4 ms·

>people are able to purchase proscribed plants and medicines in a way that completely subverts the efforts of state to prevent that. No it doesn't. This is the

>people are able to purchase proscribed plants and medicines in a way that completely subverts the efforts of state to prevent that. No it doesn't. This is the kind of absurd nonsense that earns blockchain proponents this level of scorn. People could buy drugs before. Sure they can use cryptocurrency instead of cash, but the old problems remain: getting the product from the buyer to the seller. The state can, and sometimes does, prevent that because until teleportation is invented getting the drugs you bought online into your hands opens you to risk. Buying drugs is certainly easier, but it doesn't help to talk in these ridiculous terms. I bought pot in college just fine. If I buy drugs and have it shipped to me I'm at the same risk whether I used cash or Bitcoin. >"Wow - that's something people have been trying to do since the garden of eden and nothing has ever done it so successfully. I wonder what else this thing can do?" You've got this backwards. It's been 10 years. People have been asking all that time "so what else can you do", and the answer so far is...nothing, really. This despite the relentless, utopian hype all during that time. If proponents want people to keep an open mind and not be so cynical, maybe they shouldn't have spent years promising that blockchain technology is the digital coming of Jesus that will completely change everything in every way and usher in an endless golden age of peace and prosperity.

jMyles 8y ago
> People could buy drugs before. Sure they can use cryptocurrency instead of cash, but the old problems remain: getting the product from the buyer to the seller. The state can, and sometimes does, prevent that because until teleportation is invented getting the drugs you bought online into your hands opens you to risk. Buying drugs is certainly easier, but it doesn't help to talk in these ridiculous terms. I bought pot in college just fine. If I buy drugs and have it shipped to me I'm at the same risk whether I used cash or Bitcoin. This is an astonishing and vulgar display of privilege. The next time you meet an older MS patient with far less mobility and social connections than you, I dare you to tell them "I bought pot in college just fine." I'm astounded that this is your best response. If this is the position of blockchain bears, the bullish position seems downright rational by contrast. It's not just access to cannabis, either. Many people had no idea where to procure LSD or MDMA before Silk Road. I think you dramatically underestimate the number of lives changed here. > If proponents want people to keep an open mind and not be so cynical, maybe they shouldn't have spent years promising that blockchain technology is the digital coming of Jesus that will completely change everything in every way and usher in an endless golden age of peace and prosperity. It seems like you've judged far too large a segment of innovation based on a sample of far too few voices. Your error here is obvious.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Medical patients are NOT the ones using Silk Road to buy pot. You're just demonstrating a level of out of touch that earns the Crypto sphere it's scorn.
  - jMyles 8y ago
    ... umm... ...haha, what? Are you serious right now? Obviously this is a difficult thing to study / track / quantify, but you are just absolutely, positively incorrect. It has been a life changing development for several patients whom I know personally. It has also allowed easier access to Charlotte's Web in states other than Colorado. This is not a secret. 30 seconds of googling was all you needed to correct yourself. Or, you know, ask older relatives if their friends have mentioned it. Have you never heard of medibuds? It's not a small thing - this is a big phenomenon in states that don't have medical yet. ..and it's not just cannabis either. People all over the USA and beyond are buying all sorts of medicines this way. I don't mean to sound like a gatekeeper here, but if you are genuinely unaware of this, I don't really understand why you are even jumping into this conversation. Seriously, read up: * http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/11/how-buying-drugs-online-became/3 http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/11/how-buying-drugs-onlin... * https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvqbb/why-i-had-to-buy-my-wifes-inhaler-on-the-dark-web https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvqbb/why-i-had-... * https://alphabaymarket.com/are-prescription-meds-cheaper-on-alphabay-market/ https://alphabaymarket.com/are-prescription-meds-cheaper-on-... The matter is serious enough that mainstream pharma has noticed and is trying now to stifle the competition: * https://safemedsonline.org/2013/11/black-market-site-silk-road-re-emerges/ https://safemedsonline.org/2013/11/black-market-site-silk-ro...
    - dmitriid 8y ago
      And as I already said before, this has a much better, more effective solution than blockchain. Proper healthcare system and legalisation of cannabis for example.
      - jMyles 8y ago
stale2002 8y ago
How do you send cash to your drug dealer on the internet, instantly? I agree with you that you still have to get the product to the person, and blockchain doesn't solve this. But it doesn't claim to. What cryptocurrencies do is solve the payment part of it, so that you can send money to someone without your bank finding out and freezing your account. If I send money to coinbase, buy Bitcoin, and then convert that to Monero, the only thing my bank knows is that I sent money to coinbase. And coinbase only knows that I sent money to a different exchange.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  > How do you send cash to your drug dealer on the internet, instantly? By instantly you mean "up to 200 hours"? https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time (at the time of writing this comment the spoke on the chat was at 12000 minutes). > the only thing my bank knows is that I sent money to coinbase. And coinbase only knows that I sent money to a different exchange. Money laundering is as old an art as the banking services themselves. I guess blockchain made it easier then? True innovation.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    By instantly I mean, on average around 10 minutes, if you pay an appropriate fee. This is miles ahead of credit cards, for example, as that takes days to clear. Yes they do, as the transaction isn't confirmed until days later. Obviously, if you pay too low of a fee, it could take a long time. > Money laundering is as old an art as the banking services themselves. I guess blockchain made it easier then? True innovation. Indeed it does. The whole point of bitcoin was to enable censorship resistant financial transactions. And it turns out, that the people who most want to have access to censorship resistant transactions, are the people who are CURRENTLY being censored by the existing financial system. I have no idea how I'd be able to quickly send cash to someone on the other side of the world, in a way that is censorship resistant. Bitcoin enables this, though. Obviously, though, if you don't care about fighting financial censorship, then you wouldn't see the usecase for a toll that helps you make censorship resistant transactions. It is perfectly fine for you to not care about subverting financial censorship. But you should be aware that there are other people with different values, who care a whole lot about this cause.

jMyles 8y ago

> People could buy drugs before. Sure they can use cryptocurrency instead of cash, but the old problems remain: getting the product from the buyer to the seller. The state can, and sometimes does, prevent that because until teleportation is invented getting the drugs you bought online into your hands opens you to risk. Buying drugs is certainly easier, but it doesn't help to talk in these ridiculous terms. I bought pot in college just fine. If I buy drugs and have it shipped to me I'm at the same risk whether I used cash or Bitcoin. This is an astonishing and vulgar display of privilege. The next time you meet an older MS patient with far less mobility and social connections than you, I dare you to tell them "I bought pot in college just fine." I'm astounded that this is your best response. If this is the position of blockchain bears, the bullish position seems downright rational by contrast. It's not just access to cannabis, either. Many people had no idea where to procure LSD or MDMA before Silk Road. I think you dramatically underestimate the number of lives changed here. > If proponents want people to keep an open mind and not be so cynical, maybe they shouldn't have spent years promising that blockchain technology is the digital coming of Jesus that will completely change everything in every way and usher in an endless golden age of peace and prosperity. It seems like you've judged far too large a segment of innovation based on a sample of far too few voices. Your error here is obvious.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Medical patients are NOT the ones using Silk Road to buy pot. You're just demonstrating a level of out of touch that earns the Crypto sphere it's scorn.
- jMyles 8y ago
  ... umm... ...haha, what? Are you serious right now? Obviously this is a difficult thing to study / track / quantify, but you are just absolutely, positively incorrect. It has been a life changing development for several patients whom I know personally. It has also allowed easier access to Charlotte's Web in states other than Colorado. This is not a secret. 30 seconds of googling was all you needed to correct yourself. Or, you know, ask older relatives if their friends have mentioned it. Have you never heard of medibuds? It's not a small thing - this is a big phenomenon in states that don't have medical yet. ..and it's not just cannabis either. People all over the USA and beyond are buying all sorts of medicines this way. I don't mean to sound like a gatekeeper here, but if you are genuinely unaware of this, I don't really understand why you are even jumping into this conversation. Seriously, read up: * http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/11/how-buying-drugs-online-became/3 http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/11/how-buying-drugs-onlin... * https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvqbb/why-i-had-to-buy-my-wifes-inhaler-on-the-dark-web https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvqbb/why-i-had-... * https://alphabaymarket.com/are-prescription-meds-cheaper-on-alphabay-market/ https://alphabaymarket.com/are-prescription-meds-cheaper-on-... The matter is serious enough that mainstream pharma has noticed and is trying now to stifle the competition: * https://safemedsonline.org/2013/11/black-market-site-silk-road-re-emerges/ https://safemedsonline.org/2013/11/black-market-site-silk-ro...
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    And as I already said before, this has a much better, more effective solution than blockchain. Proper healthcare system and legalisation of cannabis for example.
    - jMyles 8y ago

stale2002 8y ago

How do you send cash to your drug dealer on the internet, instantly? I agree with you that you still have to get the product to the person, and blockchain doesn't solve this. But it doesn't claim to. What cryptocurrencies do is solve the payment part of it, so that you can send money to someone without your bank finding out and freezing your account. If I send money to coinbase, buy Bitcoin, and then convert that to Monero, the only thing my bank knows is that I sent money to coinbase. And coinbase only knows that I sent money to a different exchange.

dmitriid 8y ago
> How do you send cash to your drug dealer on the internet, instantly? By instantly you mean "up to 200 hours"? https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time (at the time of writing this comment the spoke on the chat was at 12000 minutes). > the only thing my bank knows is that I sent money to coinbase. And coinbase only knows that I sent money to a different exchange. Money laundering is as old an art as the banking services themselves. I guess blockchain made it easier then? True innovation.
- stale2002 8y ago
  By instantly I mean, on average around 10 minutes, if you pay an appropriate fee. This is miles ahead of credit cards, for example, as that takes days to clear. Yes they do, as the transaction isn't confirmed until days later. Obviously, if you pay too low of a fee, it could take a long time. > Money laundering is as old an art as the banking services themselves. I guess blockchain made it easier then? True innovation. Indeed it does. The whole point of bitcoin was to enable censorship resistant financial transactions. And it turns out, that the people who most want to have access to censorship resistant transactions, are the people who are CURRENTLY being censored by the existing financial system. I have no idea how I'd be able to quickly send cash to someone on the other side of the world, in a way that is censorship resistant. Bitcoin enables this, though. Obviously, though, if you don't care about fighting financial censorship, then you wouldn't see the usecase for a toll that helps you make censorship resistant transactions. It is perfectly fine for you to not care about subverting financial censorship. But you should be aware that there are other people with different values, who care a whole lot about this cause.