad about the harm?
Trump released an executive order yesterday that said some of my friends are no longer considered citizens of this country. Yes, sometimes it is incredibly obvious when Washington is to blame for people's suffering.
>This thread is about people whose well being and ability to enjoy life is ruined by politics
Another facet of empathy is being able to understand other perspectives besides your own. Maybe this was your interpretation of the bounds of the conversation. It doesn't mean that is the only interpretation.
Here are the exact words from the comment I replied to: "Ended relationships, moved, started therapy or medication." I don't think those are signs someone whose "ability to enjoy life is ruined". In fact, I see those as signs of someone enjoying life more by removing or addressing things that sap the joy out of life.
Yes. Needing medication because your friend has visa problems is crazy. They themselves are probably less anxious.
> another facet of empathy
Do you really think political obsession is just a sign of superior morals and humanity?
Empathy should make you less pessimistic about politics because you understand other groups values and incentives. (I don’t claim this description is me)
>Yes. Needing medication because your friend has visa problems is crazy.
There was an "or" in that list of possible reactions. I was not giving an example of a situation in which someone would or should have every one of those reactions. I was directly replying to you by giving you an example of a situation in which it was clear that "political actions in Washington are the primary component" of inflicting harm on people.
>Do you really think political obsession is just a sign of superior morals and humanity?
I never said anything about superiority. That is something you brought to the conversation. Is there a reason you view someone exhibiting more empathy than you as an insult?
>Empathy should make you less pessimistic about politics because you understand other groups values and incentives.
Understanding a person's perspective isn't necessarily paired with the ability to change that perspective. Does knowing a racist might be motivated by fear make their racism less dangerous?
I think you should manage your health and safety first and those closest to you.
You're not helping by inflicting harm on yourself and those around you. If you want to canvas for the other side, donate, volunteer, great. But these people are obsessed and inflict a lot of damage on themselves for no good purpose.
Most people empathize to those that are infected with a virus. It's often out of their control. You can only offer them help and suggest they touch grass once in a while. But you shouldn't feed into their self delusions that self harm and obsession with things out of their control is healthy and a good way to live their life
The empathy you are showing in this comment would feel a lot more genuine if you didn't reveal with your prior comment how little empathy plays into your overall worldview. I'm personally fine, you don't have to waste your time telling me how to live a better life. I was just trying to explain to you what you were seemingly misunderstanding about your fellow humans.
> Some people actually genuinely care about other people and seeing someone elected who has promised to hurt people is a disturbing and troubling turn of events even if they themselves are likely to be safe.
Ya but, it's all a bit silly isn't it? Realistically those people wouldn't be doing any of that unless they were addicted to media and perhaps by consequence emotionally volatile. If I chose not to be chronically keeping up with stuff on a moment to moment basis that only has vague intangible impacts on my life or those around me, specifically online, does that make me less empathetic or less tolerant of having all my time, energy, and attention stolen from me? That's not always the case, but it often is, and if it's actually relevant, you're opting into poor mental health despite having zero control over anything even if you care, so you might as well not be so tuned in; which part is the good part again?
It's a bit fatalistic perhaps, but I feel like the greatest trick social media (and Trump) ever pulled was convincing us we'd be pariahs if we opted out. If not for chronically keeping up with nearly literally every word the new batch of chronies has to say, they might not be saying it.
>If I chose not to be chronically keeping up with stuff on a moment to moment basis that only has vague intangible impacts on my life or those around me, specifically online, does that make me less empathetic or less tolerant of having all my time, energy, and attention stolen from me?
Some people view empathy as an active ability to "put yourself in someone else's shoes". Other people view it as a passive feeling along the lines of "it hurts to see other people hurt". If you can just stop being empathic by not thinking about it, you are in the first group. Some of us are in the second group and can't just decide to ignore it.
Weird part is that these two groups generally belive are not that different in the general. Most of the fight on the ideological side is on marginal differences.
This all is mostly idiotic tribal fight when you hate each other because you just must to hate someone.
I profoundly hope for star trek like civilisation in the future
It’s religious conflict. Nobody cares really about differences in tax rates. But differences in foundational beliefs about the world and humanity will do that.
People generally do not come up with absurd beliefs all on their own, those do spread like a virus and as a consequence of all that social contagion, they do not seem all that absurd anymore to the person who contracts them.
Talk like this is never apolitical. No political change can occur without discussion first and therefore preemptively dismissing political discussion is inherently an endorsement of the current power structures.
There is no way to actually discuss this specific story without discussing politics. A president pardoning someone is an inherently political act and that is only emphasized when it was done on his first day in office and with a statement that includes lines like "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me." That is all part of the story of what happened here and it involves politics whether you like it or not.
Yes let's use word that need massive essays to explain what one person believes they mean... Like "woke". And not just stick to words we know the meaning of. That surely aid the discussion. /s
Not sure what you’re trying to say, and the (attempted?) sarcasm doesn’t help.
But yes, coining pejoratives like “woke” or “fascist” or “communist” and then going to war with the imaginary beliefs attributed to the enemies who themselves don’t even use the term is indeed not helpful. It’s just childish.
Exactly. If anything, the one thing that’s guaranteed in these types of threads is that someone will make this same tired argument of “aha, but HN back then said differently” as if it’s some kind of gotcha. I used to always look, and not only was it never the same people but the threads are largely more balanced than the original poster let on. It’s like the contrarian dynamic, which dang has to explain over and over and over and over and over again.
Any time a criminal is caught, people want them to do hard time, but people believe we're too hard on crime if you don't use examples. People think the government should spend less, but are far less likely too agree to any specific cut. People thought Musk was a genius until they realised he is also a jerk.
And while it's sometimes different people, it's suspiciously reliably consistent in what you see said and upvoted.
Based on the sheer number of posts that have misrepresented the charges or misunderstood why he was actually in prison, it appears to partially be a lack of knowledge on the case, likely due to time hazing some of the memories. Of course someone will change their mind, and some may have their view influenced by who happens to support him.
"Politics" is a dismissive word for crypto's evolution over the last decade. North Korea ransoming our hospitals, industrial scale gambling and scam enablement, wealthy kingpins buying self-serving policy. Crypto grew up. So did our opinions.
That doesn't change what Ross Ulbricht did, but we can now see him as continuous with a great evil that we couldn't see at the time. With more information, our opinions changed, and they were right to change.
Wow. I thought you were being glib, but the average comment length is noticeably higher in the linked discussion. While length isn’t necessarily a valid proxy for meaningful conversation, this was definitely an eye-opening contrast to the current thread.
Well, that thread is almost a decade old. HN a decade ago was a very different vibe than today.
You are insinuating one thing, but perhaps it is also possible reason is that the same people with those old views of the crimes have grown and their views changed. I know mine certainly have gone that way. I’d have to imagine other users have grown with me.
Nah social media is just about engagement. People who are happy with the article don’t bother to comment. Those who are outraged comment. It’s just two different groups of people commenting
At the time of sentencing, did we already know that the murder for hire plots were created by corrupt Secret Service and DEA agents on trial next door? and all of that was withheld from the defense and the jury?
because that's where the story really jumps the shark. I'm all for some accountability - such as the 12 years in prison already - but that particular case should have been dropped for several reasons, I've seen cases dropped for way less.
The craziest part about that thread is how much the attitude around drugs has changed in the past years. 10 years ago the comments felt a lot more optimistic about drugs and liberalization.
I guess since then, the fentanyl crisis has happened and shown that drugs also have more negative impacts
That people can't change their minds? That HN is a hivemind ? (news flash: it's not , it's more diverse than you actually think) or that everything is attributed to "Politics is a mind virus" ? if so, what do you mind by this term specifically?
I personally, find little substance in such comments. If you have an opinion on the matter (which seemingly you do), then please share it so that we can have a discussion about it.
I think this comment would have got less downvotes if you could have made it somewhat shorter. Walls of text like this just scream Unabomber manifesto to me :)
I’m confused as Trump said he wanted to be tough on crime and drugs and “kill drug dealers”, but he just pardoned one of the worlds largest drug dealers.
He was never a drug dealer, he provided a platform that was used to sell drugs. The pardon was a surprise, however his sentence was unfairly strict and he was clearly made an example out of that hasn't happened to any other platform provider.
Just as an example, there have been investigations in to the use of Snapchat as a method for drug dealers and gangs of drug dealers to access kids to sell them drugs However there has been absolutely zero discussion in the public domain even about shutting it down or requiring new laws to stop this, let alone considering charging the owners.
There is a huge difference between a communication platform that some users abuse for illegal purposes, and a platform whose primary purpose is a marketplace for illegal goods.
Actually the marketplace was just a marketplace, it then was primarily used for illegal goods. It hasn't really ever been proven that it was setup as a marketplace for illegal goods.
I mean I would agree regarding the user base, but it was originally built as a utopian concept for a free trade of goods, akin to the original world of warcraft marketplace.
I suppose it could be made consistent if we posit the existence of another hidden rule. For example, the skin-color or political-connectedness of the accused.
I think you need much more than "feels" to make claims like that, especially as they are directly contrary to HN guidelines, but also because making baseless claims, especially about other commenters, is a meaningless, inflammatory response.
So far you don't know what you are talking about and are making things up. If you do know what you're talking about and aren't making it up, please share your evidence and reasoning.
The two life sentences and 35 years extra that were given to Ross were most certainly abnormal and used to make an example of. I have yet to see this comparison made although if anyone could provide valid reasons in the difference I would be open to listening.
Secondly, the sheer number of posts on this site stating didn't he hire a hitman. No, and there was no conviction of that.
I distinctly remember listening to recordings of him hiring a hitman. It's been a long time and my memory is certainly prone to error, but that sort of thing does stick with you. I especially remember the irony because he also preached about non-violence at some point, obviously until someone's continued existence became inconvenient for him.
I don't agree with that and I don't understand why those charges were not taken to court (I don't believe it was purely because he already had 2 life sentences as when the appeals were going to the supreme court and there was a risk of him winning, it surely made sense to secure him if you had the evidence to proceed with another case). Whether that was true or not though, someone can only be sentenced and punished on what one was convicted of. Anything else is not based in justice or law.
I don't really believe that the US is a country ruled by law any more, but in some idealized land of the law you are probably correct. But you won't convince me that OJ Simpson walking on a double homicide he clearly committed is justice. For Ulbricht, it actually feels like things more or less balanced out, but he did try to have someone killed, and I don't think that's a nice thing to do.
Did the judge conclude, as part of sentencing, that hiring a hit (or two?) was likely?
What reasoning did the judge give for the sentencing? They might involve similar websites but the crimes can be much different. Two people can run the same drug cartel at different times, but that doesn't mean their crimes are the same.
It was pretty out of left field and seemingly uncharacteristic for the him to do this. It's fair to ask why. I think Trump is terrible in every way, think the pardon is fine, but can't help but wonder why and other questions about it
"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
Disclosure - I immensely dislike Trump and think Ross Ublricht deserved to be convicted.
That said - There is no evidence that anyone was ever killed, there is pretty thin evidence that he actually ever intended to hire any hitmen (though he may have defrauded people who thought they were hiring hitmen), and a life sentence for non-violent drug trafficking seems draconian. I certainly don't think this should have been one of Trump's priorities (I'm guessing it came through Vance, Musk, or someone else in the crypto community), but I don't have a big problem with it.
Absolute no brainer, he should be celebrated. Countless lives were saved via the harm reduction effect of a peer reviewed, reputation based platform. Of course if we had less draconian drug policy, it wouldn't be necessary but here we are.
> Countless lives were saved via the harm reduction effect of a peer reviewed, reputation based platform.
The basic immorality/pointlessness of the war on drugs aside, I don't know how you can assert this: it's not like there's a chain of provenance, and there's no particular guarantee that whatever grade of pure drugs was sold on Silk Road is the same purity that ended up in peoples' bodies.
My understanding of the Silk Road case is that, at its peak, it was servicing a significant portion of the international drug market. The dimensions of that market include adulteration; Silk Road almost certainly didn't change that.
Anecdotally, Planet Money looked into this years ago and their reporting was that as far as they could tell, drugs on Silk Road weren't less safe than street drugs. Most of them were likely "fell off the truck" samples from the original manufacturers being sold by people with an in on the supply, but no otherwise-easy access to an out on the demand.
Their observation was that reputation mattered on SR a lot and a well-kept reputation was valuable at scale in a way that it isn't for being a street-corner pusher looking to stretch your buck by cutting your supply with adulterants. The smart play was to provide a high-quality product at a reasonable price (the latter being the easiest part since they were bypassing the obscene markup of official channels).
> Anecdotally, Planet Money looked into this years ago and their reporting was that as far as they could tell, drugs on Silk Road weren't less safe than street drugs.
Yeah, I'm not saying they're less safe. In fact, on average, I'm willing to bet that the drugs sold on Silk Road were much safer than their street equivalents.
My point was about large sales: Silk Road moved not just personal drug sales, but also industrial quantities of drugs that were almost certainly re-sold. Those latter sales are impossible to track and (by volume) almost certainly represent the majority of "doses" sold through SR. Given that, I doubt the OP's assertion that SR itself represents a particularly effective form of harm reduction.
Or as another framing: SR gave tech dorks a way to buy cheap, clean drugs. But those aren't the people who really need harm reduction techniques; the ones who do are still buying adulterated drugs, which are derived from the cheap, clean drugs on SR.
You shouldn't assume that all "street transfers" of drugs are peaceful or have a positive outcome for those involved. Harm reduction comes in many forms.
I'm pretty sure my comment says the exact opposite. I'm saying that SR was a massive operation that fueled street traffic, which in turn lacked any of the harm reduction virtues that SR is being assigned.
I'm pointing to the transaction layer. When you get thousands of dollars and product in a room with people you don't know things can get extremely unprofessional very quickly. It's really fun when you discover that most of the currency is counterfeit which happens more than you think.
What you say is also true. So there is a trade here. I'm not claiming it's "worth it," but the alternative without SR at all does seem to be more negative.
The overwhelming majority of drug sales are for personal use. That doesn't mean that large sales weren't made, or that those weren't in fact a significant portion of the site's revenue.
>it's not like there's a chain of provenance, and there's no particular guarantee that whatever grade of pure drugs was sold on Silk Road is the same purity that ended up in peoples' bodies.
The fact that the majority of listings on the site were for personal use quantities suggests that the majority of sales were to end users rather than traffickers.
It's hard to dispute that this saved lives and I would speculate that it saved many lives.
>That doesn't mean that large sales weren't made, or that those weren't in fact a significant portion of the site's revenue.
Nobody made any claim that large sales weren't made, of course they were.
> It's hard to dispute that this saved lives and I would speculate that it saved many lives.
See below; the observation is that the people who were buying individual quantities of drugs from SR were not at serious risk of harm in the first place, relative to typical at-risk populations. Anecdotally, the people I know who bought drugs from SR during its heydey were very much test-everything-twice types.
By contrast, the large sales that SR facilitated almost certainly ended up in street drug markets, where harm reduction would have made a difference. But those people didn't benefit from SR's community standards, insofar as they existed: they got whatever adulterated product made it to them.
This is the basic error in saying "most sales were small": the big sales are what matter, socially speaking.
No no no, he is right. Its safe because if you receive a bad batch of drugs you can leave a negative review on the page of the drug cartel that has your name and address, no chance of that having any repercussions for you at all.
even if its not perfect for every situation it was a lot better then what existed.
negative reviews aren't the only review, absence of positive reviews is a signal, along with a lot of other positive reviews. later markets at least had reviews outside the markets too
if you are in the bulk and resale drug market you probably aren't getting package with your name on it to your home.
Yup. Drugs and the accompanying business disputes (there's a reason street dealers are armed or have armed people around) that would be normal in any other industry are sooo many people's (who would other wise not be violent criminals) entry point to violence. Letting parties remain at arms length yet transact successfully is such a huge step forward compared the prior status quo. Anything that gets buyers and sellers (either at the retail or distribution level) in illegal industries farther from each other is a win as far as I care.
As well as online drug marketplaces? Or would running one without legal trouble require a campaign-contribution booster pack?
What a beautiful political anschluss between people who just want to ban contraceptives and abortifacients, and people who just want to shoot up heroin. Not sure how you square that circle[1], but it's 2025, and here we are.
It's very telling about libertarian priorities when a cryptobro running an online drug marketplace who tried to hire a hitman gets amnesty, while hundreds of thousands of people who have been convicted of drug possession[1] do not. Likewise, somehow reproductive rights are just not a libertarian issue, either. It's not a party of freedom, it's a party of freedom for wealthy men.
[1] Biden gave a blanket pardon for people convicted of marijuana posession, but that's far less important for libertarians than Ulbricht.
I think most libertarians are against the war on drugs and would happily pardon or commute the sentences of non violent drug offenders, but the DPR probably takes priority for them because of the free trade issue compounded with the popularization of a non state-backed currency.
He has both drugs + crypto vs just drugs. *Ignoring the accusations of hit ordering, which I would imagine all librarians cannot excuse.
If they are actually trying to maximize any kind of public welfare utility function, surely commutations and pardons and decriminalization and harm reduction for hundreds of thousands and millions of people, and body autonomy for hundreds of millions more should mean a wee bit more than this entirely transactional act.
These discussions are very interesting. So many red flags from Trump (this pardon, ending birthright citizenship...), and people try to justify these things. America is unfortunately heading for a very dark time. Politics aside, I am rather uncomfortable with the power the president possesses. We were always mindful that there are systems of checks and balances. However, given the current court overturned a precedent (Roe), I am unsure what the future holds. This pardon makes me very uneasy.
I am happy to see that Trump is a man of his word. I voted for him just because of this campaign promise. I would have voted for almost anyone who promised this.
I am very sympathetic to the idea of voting just for Ross. It is unclear to me which candidate would be better, since neither of them are close to my political beliefs at all. It is a deadlock and I seem completely unrepresented. The consequences of voting based on any big issues I care about seems completely unpredictable; politics is a game of lies, smoke and mirrors. So I would perhaps rather vote for the candidate that would definitely save one person's life that is important to me.
What were your number 2 and 3 issues, out of curiosity?
Were there any accompanying policies that you would say, "despite promising to free Ross Ulbricht, I don't think accompanying Policy X would be worth it?"
If Paris agreements cannot prevent tariffs on Chinese EV and Chinese solar panels, which are basically battling climate change on Chinese money, these agreements don't justify the cost of paper they are written on.
Not OP, but yes, immensely. Two different galaxies.
The Paris Agreement is a joke; it has done nothing. It's just a bunch of big-ass politicians and a few celebrities bloviating about not solving the problem.
Look, I'm not disputing at all that global warming is an issue, or that we need to solve it, or that humans cause it, or whatever. But the Paris Agreement and those all other agreements are all about big idiots pretending to do stuff.
Probably the most effective thing we have done globally to combat warming is changing to electric cars, and that's NOT the Paris Agreement. Not even close.
The Paris Agreement is the ultimate politician's move. Global warming is a technical problem and must be solved by technical means.
Ironically, the one person who is doing more than all the politicians combined to solve this is backing the current administration. Twitter is nuts over if he did a Nazi salute, while doing nothing to focus on solving what they believe is the biggest issue in our lifetimes.
Yes. If you stop producing steel (which we kinda did), and just buy it from China instead, you haven't "eliminated emissions". You've merely moved them to a country which is currently not subject to the environmental limits. We are on the same planet - in the long run it doesn't matter where you burn coal.
Until you can prove to me that all courts, judges, attorneys, and juries are above reproach and no innocent people are imprisoned there absolutely should be a method for someone to pardon. Sometimes a pardon will be issued for people you disagree with, but that’s part of it. Just like somebody will say something that pisses you off, but that’s the cost of free speech
Are you proposing to drown mercy and forgiveness in bureaucracy?
Corruption is a valid point generally. And this question can be raised when discussing pardon for president's family.
But is this point valid for this specific case, for the man who already spent 11 years in prison and has no relation to the president?
you say lawful convictions, but yet have not provided any evidence of all convictions being lawful. we absolutely know that people have been wrongly imprisoned. but at this point i feel like i'm talking to a 3month old bot
So I'd prefer to give a good person the power to do good things by pardoning those worthy of liberty, and a bad person the power to make their corruption evident for the world to see.
I see absolutely no reason to have the risk of terrible pardons like we have seen over and over in the US. Clinton pardoned Mark Rich while he was still wanted by the DOJ because he donated a lot. Trump just pardoned everyone convicted in the Jan 6 insurrection.
> “All my Republican donations were dark,” [SBF] said, referring to political donations that are not publicly disclosed in FEC filings. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the f—k out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
> Given that he donated nearly $40 million to Democrats in the 2022 election cycle—and he admitted to giving an equal amount to Republicans—his total political contributions may have actually been around $80 million.
Libertarians are the cheapest fucking buys of all time.
They will sell their souls to a man who would grind them into a paste and sell that paste as a protein snack to his cultists-- in exchange for a hollow, symbolic win that either impacts them in no way whatsoever or maliciously hurts people they don't like.
At least with other political groups you have to, you know, BRIBE them.
Libertarians are so used to receiving absolutely nothing that they will mistake the scent of a steak for a full meal.
That hollow, symbolic win could have been given to them by anyone other than Trump. If nobody else thinks a group's interests are worth listening to, don't be surprised when they start chasing after the tiniest morsels.
So Trump keeps his promises to the ones who supported him. Makes one think how what other promises he has made to other people and groups having funded and supported his campaign.
Gentle reminder that we have 1,459 more days of this shit. We really don't have to upvote every crazy fucking thing this guy does, or HN will be nothing but that for the next four years.
I think this pardon just reflects Trump's transactional politics. Ulbricht has sympathizers in high places now because crypto is all over this administration.
In the long run letting political influence trump (no pun intended) the criminal justice system is a very bad thing.
By world standards our criminal justice system is a strength of the country. A pity if we lose that.
I'm genuinely surprised of the reactions on this thread. Trump just announced that cartels down south are terrorist organizations. This means that some of the members will likely die by the hand of the us govt. How is running an open market for drugs, weapons, etc different? Seems contradictory to me, what am I missing?
Hard to square the circle with this. Trump is against China's drug imports (and more generally China's imports), but releases someone convicted of running a "import some drugs from China" business because... well crypto money. Oh money that's it. No contradiction!
It's baffling to me that there are actually comments on Hacker Gosh Darn News of all places suggesting that Ross justly belonged in prison.
He successfully created a tool to undermine one of the most unjust and predatory policies of the US State - the policy of drug prohibition.
He's a damn hero. I don't understand why Trump, who most of the time seems like a simply awful human being with no end of appetite for state power, has chosen to do this, but I'll certainly take it.
It's beyond obvious that voting and other mechanics of representative rule have not succeeded at simple policy change such as ending prohibition. I look forward to several decades of truth trumping power in the form of the internet undermining states, until the asinine mode of political organization known as the nation state is deprecated entirely.
It's hard to know why he wouldn't - he conspired to have people killed, and facilitated illegal activity, i.e. the sale of all sorts of drugs. You might be saying "well, drugs shouldn't be illegal", or even, "well, conspiring to kill people shouldn't be illegal", but they were illegal at the time.
Seems like a legal slight-of-hand, and also unjust and unethical and absolutely ripe for government abuse.
He was punished for the crime of attempting or conspiring to commit murder. Without ever having been found guilty in a trial by jury of his peers determining beyond reasonable doubt that the facts met said crime.
Since no one is posting it, here's Trump Truth Social post on the matter:
"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"
I’m not necessarily going to comment on his behaviors directly, as everyone else has already stated that in part or in whole. My grievance, my perspective, is that it’s yet another white man getting a slap on the wrist for wrongdoing while doing nothing to correct any of the underlying problems or pardon others who engaged in similar or lesser behaviors.
The war on drugs has always been farcical, deliberately engineered to target minority groups who were opposing power dynamics at the time. It’s why - despite popular opinion to the contrary - cannabis remains broadly illegal at the Federal level and enforced globally through a web of treaties. It’s always been about creating the means of entrapment for those inconvenient to power.
Pardoning Ross smacks of a gift to cryptobros to earn their loyalty to the current powers that be, rather than an acknowledgement of a past mistake. It is nakedly political, pardoning a white man from an otherwise good background while others languish in prison on far less serious charges or convictions. Were any of the drug dealers on his black market similarly pardoned? Were any of his consumers? Of course not, because Ross was a Capitalist making profit in an untapped market, and the others were individuals who were not.
The entire thing is nauseating, and is enough to wash my hands of all involved were the need to dismantle this farce of a war not so grave.
Just a reminder: the condition for accepting a pardon is acknowledging that you did commit the crime in question and accept the court's finding of guilt.
In contrast: Biden didn't pardon Leonard Peltier, the president commuted his sentence. Peltier maintains his innocence.
Can you share more about your first point? A brief search shows the 1915 Burdick supreme court case said that accepting a pardon can imply guilt. However, it doesn't seem to say that acknowledgement or acceptance of guilt is a requirement by the recipient of the pardon.
I was just trying to understand how it works, because the way presidential pardons work is bizarre to me. The pre-emptive pardons seem even more bizarre if what you say is correct. I wasn't trying to engage in an argument. I do feel sceptical about whether you are correct, but i wouldnt know since i barely know anything about it at all.
tl;dr? Cratermoon cannot in fact cite a source for their claims.
This sort of shit is why people can't reasonably trust accusations of logical fallacy on the internet. You can't just yell whataboutism whenever you don't want to answer challenging questions.
So if you start a website and facilitate thousands of drug deals and get lots of people to ask the president to pardon you, and you’re white, you can get a pardon. But for everyone else you can’t. Even if you’re in prison for possession of drugs for more than ten years.
Also if you try to overthrow the government you get pardoned which I would have guessed approaches treason.
I felt the same when Biden pardoned the judge who put kids in jail for pay, or the nursing home CEO who took money away from the elderly to buy yachts, but I'd decided that pardons were effectively for sale (tho likely by barter) -- seeing Biden close out his term and Trump open his term with pardons has been kind to those who'd like to compare and contrast, but they both mostly just appear to be paying down debts.
He’s white and that can’t be left out of it. Let’s not pretend race doesn’t matter in any of these things. It is a fact that he’s white and I’m guessing ALL of the Jan 6th people are too.
I knew people who were wringing it out of medicated patches and sniffing it out of Afrin bottles during high school in the 90s. I also knew someone who ODd and died from tainted/fake pills they bought from one of The Silk Road's (immediate) successors.
Some number of people also OD on "traditional" street drugs every day. So, this is really not a sound argument.
Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor?
Just in case I feel the need to puke
If we'd known what it'd take to get here
Would we have chosen to?
So you wanna build an altar on a summer night
You wanna smoke the gel off a fentanyl patch
Aintcha heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews
And I always loved you to the max
I see those people in my personal life, too. Ironically, they're also the ones who regularly drive drunk and do a little cocaine now and again because _it doesn't really count_.
I have nothing in particular to say about the dead comments in this very young thread, but they're sort-of-interesting comments to have been killed so quickly!
Is it due to HN policy? I guess they're subjective and ideological, and prone to starting arguments rather than debates.
Maybe "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity." or "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."?
I'm honestly just curious as a conscientious internet citizen lol
> I have nothing in particular to say about the dead comments in this very young thread, but they're sort-of-interesting comments to have been killed so quickly!
[dead] is different than [flagged][dead]. [dead]-only (no [flagged]) means they're auto-dead, they aren't killed by someone reviewing the comments (moderator or users flagging). One of the two commenters was shadow banned years ago but still gets vouched for occasionally (including by me at times). The other one was shadow banned (looked through their history) 11 days ago, with a comment from dang at the time stating as much. They also get vouched for on occasion, based on their comment history.
> Maybe "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity." or "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."?
dang does usually respond to people with something like that first, then for people who get repeatedly flagged or repeatedly engage in certain kinds of behavior, he bans them.
Just to add one point, flagged comments are mostly flagged by users (as opposed to mods). We can only guess why users flag things, but from looking at a sample in the current thread it's probably because they're mostly flamewar-style comments and/or political-battle style comments (or both). Those aren't good for HN because what we want here is curious, thoughtful conversation.
Nothing wrong with HN in particular. Every polarising discussion on a platform with moderation or up/down voting system ends up this way. This structure is fantastic for technical discussions just not amazing for politics
Removing moderation or voting systems (simple chronological comment sorting) creates another set of issues so this problem can't be solved without entirely changing discussion formats
> This structure is fantastic for technical discussions just not amazing for politics
No, it's not. Because the same magnification effect causes the causal, simple and correct sounding to float to the top and the nuanced "<signs deeply> so I dealt with this for 20yr and here's the deal" takes that nobody wants to hear because they're not simple and easy wind up at the bottom but above the flagrantly wrong crap and the trolls.
There's a reason that nothing with real stakes adopts this format and technical discussions that matter still mostly happen in some sort of threaded format that doesn't allow voting or any sort of drive-by low effort interaction to effect much.
Format like this is good for driving interaction, which is why public facing websites use it for their comment sections.
Interesting -- what other system could you possibly have, other than votes...? I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting. I guess traditional forum threads (sometimes with votes, a-la GitHub) are nice, but ultimately that's just trading "correct sounding" for "early commenter".
Otherwise, the only thing that comes to mind is StackOverflow functionality where OP can mark a single answer as "accepted" and push it to the top instantly (which obv. wouldn't translate well to general discussions).
A more complicated system is too complicated, but if you could emoji react to a comment (from a very limited set of emoji), and then allow people to assign weights to each emoji, so someone who likes jokes could say :laughing-face: comments rank high up in the list but someone who was more dour could set their default view to be negative for them, then you'd have something a bit better than merely up or down. you could then set the default view to be heavily in favor of what you want the site's culture to be.
the four disagreements apply to a comment section as well: the comment is factually wrong, the comment lacks information, the comment. draws a different conclusion from the same set of information, or the comment is philosophically opposed to my viewpoint. For an online comment system, spam is another category.
This conversation is presently flagged. Why? When Ross was sentenced HN had a discussion about it with more than 600 comments. His conviction has been discussed numerous additional times in other threads throughout the years. His pardon is plainly on-topic for HN, and this discussion is a necessary followup to those previous discussions.
Of course it's on topic. Why did users flag it? Probably some combination of not liking the event itself and fatigue with political stories. But that's just a guess.
In any case, we turned the flags off when we saw it.
It is much more on-topic than the Musk thing. HN has been debating this conviction, in intricate detail, since 2015. Meanwhile, you can just go to any news site from CNN to Fox to the Guardian to see the Musk thing. There's stuff to talk about with the Ulbricht story, and basically nothing to talk about with the Musk thing, except for subsets of both sides who are just itching to have a flamewar about it.
The Ulbricht story is also in the news. I don't see that there's a ton to say about it that hasn't come up in the previous (exhaustive) discussions that you mention. The people who thought Ulbricht was prosecuted unjustly are happy and the people who didn't are less happy (unless they thought the sentence was too harsh). I suspect that we just disagree about the significance of the Musk story.
The problem with the Musk story isn't simply that it's a news story; it's that it's only a news story. It's important to understand that this isn't a question of the significance of either story. Important things happen around the world every day that aren't good subjects for HN threads.
I don’t agree that the Ulbricht story is more than just a news story, but in any case, my issue is not with that story being unflagged.
HN is, as you know, chock full of enormous unflagged threads about news stories involving Elon Musk that amount to little more than “Elon Musk says something on Twitter!” It may well be that the mods would happily flag all these submissions into oblivion if they had the time. But I don’t think it’s a good look to have all of this trivial discussion about Musk on the site and then defer to the submission guidelines (reasonable enough in themselves, but lightly enforced in Musk’s case) now that he is in a position of power within the US government.
This isn’t about individual moderation decisions necessarily being wrong or unjustifiable in isolation (though I do think the 'but it might cause a flamewar!' excuse is applied with wild inconsistency). The issue is that avoiding political flamewars on a tech news site in 2025 is a fundamentally different proposition than it was in 2010.
All of those "Elon Musk says something on Twitter" threads are worth flagging. They're insubstantial, and I can't be the only one here who would like a lot less of that guy in his life.
I'll spare you the detailed argument for why Ulbricht is clearly not "just" a news story.
Given there are at least thousands if not millions of people who "provide online forums," and pretty much this single one is in prison, I have to wonder if there's something unique about this case?
I don't know anything about this guy. Is there really nothing unique about his case?
Silk Road was, at its height, uniquely successful and making an absolute mockery of the United States government's capacity to regulate drug trafficking. In addition, he fashioned himself an anti-establishment persona, going by the handle "Dread Pirate Roberts" online.
He was unique in his magnitude of success. Governments can successfully magnify their enforcement ability by making an example of outliers.
There are multiple examples of federal law enforcement making examples of particularly brazen instances of flouting federal law that are disproportionate to the actual harm caused. Kevin Mitnick is a classic example.
Here's the thing about the US federal law enforcement: there aren't actually a lot of them. In a country of 380 million people, there are 38,000 agents. Google employs more people than the FBI. If the US citizenry decided to take collective action against them, the federal domestic police force alone could not stand against the citizenry.
This shapes where they apply their resources. To be most effective, they need to be visible so that people don't start to think of them as toothless, because mass-resistance to their general police activities would actually work. So they pursue cases into the dust to generate high-profile images of lawbreakers having a really awful time to discourage other lawbreakers.
He was prosecuted because he broke US drug law. But he was prosecuted to the extent he was prosecuted because Silk Road had made headlines as something untouchable by federal authority. That's the kind of Capone energy that the federal law enforcement cannot abide and survive as an institution.
Yes, it was the biggest drug market on the dark web at that time, and the 50,676 bitcoins seized by the feds from then is today worth 5,3 billion dollars to give you an idea.
Also there was a long side story with disappeared bitcoins, presumably stolen by federal investigators.
The seven offenses in question: distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering
A judge bypassed the jury and prosecutor and sentenced him as if he hired hit men and admitted doing so. The sentence upgrade was based on a preponderance of evidence, whereas they would have had to proven beyond a reasonable doubt had he been charged.
Framing this as judicial activism is false. Many sentencing arrangements include - with the agreement of the defendant (since it is their rights in this case) - to have other related activities factored in exactly this manner.
It happens all the time in pleas and diversion agreements, so don’t frame it as a reckless lone judge going off the reservation.
do you know that is actually the case ? i've been trying to find the text of the pardon and haven't been able to yet. can only find Trump's description of it as "full and unconditional"
This was a pandering to get Libertarians' votes. It has nothing to do with the crime itself. I wouldn't commit any crimes and expect to get away with them unless I anticipated becoming the pawn in someone's scheme to get elected.
But MLK also talks about moral obligation and not other forms of obligation.
He was not trying to create a free for all where everyone gets to decide which laws are okay or not, because he (and jefferson) were not complete morons.
> Considering that his rhetoric was very much based on Christianity, it's clear what standard of "unjust" he was applying.
Considering the diversity of standards of justice within the history of Christianity (which, in just the US, includes—relevant to this topic—MLK, sure, but also the Southern Baptist Convention, founded explicitly in support of slavery), I don't know that having rhetoric grounded in Christian theology tells much of substance about the standard of justice one is appealing to.
Touche, however there is plenty of evidence of people throughout history making this assertion, including MLK.
He was trying to create a more just, egalitarian society. I don't understand how you can consider acting in accordance with leading research on successful drug policy "moronic"?
Is it unjust to prohibit the sale of illegal drugs, weapons, etc.? Society has good reasons for regulating certain goods. I regularly see people in my community who are enslaved by fentanyl and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. The society I live in decided to make selling it illegal. What is unjust about that?
As I recall weapons weren't permitted on the platform.
The society didn't decide, the ruling class decided to use drug policy to attack their own citizens.
History shows that prohibition is an abject failure. The fent epidemic is symptomatic of this failed policy.
If they actually cared about the epidemic, addicts would have access to regulated, pharmaceutical grade heroin whilst also having ready access to treatment.
But then we'd have empty prisons and the police would be free to solve real crimes so we can't have that.
> addicts would have access to regulated, pharmaceutical grade heroin
We tried that, it was called the opioid epidemic and Purdue was the pharmacist. We had readily available, doctor-prescribed, high quality narcotics available to anyone who wanted them and the result was an epic disaster that cost thousands of lives.
>We tried that, it was called the opioid epidemic and Purdue was the pharmacist.
Not really, this was a case of a private company deliberately pushing narcotics for profit without oversight or any associated increase in access to treatment options.
Now the "opioid epidemic" has been replaced with a "fentanyl epidemic" which is objectively a much more dangerous drug with absolutely no regulation and murderous cartels instead of doctors - and we're still throwing people in prison for the crime of being addicts rather than treating it as a medical issue.
I don't know the stats (or if it's even possible to accurately collect statistics due to prohibition) but I'm fairly certain this costs more lives than the short lived opioid epidemic.
Is Trump pushing for broad drug decriminalisation? I feel like that would be necessary for this pardon to make sense on the basis of current drug laws being unjust.
Wasn't he also continuously complaining about how mexicans are importing all the drugs to the US (whether or not that statement is even factually correct)? He also recently designated drug cartels as terrorists. So all in all I wouldn't say he is for the decriminalisation of drugs.
Not exactly, fentanyl epidemic was specifically started by one family seek profit and ousted doctors to over prescribe it while claiming it was mildly addictive.
The war on drugs have caused immeasurable harm due to failure to understand most people use drugs either as escapism or as a tendency.
There are healthier middle grounds we could explore where e.g. advertisements are banned and individuals could register themselves as being banned from participating in certain addictive vices because they don't consistently have the willpower to quit or don't want to tempt fate trying it (and make it a crime to sell to an individual who has voluntarily banned themselves), but it's hard to argue that The War on Drugs has been in any way just.
I expect in such a society, certain groups (e.g. Mormons) would normalize banning yourself from vices the day you turn 18.
What is just is decided both by an individual and the society they exist in. "It is one's moral obligation to fight injustice" is a pretty common tenent to hold. Injustice can be city laws encouraging anti-homeless spikes. Injustice can also be genocide in a remote country. Those injustices get fought in very different ways. One can be handled by individual vigilanteeism and peacefully petitioning local governance. The other might require global war.
In my personal belief, everyone[0] has the right and moral obligation to fight the injustice they care about at the level they can manage. If that's handing out water at the protest or inventing penicillin, do what you personally can do to improve the world.
[0]the average layperson, obvious exceptions for power/money apply
Sure, but the facts matter. Making millions of dollars by operating a marketplace for illegal drugs is not even close to the same ballpark as protesting a draconian anti-homeless law, let alone resisting genocide!
The only reasonable argument for drug legalization, in my opinion, is the libertarian one - the idea that you should be free to take the drugs you want to take. I am sympathetic to this argument. I am someone who is able to make wise decisions about the drugs I take. But I also recognize that millions of my fellow citizens are not. The harm to society from drug addiction and overdoses outweighs the benefit to me getting high whenever I want.
I mean strictly speaking the people voted for Trump, so collectively they're all okay with this.
Of course Trump's platform was enormously based on law & order and combatting the drug trade, which he seems to think should still be actually illegal and is not ending the war on drugs so, I don't know - make of that what you will.
Maybe Thoreau? That's more authentic and gets at similar themes. On more than one level considering his circumstances and run-ins with law enforcement.
”Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
But there were also abolitionists at the time, even amongst that class. Jefferson not being among them does, actually, diminish his standing and his views on justice. This quote, for example, does not acknowledge that there are also laws which are unjust to obey; such as the owning of human beings in chattel slavery.
Jefferson did, certainly. He was instrumental in starting a war from what I understand.
Ross though? The government alleged it but never bothered to prove it. Furthermore the government agents involved were laughably corrupt, so anything they alleged needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt. For all anybody here know, they fabricated the entire assassination story to distract the public from their plot to loot Ross's money (which unlike the assassination stuff, has been proven in court.)
I don't see how this benefits the American economy, jobs, or national security. I do see that for a cohort of people in the Libertarian community this was held to be a central Tenet: Ulbricht was their "hostage" just as the Proud Boys thought their leader was.
But, I can't see how this becomes net beneficial in Congress, or in the wider economy. At best it's providing lower friction movement of goods and services. They tend not to go to Federal Tax collecting exchanges, so I cannot for the life of me see how this helps the exchequer, but maybe thats the point?
Do you think it's possible the 11 years he spent in prison could have had any rehabilitation effect? Or should we jail anyone who ever commits a crime to a life sentence?
Whether Ulbricht is a changed man is somewhat immaterial to the signaling to other young would-be drug kingpins that the President thinks you shouldn't be punished so harshly for setting up online black markets.
I agree: online black markets should be free trade. If drugs were legalized, even fewer issues would exist, and it would be easier to isolate the actual crime which imposes negative, third party externalities like traffiking or violence.
B) I don’t see this sort of leniency being offered to other drug dealers, in fact, the Trump administration wants to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.
C) a day 1 pardon communicates that it’s a top priority of the administration that drug dealers and cop killers (Jan 6) get freed.
D) he was convicted by a jury of his peers who know full well what a judge would sentence him to. Now Trump comes out to overrule that.
The time to change sentencing would have been pre-trial. We tried doing that, but that was a massive loser electorally.
E) it wasn't merely commutation, it was a pardon. A pardon means that President is declaring the defendant not guilty. A commutation merely reduces the sentence.
Hyperbole much? I for one am happy that these Americans who were politically targeted and serving 4 years of prison time especially for the violent crime of trespassing have been giving their lives back.
The message is clear: don’t weaponize the American justice system against its own citizens.
And Biden just commuted the sentences of mass murderers and child killers. What kind of message does that send?
Pretty sure she is currently in jail.. if not, she's finished doing the time she was sentenced.
Her husband took the fall, whatever the facts actually are, and got a longer sentence.
SBF - well the scale, number of laws violated, duration, number of victims, profile of victims, complete lack of contrition, etc would be why he got a much longer sentence.
A possible line of reasoning is that drugs should be legal, but the property and violent crimes committed around them shouldn't be, in the same way that adults are legally permitted to drink alcohol, but they're not legally permitted to drive drunk. The "ruining cities" is about the crimes, not the drugs themselves.
That's the logically consistent line of thought, yes. Which is one I don't particularly disagree with, because of the harm the war on drugs has caused.
But the inconsistency comes from people advocating for a black market drug site and bending towards the far right. The same people who in the same breath also further criminalize drugs, reduce access to things that help addicts while arguing that drug dealers should be deported and our streets swept.
The logical inconsistency is that 'their' drug dealers are conducted by people of virtue therefore they did nothing to break the law. And not being willing to deal with the actual fallout of said illegal drug empire.
Political coalitions are not personifiable, contiguous entities. There are disparate groups of individuals aligned on certain issues and at each other's throats elsewhere. That said, political hypocrisy isn't uncommon, but in this case you may be over-generalizing.
Most libertarians considered the Silk Road a place to buy psychedelics like LSD or mushrooms or experimental synthetic drugs (not that these don’t come with numerous risks). Not a bulk heroin warehouse. So the perception is different from that of a wholesale fentanyl clearing house.
Just because the far right complains about 'drugged out zombies' ruining cities thanks to drug smugglers from Mexico, doesn't mean libertarians think that. Libertarians have been opposed to the "war on drugs" for decades.
I think thats a biased answer and strawman argument. He made a platform where anything coudl be sold as he was a libertarian. It actually echoes what the ethos of hackernews is, to build a product everyone uses.
He didnt sell anything, so your metaphor doesn't correlate at all.
Also Aaron las literally a CEO of a company. Im not complaining about Aaron, he did have higher thoughts on how to help society but my point was about entrepeneurship.
If you want to come onto a ycombinator forum and say "hey this website creator was bad", then argue the case without comparing him to "user" of the site, which was my pretty simple point. Otherwise you just make yourself look bad.
I do not agree with his behaviour, I am saying he made a site, and got into trouble because of what happened on it. This sets a precedent that affects startup entrepeneur. Its a simple concept I am discussing. So dont strawman this.
I want you to convince me, but if you need to be logical.
Saying "this is my ideology" is not really all that believable if you stand to make millions with that ideology. I don't know what's in his hearth of hearths and to be honest I don't really care. All I'm saying it's just not comparable at all.
Not going to try and sway you here but to learn more, read or listen to "American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road".
yeah I only know a limited amount, but I found the sentence to be super harsh at the time for a website owner and as we can see form all the comments, the fact he got punished so harshly has implications on ycombinator as well most of the poeple here are website owner.
I wont watch your video as it clearly is a hit piece by the title. If it had just had an impartial "An investigation into Ross" then I would have.
The fact you suggested a video source with a clearly biased source make me think less of your argument.
EDIT> Also I am not sure if you downvoted me, I upvoted you as I appreciate your time in sharing your view. thanks.
I really wonder who benefits from this. Trump only does things that are good for him, or those close to him. I realize he's been making connections to the crypto world, and has his own meme coins. Does pardoning Ross somehow make crypto more valuable?
It’s also just good politics. There are a vocal group of voters that are in favor of this, so it gets those people on his side. And no reason not to (politically), as most people just don’t care about this topic, or if they do and disagree with the decision, this isn’t going to be the action that moves the needle for them on how they feel about Trump or the Republican Party.
Partisan caricature is not a reliable starting point for logical inference or deduction. To answer your question - on the campaign trail he attended a convention of libertarian organizers and promised them that if he won he would free Ross, and has followed through on that promise today.
A video from Reason magazine a few days ago[0] mentioned a deal between the Libertarian Party leadership and Trump in which they selectively didn't run their candidate in several states in order to help Trump. If this is true, Trump could have reneged, but evidently decided whatever political blowback for pardoning Ulbricht (which is probably small potatoes at this rate) wasn't worth the credibility cost.
For all his many defects and cloudy motives for doing it, Trump deserves applause for this. It's with actions such as this that he also shows why he's a genuine maverick of a president, with who it's genuinely possible to expect deeply unexpected actions (for better or worse).
For all his talk of being progressive and cultivation of a youthful maverick image of his own, you would have never seen such a move from Obama and forget about it under the mealy mouthed Biden or a hypothetical Hillary administration. With Trump, rather uniquely and singularly, it happened.
Ulbricht made many mistakes, less so morally but definitely legally, of the kind with which he could have expected to cause punishment to rain down upon him, but the way in which his case was managed and the way in which he was sentenced truly were both disgusting in numerous ways.
They were classic examples of prosecutorial and political vengeance and give much truth to Trump's own description of the same as "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”
If you in any way mistrust heavy-handed government prosecutions and persecutions, it's hard to disagree much, even if it's also not hard to imagine Trump being just as abusive in other contexts where prosecution of enemies would suit his interests and personal vengeance.
Now if we see him pardon Snowden too, i'd happily give a standing ovation.
Before someone here smugly chimes in about how Ulbricht also tried to hire out a murder by contract, bear in mind that this accusation was riddled with holes, suspicions of entrapment and in any case wasn't formally used for his sentencing, AND still wouldn't justify the kind of onerously grotesque sentence that was dumped on him. Pedophiles who committed child murders have been sentenced to less than Ulbricht was.
the fact that he will never pardon Snowden tells you all you need to know: this pardon was pandering and suits his own purposes. there are no higher principles here besides quid pro quo.
Trump is literally into the second day of his presidency, nobody can know whether he might or might not pardon even Snowden for some reason of his own. I had zero expectation of a pardon for Ulbricht yet here it is and it's more impressive than Obama's pandering (but to me still applause-worthy) pardon of Manning, though none came for Assange.
I disagree that it was pandering to the LGBTQ lobby.
I agree Assange should not have been pursued at all.
You can't directly compare the two situations. Manning was a US citizen, serving a sentence in the US. During Obama's term, Assange was not yet accused of any crime in the US, so there was no presidential pardon to be had, though Obama could have dropped the extradition request.
Biden did eventually reach a deal with Assange that allowed him to count time served -- essentially the same as commuting a sentence, so along the lines of what Manning got -- and return to Australia.
So in the end, Assange and Manning were both freed after serving time.
> Obama could have dropped the extradition request.
Yes he could have. And did not. Whereas Manning was freed, because s/he had sponsors in the right lobbies.
> Biden did eventually reach a deal with Assange
Mostly driven by the UK government, because it would have looked bad to deport a journalist on the orders of our colonial masters. And again it took years, when it could have been done in a minute - like Trump did with his allies. Because the reality, beyond words, is that the Democratic establishment is basically as much an enemy of the free press as the Republican one is, when in power.
Those of you downvoting this comment, I sincerely wonder if it's because you really think Ulbricht deserves to rot the rest of his life in prison despite a deeply flawed, openly vengeful trial and a sentence that simply doesn't usually correspond to any of what he was convicted of in most cases, or because you simply can't, emotionally, approve of anything Trump might do, even if you'd otherwise agree with it.
I'd say either posture is an insult to your own capacity for reasoned thinking, but I am curious about which kind of insult it is.
Trump doesn’t care about Ross’ parents or their donations much.
What he did care about were libertarian votes. There was a deal that libertarians will support Trump if he promises to free Ross. This is on record, you can find it.
Hacker news absolutely loved this 1700 comments which makes me want to list all hacker news threads ordered by most comments because these are usually the best ones
This thread really shows how unhinged the community is. Dude hired contract killers and ran the most prolific darkweb forum for whatever. He's not some martyr. He's just a bum.
The sympathy for this guy from so many of you makes me sad.
The messages show he wanted and thought he was getting people murdered. But that's perfectly OK because it was actually the evil FBI he was talking to!
Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me, and suddenly as I was reading I could look up and see exactly the chair he had been in, where the plainclothes police had positioned themselves, how they had arranged a distraction.
Having this tableau unexpectedly unfold right in front of my eyes was a fascinating experience, and it certainly made the article suddenly get a lot more immersive!
[1] https://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/
EDIT: to be clear, I was not present for the arrest. I was reading the magazine, some years after the arrest, but in the same place as the arrest. (I didn’t qualify the events with “I read that...” since I thought the narrative ellipsis would be obvious from context; evidently not.)