28 ms·

While you make a solid point, I will point out that the newest, hottest technology can make a difference, as in this very case. Silk Road was something new, and

by FBT 13y ago

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

rayiner 13y ago
> Silk Road was something new, and different from anything one could do with a telegraph or telephone. I fail to see how Silk Road was anything other than a way to buy and sell goods, something that has been done via telegraph and telephone and other communications mediums for centuries. > For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a effectivly a independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound by any lawmakers whatsoever. It wasn't anything of the sort. All of the costs and benefits of Silk Road were externalized to the offline world. It was less like an "independent country" than even say Hacker News, where the online interaction is valuable on its own merits. Silk Road was in contrast not valuable on its own merits, but just a way to exchange things of value in the real world (drugs and money). More to the point, while I don't agree that drug laws are a good idea, I can see what motivated the legislation. Drug use isn't cost-free. It's not just high-functioning professionals using a little pot on the weekends. It is that, but it's also addicted pregnant women and mothers injuring their babies. It's addicted fathers unable to provide for their families. It's rural communities ripped apart by addiction. The fact that the cost of the drug war may be worse than the costs of drug use does not mean that there are no costs to drug use. You can't accidentally step on a used syringe on a city street and fail to see what might motivate people to outlaw the use of drugs. That's where the "independent country" analogy totally falls down. A country must deal with the ramifications of its policies, good and bad. Texas chooses to let oil and chemical companies operate relatively freely within its borders, and it enjoys the economic benefits of that and suffers the environmental and health consequences of that. But on Silk Road, all of the costs of those illegal products sold on the site were not felt internally. They were externalized to the real world. It's easy to construct a utopia when all of the consequences happen elsewhere.

by FBT 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

> Silk Road was something new, and different from anything one could do with a telegraph or telephone. I fail to see how Silk Road was anything other than a way to buy and sell goods, something that has been done via telegraph and telephone and other communications mediums for centuries. > For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a effectivly a independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound by any lawmakers whatsoever. It wasn't anything of the sort. All of the costs and benefits of Silk Road were externalized to the offline world. It was less like an "independent country" than even say Hacker News, where the online interaction is valuable on its own merits. Silk Road was in contrast not valuable on its own merits, but just a way to exchange things of value in the real world (drugs and money). More to the point, while I don't agree that drug laws are a good idea, I can see what motivated the legislation. Drug use isn't cost-free. It's not just high-functioning professionals using a little pot on the weekends. It is that, but it's also addicted pregnant women and mothers injuring their babies. It's addicted fathers unable to provide for their families. It's rural communities ripped apart by addiction. The fact that the cost of the drug war may be worse than the costs of drug use does not mean that there are no costs to drug use. You can't accidentally step on a used syringe on a city street and fail to see what might motivate people to outlaw the use of drugs. That's where the "independent country" analogy totally falls down. A country must deal with the ramifications of its policies, good and bad. Texas chooses to let oil and chemical companies operate relatively freely within its borders, and it enjoys the economic benefits of that and suffers the environmental and health consequences of that. But on Silk Road, all of the costs of those illegal products sold on the site were not felt internally. They were externalized to the real world. It's easy to construct a utopia when all of the consequences happen elsewhere.