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This is seriously the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time. Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians who believe that there should be effect

by zedshaw 13y ago

This is seriously the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time. Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest who run an illegal website devoted to the pure greed of cashing in on contraband, and this is what they write: "I’ve included transaction logs at the bottom of this message. Review the vendor’s dishonest actions and use whatever means you deem necessary to bring this person to justice." We need the government! Please, come find the guy who took all of our illegal drug money and give it back to us so we can continue to say you aren't necessary. "Given the right flavor of influence from our community, we can only hope that he will decide to return the coins with integrity as opposed to hiding like a coward." Yes, you bad guy, you should do the right thing and think of the community not your self-interests by giving back your illegal gains back to the guy named Dead Pirate Roberts (that's totally his real name). "Whoever you are, you still have a chance to act in the interest of helping this community." In the interest of the community?! Bwahahahaa! "I will fight here by your side, even the greedy bastards amongst us." Like everyone on the site?! "The only way to reverse a community’s greed is through generosity." Just like Ayn Rand said my brothers! Then I come here and not a single person on here even notices the massive hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness. Amazing.

apalmer 13y ago
I get your point, but I think you are missing the glaring nuance here... He is basically saying if you are reading this and you were affected its in your best interest to participate in catching this guy and 'persuading' him to give us the bitcoins... he isnt appealing to government or some over arching entity or morality.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Yes he is! In fact he appeals to morality just about every other sentence. It's rather hilarious.
  - DennisP 13y ago
    Libertarians have a strong sense of morality based on property rights. You might be thinking of anarchism.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Anarchism has a strong sense of morality based on communal rights. It's not strictly amoral (and in fact is very far from it).
      - DennisP 13y ago
        I wasn't clear, I didn't mean to imply that anarchism has no morality, just that it isn't based on individuals' property rights. (At least, that's my understanding of it.)
        mpyne 13y ago
        I won't pretend to fully understand it either, but self-proclaimed anarchists that I've talked to online have indicated that they do respect private and personal property. A man could own a baseball bat in the property sense, but a company could not own property at all (or at least, property they expect not to be damaged by an anarchist).
  - jadeddrag 13y ago
    I think you're assuming his appeals to morality is the same as asking for government intervention. In fact, I read this just the opposite, and I would bet this is exactly NOT what he is asking for.
  - ploxiln 13y ago
    Libertarianism has a lot of morality, it's just a different morality. That morality is to maximize independence of each individual. Obviously that's not a promotion of murder, nor a neutrality against murder (as an example of one moral), it's absolutely against the imposition of one will "unfairly" on another, through violence. It would characterize needlessly violent drug busts by swat teams as such imposition of will through violence. Clearly, you're an ultra-liberal. That's fine, but you don't have to be illogical, come on.
aaronem 13y ago
I don't love libertarians and their ilk any more than you do, but in fairness I have to say this doesn't read to me like a request for government intervention, so much as a "Let's you and him fight" suggestion that the users who got ripped off go after the users he claims did the ripping. The idea, I think, is that if enough jilted users get together to make life miserable for the people who supposedly did the thieving, then it'll be in their self-interest to return the stolen bitcoins and make everything be OK again. Or something. On the other hand, there's nothing that's not funny about seeing a hardcore libertarian find whiny refuge in the clichés of Communism: > Being a part of this movement might be the most defining thing you do with your entire life. Don’t trade that for greed, comrades. And, whatever you do, don't start thinking I'm to blame for this unbelievable fuckup that wouldn't have been possible in the first place if I hadn't done something stupid! No, it's all that guy's fault.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Even then, he's saying that all the claims of the new DPR to be peaceful are bullshit, and again that everyone should band together and get him, contradicting the objectivist mindset. Either he's asking the government for help, or asking a pseudo-government lynch mob for justice, and either is hypocritical.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    Oh, I don't know about that; I have never seen any philosophical incompatibility between libertarianism or Objectivism and lynch mobs, so long as said lynch mobs are true mobs and not organized by a state actor -- the SA, for example, wouldn't qualify, but some of the Black Hundreds probably would. The "self-interest" idea covers such matters quite handily: it is, after all, quite plainly in one's self-interest not to do things which move his neighbors to organize a lynching bee. So, you know, an atrocious and unconscionable doctrine appealing only to people who have some serious problems with thinking of other people as people, yes, but hypocritical? Nah, not so much.
- ufmace 13y ago
  Which makes me think, whatever happened to the supposed commitment to non-violence/non-initiation of force, of both Libertarians and the new DPR? Yeah, guys, I'm sure the purpose of trying to rally a bunch of people together and find out the real life location of the thief has nothing to do with inflicting any physical harm on them.
unethical_ban 13y ago
The number of strawmen in your argument is staggering.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  It's basically a bunch of assumptions and misapprehensions stacked up so he can hate on one of the tribes other than his own. You know, what passes for politics these days.
  - beedogs 13y ago
    Typical libertarian response: why bother refuting anything zedshaw said when you can just attack him personally?
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      There is no personal attack here. I am, however, strongly condemning the approach he's taken to discussing the topic.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  It can't be strawmen if they're direct quotes. I pulled quotes out that were contradictory to their actually stated philosophy. The whole statement is riddled with them. In fact, your claim of strawmen is actually a straw man argument (and also so funny).
  - baddox 13y ago
    > It can't be strawmen if they're direct quotes. It can, if the people you're arguing with now aren't the same people you're quoting.
joeblau 13y ago
What would be really ironic is if it was a Government agency which pulled off the heist.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Oooooh, I like how you think. Oh! Or, if SR2 was a government sting operation? I smell a movie script.
xenophanes 13y ago
> objectivist libertarians There is no such thing as an objectivist libertarian. Maybe you should learn what you're talking about before hating. Objectivism and libertarianism are separate opposing things. The Objectivist position on libertarians is very negative.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Links or it didn't happen! I mean hell, if every guy weirdly named Paul or Ron or Rand seems to have read Atlas Shrugged and calls him self a Libertarian, then I gotta go with combining the two.
  - xenophanes 13y ago
    Not sure if you're joking. It's easy to google, e.g. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_libertarianism_qa http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_libertari... > What was Ayn Rand’s view of the libertarian movement? > Ayn Rand was opposed to the libertarian movement of her time. Details follow.
    - kaonashi 13y ago
      We're talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard libertarians, not classical libertarianism.
      - xenophanes 13y ago
        What is "classical libertarianism"? Google doesn't seem to know either.
        kaonashi 13y ago
        I guess just what libertarianism was from Belsham into the 20th century, before the influence of Rand and Rothbard. The comment was in response to a statement saying that Rand spoke against libertarianism, which was true.
_Adam 13y ago
What I find actually amazing isn't your ignorance, your misunderstanding of Objectivism, Libertarianism, and Silk Road denizens. Nor do I find amazing your inability to separate the individual from the collective. No, what I find actually amazing is that despite all that you still believed you could make a meaningful comment.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Swoosh! Right over your head. This is just so hilarious I can't stand it. Nothing is better than watching a true believer grasp clumsily at his beliefs as they slip from his grasp like a slimy eel.
  - 6nne 13y ago
    You keep describing all aspects of this situation as hilarious. It's condescending and not adding anything to your argument. If you're trying to be persuasive, this isn't how you do it.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    This is just so hilarious I can't stand it. The troll doth protest too much, methinks.
  - dwaltrip 13y ago
    It is somewhat disheartening to see that you are a long time member with truckloads of karma, and yet you feel free to post these brash, low quality comments. It is a shame I cannot down vote you.
    - rjbwork 13y ago
      He's actually a good author, speaker, writer, and dev community member. On the other hand, he's also got a pretty acerbic personality and likes profanity a lot. What he has to say about things outside the realm of development in particular probably isn't going to be considered high-quality and tactful by the likes of you and me. But that's okay, because that's not why I've read/watched him and why he has lots of upvotes.
kyro 13y ago
I notice this quite a bit amongst my libertarian acquaintances. They tend to believe in a world built on complete freedom to exercise self-interest provided their self-interests are to be held up no matter the cost or damage to others and society. Once they get burned or outwitted by others serving their own interests, they cry injustice in the world as if it never existed before.
- wallawe 13y ago
  Libertarians believe in a freedom of choice, but not at the expense of others. By your interpretation, murder would be justifiable if it were "serving [one's] own interests." You've missed the distinction.
tolmasky 13y ago
I think you have a deep misunderstanding of libertarianism (which is your right of course). Libertarians don't necessarily not believe in laws, they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers. This is kind of the whole point. Its clear that in your world view "justice" is somehow inexorably tied to government, but there others that disagree (which leads to your confusion in thinking that because someone asks for justice he is necessarily asking for government). To illustrate this a bit better, perhaps using an example that you probably agree with Libertarians on: just because libertarians believe drugs should not be illegal, does not necessarily mean they believe drug use shouldn't be discouraged or treated. It is not hypocritical to fight for drug decriminalization but then seek rehabilitation programs for your drug addicted friends. That is in no way acquiescing to the need for drug control -- it is using a different tactic to fight a problem both sides may very well agree exists. Similarly, it is not hypocritical to want the government to stay out of currencies, but still want a method of punishing thieves. You may believe other methods don't work (just like there are a lot of red voters who think its naive to think not putting drug users in jails works), but that doesn't make the other position inconsistent.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  "they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers" Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws! And even then, what you're saying is they believe someone should bring this guy to justice...and then do nothing to him. Then it's not justice. You're killing me my friends. Just killing me here.
  - JohnBooty 13y ago
    "Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws!" I'm nearly as far away from libertarian as one can be, but no - it's not the same as not having laws. Example: Old (American) West-style "frontier justice" where a bunch of townspeople form a posse or a lynch mob or whatever to right some (real or perceived) wrong. (edit: I do understand that this is only one possible scenario, and not what all or even many libertarians want)
    - 13y ago
foxhill 13y ago
this is seriously the most hilarious response to a hacker news thread i have seen in a long time. it's got it all; > Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians wild conjecture? you bet. > who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest please, tell me, what else do they think? perhaps next you can tell me what i think, i'd love to hear it. > We need the government! Please, come find the guy who took all of our illegal drug money and give it back to us so we can continue to say you aren't necessary that's funny, you've quoted one thing, and decided it means the opposite. if he wanted government, he'd have called the police FBI. no, he is calling the victims of the crime to exact justice. there is no centralised government or organisation being called upon. it's the self interest thing you mentioned earlier. > In the interest of the community?! Bwahahahaa! i don't get what's so funny about that - do you find the word community funny? silk road is a community. they buy and sell drugs, which is obviously illegal as hell, but it is still definitely a community. > "I will fight here by your side, even the greedy bastards amongst us." Like everyone on the site?! whoa soldier! making a generalization or assumption about a one or two people is.. understandable. but calling thousands of people greedy because they trade illicit substances? i'm not sure my brain can cope with much more wild conjecture. > "The only way to reverse a community’s greed is through generosity." Just like Ayn Rand said my brothers! so.. this guy is a freedom fighter now? wat. > notices the massive hypocrisy what exactly would that be? drugs are illegal - yes, but are they morally wrong? does taking them somehow devalue a persons worth or their opinion? on the other hand, i think everyone will agree that taking something that does not belong to you is morally wrong. so, i'd love it if you could clarify what you mean here. secondly, on hypocrites - if ted bundy told you not to kill someone, would you disregard his advice because "oh my god why should i listen to him, he kills people all the time". or perhaps if lance armstrong gave you cycling advice, you'd ignore it because he took performance enhancing drugs? please.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Haha, Ted Bundy? The ultimate strawman slippery slope argument! Oh so good, all your defenses do nothing but point out the deeper contradictions in the statements. Seriously go back and read your replies to my replies. They're even funnier.
pavanky 13y ago
I can re read the points you made from a libertarian / anarchist tone as well. (I see very little difference in the two). For example: - "whatever means necessary" can mean using illegal (contra legal ?) means to intimidate the guy who stole the bitcoins. - "Given the right flavor of influence from our community" Again without explicitly saying what the right flavor is, he is asking the community to do what they think is right. The rest of your post does not go against libertarian or anarchist principles. But it does fall in line with a skewed version of those terms. I am not defending the silk road here. It is contrary to many of my principles. But your post does feel like a straw man attack.
Houshalter 13y ago
I don't imagine everyone that uses the site is libertarian, not all libertarians are anarcho-capitalists, nor are they all objectivists. Some people just oppose drug prohibition, or the banking system, or whatever. Nor was anything in there appealing to the government or any other "hypocritical" thing. This is the kind of comment I would expect to find on /r/politics, not hacker news.
webkike 13y ago
Most of these people use libertarianism as a guise. They're drug dealers and consumers. That's it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ChuckFrank 13y ago
Actually they are not saying that they need the government. What they are saying is that for any social enterprise to work, there needs to be honor and trust. And that this person broke that honor and trust. And yes, that is in the interest of the community.
michaelkeenan 13y ago
> most hilarious thing...Bwahahahaa!...massive hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness. Amazing. This insulting style of persuasion has been shown to backfire. Here's a study on this effect - Negative Persuasion Via Personal Insult: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022103167900017 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00221031679... An individual directly insulted by a communicator attempting to persuade him will show a “boomerang effect” by increasing the extremity of his initial attitude position You might be correct, but you're increasing the libertarianism in the world, not decreasing it. People ought to step back from their beliefs about whether they right, and instead argue in such a way that, whether they are right or not, they advance the state of knowledge. Insults and ridicule don't do this! Insults can change people's beliefs, but usually in the opposite way we intend, and only by inflaming emotion, not based on any evidence about the world, so they're a tool wielded with equal efficacy by both the correct and the mistaken. Creationists, racists, and all the others we know to be wrong can all belittle and insult their opponents too. Only by sticking to the best kinds of disagreement (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html) can we make progress, because people whose beliefs are wrong can only make flawed arguments. Those who are correct already hold the advantageous ground, so fight there, not in the quagmire of flamewars! More generally, people aren't usually especially at fault for being wrong, so they don't deserve insults. I must be wrong about some percentage of my beliefs, as must you. Any libertarian is likely to be right about something that you and I are wrong about. This HN article didn't need to be a flamewar about libertarianism. Even if you're right, you're opponents will likely respond with a similar tone, and you don't need libertarians belittling you about your views on economics or whatever. It won't change your mind, just as your insults don't change theirs. If a libertarian is to doubt his libertarian ways, it'll be through the same way we might ever be persuaded about something. First, probably, we'll learn that someone we like and respect holds the view, and we'll realize it's a position that reasonable people can hold, not just idiots or bigots or sociopaths. Then we'll learn there's nuances that we'd not encountered before - maybe we'd only heard strawman versions of its arguments before. Then we'll shift slightly such that it seems like it applies in some limited situations. And so on, and maybe we'll hold a new belief after that.
techaddict009 13y ago
Haha You nailed it!!
drewcrawford 13y ago
Lowercase-l libertarian checking in. I don't oppose governments. I oppose some of their laws. Most ordinary people oppose laws--half the country opposes the ACA, the other half opposes the Patriot act. Perhaps libertarians oppose more laws than the average person, but opposing laws and advocating full-on anarchy are two very different things. There is no hypocrisy inherent in calling for the repeal of some laws and calling for the enforcement of others, because this is what Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and all the rest of them do 7 days a week. You reference Ayn Rand in jest but it is worth pointing out what she and other libertarian thinkers have actually said about the role of government: > Such, in essence, is the proper purpose of a government: to make social existence possible to men, by protecting the benefits and combating the evils which men can cause to one another. - Ayn Rand > The free society has an indispensable role for government. The law, in a society of free people, protects the life, liberty, and property of all persons alike, ensuring peaceful conditions within the community. Government performs as an impartial umpire, by interpreting and enforcing the previously agreed upon rules. - Ludwig von Mises > A government which maintained law and order, defined property rights, served as a means whereby we could modify property rights and other rules of the economic game, adjudicated disputes about the interpretation of the rules, enforced contracts, promoted competition, provided a monetary framework, engaged in activities to counter technical monopolies and to overcome neighborhood effects widely regarded as sufficiently important to justify government intervention, and which supplemented private charity and the private family in protecting the irresponsible, whether madman or child -- such a government would clearly have important functions to perform. The consistent liberal is not an anarchist. - Milton Friedman In fairness to you, there are some libertarian thinkers who have been more on the anarchist side (Murray Rothbard comes to mind). But there is nothing inherent in libertarianism that would require libertarians to adopt an anarchist position, and in fact most libertarian thinkers have taken a very positive view of government when it enforces those laws that libertarians think are important. What I'm trying to say is, libertarianism isn't the same as anarchy, and most libertarians aren't working to destroy the government. They're working to change it, to make it better, the same goal that conservatives or liberals or anybody else has. And there's nothing inherently hypocritical about repealing drug laws but keep prosecuting thieves.
- plcancel 13y ago
adventured 13y ago
Objectivism doesn't preach that there should be no government, no judicial, and or no police. You clearly don't understand Objectivism. First it has absolutely nothing to do with libertarianism, Ayn Rand was specifically clear about that, and wrote a lot on the subject. It has nothing to do with anarchy; it argues strongly in favor of a government that enforces ethical laws, including property rights (the war on drugs being as far away from ethical as you could possibly get).
spiderPig 13y ago
Haha, exactly! I'm here at work sitting with a big grin on my face for the last few minutes..Unless Silkroad themselves are lying, which I think is very possible.
onezerozeroone 13y ago
You're reading "justice" here to be synonymous with government action. "Whatever means" = their "community" doing whatever it takes to achieve their goals, period. The author is essentially threatening murder, kidnapping, extortion, or worse and encouraging the members of the site to help make it happen.
mbell 13y ago
> "I’ve included transaction logs at the bottom of this message. Review the vendor’s dishonest actions and use whatever means you deem necessary to bring this person to justice." We need the government! I'm not following how you are drawing the conclusion that this is a call for government. It seems more like a call for 'street justice' to me. Much of the rest of the your post is based on this assumption. What I took from that post is more akin to a mafia boss saying 'take care of the problem' in an effort to maintain plausible deniability if caught, but everyone involved knows the real meaning is to track down and kill the guy.
drawkbox 13y ago
Libertarianism isn't Anarchism (although there is a faction for that). It is by their own blurbs "Maximum Freedom, Minimal Government". Which, in principle, is pretty easy to believe in. Robbing data/currency is against a fair law of theft, which I am sure most libertarians agree is a necessary minimal law. Live and let live, and don't take another person's stuff, even anarchists probably believe that.
natmaster 13y ago
You're confusing Libertarianism with some variants of anarchism. Libertarians simply disagree about the ROLE of government - not whether it should exist. Libertarians believe the government should enforce property rights. However, they don't believe the government should make person decisions like who to love or what to eat. Note that only you own yourself, so any harm someone does to someone else or their property is considered an offense requiring action. Also, objectivism is not a prerequisite philosophy for libertarianism. All that is required is the non-aggression principal and voluntarism.
- dtsygankov 13y ago
  > Libertarians simply disagree about the ROLE of government - not whether it should exist. Libertarianism is a broad and not well-defined term. It incorporates various groups of people that believe in property rights, and believe that government should be "small". Non-existent government is as small as it can get, so most people consider anarcho-capitalism to be a flavor of libertarianism. I use the term "anarchist libertarian" to point out that I am talking about the specific 0-government flavor of libertarianism. > All that is required is the non-aggression principal and voluntarism. But if you define libertarianism like that, anarcho-capitalism becomes the only legitimate form of libertarianism. Minarchists do not respect the non-aggression principle, they mostly suggest that people should be forced to pay for the police / military, and most of them do believe in retributive justice. The non-aggression principle, if followed consistently, implies 0 taxes, and 0 government.
ivanca 13y ago
Why is this the top comment? ... Oh, the author.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  No, because it's funny and points out the stupidity of most objectivist arguments using their own words. It's the same thing when we all found out the original DPR clumsily ordered overpriced hits on people after spouting off that he wanted a world free of violence. The universal thing about most of these people is that if they believe that everyone should only think of themselves then they cannot be trusted, yet people continue to hand them money and fealty. Eventually, as they continue to implement their flawed beliefs and then scam everyone people will start to realize that a self-interested world view is immediately illogical and not to be trusted. Then again, the ability of many humans to believe completely illogical bullshit is astounding.
  - ivanca 13y ago
    What's the alternative? The goverment? You mean, like when HSBC launders billions of dollars from cartels and gets away with it? http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-laundering-fine-management http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-l... And your stupidity is also part of this, he never asked for police enforcement, he asked for the members of the site itself to look for the thefts. Plus, when is a mistake made by the goverment the proposed solution is not "We need the goverment to disappear"; same way here; pretending the only solution is to spawn one is just as dumb. If Silk Road was just a forum instead of actually holding bitcoins none of this would have happened. But you don't expose solutions such as those; you only want to transform this in a circlejerk argument that support whatever you already believed before, a confirmation bias.
- dsuth 13y ago
  Likewise disappointed at what passes for discussion on this topic, on Hacker News of all places.
kpennell 13y ago
Great...Zed Shaw is here to bestow his wisdom.
bodski 13y ago
Fuck off Zed, its just people selling drugs man, get over it. Not everyone agrees with prohibition. Between you and Miguel Icaaza there's enough 'Bitcoin schadenfraude' to power a small town.
- zedshaw 13y ago
  Actually, I am against prohibition too, and against most drug laws, and definitely against applying them disproportionately. I'm an advocate for drug abuse being treated as a medical condition, for the sale of hard drugs only by prescription, and for any laws to be applied the same to whites, blacks, and corporations alike. I'm against famous people getting rehab while poor people get life sentences for possession. I also think softer drugs should be taxed like mad with all the money funneled into education and real research into the harmful effects of drug abuse. I also have never done drugs, have never drank alcohol, never smoked, and don't plan to ever and tell people to do the same as me. I believe that drugs and alcohol destroy people's lives and that anyone pushing others to take them are evil people who want to rob another person of their humanity and potentially cause them a life of suffering. The dividing line for me is that while I think drugs are insanely harmful to people, making them illegal causes more suffering than if you controlled them and treated addiction medically.
  - sbfgb 13y ago
    I also have never done drugs, have never drank alcohol, never smoked Go for it, it'll either make you less of a tool or cause you a life of suffering. Both sound good.
    - __--__ 13y ago
      Have we gotten to the "threaten the dissenter with bodily harm" bit already?
  - bodski 13y ago
    Good points, especially treating addiction as a medical condition. There's a lot of folks on SR, or whichever is the latest online drug market, selling good quality and relatively safe soft drugs. They are able to earn reputation in a community allowing users to have a low risk way to obtain the drugs they would seek out regardless. This, to me, is a step in the right direction. Why would you be against this? So the health concerns worry you. Have you ever considered the health effects the stress of a modern lifestyle on people, especially if they are poor. It's a tradeoff but I think there are definitely people (myself included) who get an overall health benefit from some drugs if it allows them to relax and escape their daily reality temporarily. All we have in our lives is our experiences ultimately. I am convinced light use of Cannabis, Psilocybin and even Ketamine have all helped with my depression. Far more damaging to me were the SSRI anti-depressants my doctor seems so keen to hand out. I have never had the same difficulty stopping any of the 'illegal' drugs I use compared to coming off SSRI anti-depressants. Not to mention the horrible side effects of SSRIs when you are on them.
patcon 13y ago
Please stop flaming this thread. We understand -- everyone else is hilariously incoherent in their views
anentropic 13y ago
LOL

by zedshaw 13y ago

apalmer 13y ago

I get your point, but I think you are missing the glaring nuance here... He is basically saying if you are reading this and you were affected its in your best interest to participate in catching this guy and 'persuading' him to give us the bitcoins... he isnt appealing to government or some over arching entity or morality.

zedshaw 13y ago
Yes he is! In fact he appeals to morality just about every other sentence. It's rather hilarious.
- DennisP 13y ago
  Libertarians have a strong sense of morality based on property rights. You might be thinking of anarchism.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Anarchism has a strong sense of morality based on communal rights. It's not strictly amoral (and in fact is very far from it).
    - DennisP 13y ago
      I wasn't clear, I didn't mean to imply that anarchism has no morality, just that it isn't based on individuals' property rights. (At least, that's my understanding of it.)
      - mpyne 13y ago
        I won't pretend to fully understand it either, but self-proclaimed anarchists that I've talked to online have indicated that they do respect private and personal property. A man could own a baseball bat in the property sense, but a company could not own property at all (or at least, property they expect not to be damaged by an anarchist).
- jadeddrag 13y ago
  I think you're assuming his appeals to morality is the same as asking for government intervention. In fact, I read this just the opposite, and I would bet this is exactly NOT what he is asking for.
- ploxiln 13y ago
  Libertarianism has a lot of morality, it's just a different morality. That morality is to maximize independence of each individual. Obviously that's not a promotion of murder, nor a neutrality against murder (as an example of one moral), it's absolutely against the imposition of one will "unfairly" on another, through violence. It would characterize needlessly violent drug busts by swat teams as such imposition of will through violence. Clearly, you're an ultra-liberal. That's fine, but you don't have to be illogical, come on.

aaronem 13y ago

I don't love libertarians and their ilk any more than you do, but in fairness I have to say this doesn't read to me like a request for government intervention, so much as a "Let's you and him fight" suggestion that the users who got ripped off go after the users he claims did the ripping. The idea, I think, is that if enough jilted users get together to make life miserable for the people who supposedly did the thieving, then it'll be in their self-interest to return the stolen bitcoins and make everything be OK again. Or something. On the other hand, there's nothing that's not funny about seeing a hardcore libertarian find whiny refuge in the clichés of Communism: > Being a part of this movement might be the most defining thing you do with your entire life. Don’t trade that for greed, comrades. And, whatever you do, don't start thinking I'm to blame for this unbelievable fuckup that wouldn't have been possible in the first place if I hadn't done something stupid! No, it's all that guy's fault.

zedshaw 13y ago
Even then, he's saying that all the claims of the new DPR to be peaceful are bullshit, and again that everyone should band together and get him, contradicting the objectivist mindset. Either he's asking the government for help, or asking a pseudo-government lynch mob for justice, and either is hypocritical.
- aaronem 13y ago
  Oh, I don't know about that; I have never seen any philosophical incompatibility between libertarianism or Objectivism and lynch mobs, so long as said lynch mobs are true mobs and not organized by a state actor -- the SA, for example, wouldn't qualify, but some of the Black Hundreds probably would. The "self-interest" idea covers such matters quite handily: it is, after all, quite plainly in one's self-interest not to do things which move his neighbors to organize a lynching bee. So, you know, an atrocious and unconscionable doctrine appealing only to people who have some serious problems with thinking of other people as people, yes, but hypocritical? Nah, not so much.
ufmace 13y ago
Which makes me think, whatever happened to the supposed commitment to non-violence/non-initiation of force, of both Libertarians and the new DPR? Yeah, guys, I'm sure the purpose of trying to rally a bunch of people together and find out the real life location of the thief has nothing to do with inflicting any physical harm on them.

unethical_ban 13y ago

The number of strawmen in your argument is staggering.

waterlesscloud 13y ago
It's basically a bunch of assumptions and misapprehensions stacked up so he can hate on one of the tribes other than his own. You know, what passes for politics these days.
- beedogs 13y ago
  Typical libertarian response: why bother refuting anything zedshaw said when you can just attack him personally?
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    There is no personal attack here. I am, however, strongly condemning the approach he's taken to discussing the topic.
zedshaw 13y ago
It can't be strawmen if they're direct quotes. I pulled quotes out that were contradictory to their actually stated philosophy. The whole statement is riddled with them. In fact, your claim of strawmen is actually a straw man argument (and also so funny).
- baddox 13y ago
  > It can't be strawmen if they're direct quotes. It can, if the people you're arguing with now aren't the same people you're quoting.

joeblau 13y ago

What would be really ironic is if it was a Government agency which pulled off the heist.

zedshaw 13y ago
Oooooh, I like how you think. Oh! Or, if SR2 was a government sting operation? I smell a movie script.

xenophanes 13y ago

> objectivist libertarians There is no such thing as an objectivist libertarian. Maybe you should learn what you're talking about before hating. Objectivism and libertarianism are separate opposing things. The Objectivist position on libertarians is very negative.

zedshaw 13y ago
Links or it didn't happen! I mean hell, if every guy weirdly named Paul or Ron or Rand seems to have read Atlas Shrugged and calls him self a Libertarian, then I gotta go with combining the two.
- xenophanes 13y ago
  Not sure if you're joking. It's easy to google, e.g. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_libertarianism_qa http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_libertari... > What was Ayn Rand’s view of the libertarian movement? > Ayn Rand was opposed to the libertarian movement of her time. Details follow.
  - kaonashi 13y ago
    We're talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard libertarians, not classical libertarianism.
    - xenophanes 13y ago
      What is "classical libertarianism"? Google doesn't seem to know either.
      - kaonashi 13y ago
        I guess just what libertarianism was from Belsham into the 20th century, before the influence of Rand and Rothbard. The comment was in response to a statement saying that Rand spoke against libertarianism, which was true.

_Adam 13y ago

What I find actually amazing isn't your ignorance, your misunderstanding of Objectivism, Libertarianism, and Silk Road denizens. Nor do I find amazing your inability to separate the individual from the collective. No, what I find actually amazing is that despite all that you still believed you could make a meaningful comment.

zedshaw 13y ago
Swoosh! Right over your head. This is just so hilarious I can't stand it. Nothing is better than watching a true believer grasp clumsily at his beliefs as they slip from his grasp like a slimy eel.
- 6nne 13y ago
  You keep describing all aspects of this situation as hilarious. It's condescending and not adding anything to your argument. If you're trying to be persuasive, this isn't how you do it.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  This is just so hilarious I can't stand it. The troll doth protest too much, methinks.
- dwaltrip 13y ago
  It is somewhat disheartening to see that you are a long time member with truckloads of karma, and yet you feel free to post these brash, low quality comments. It is a shame I cannot down vote you.
  - rjbwork 13y ago
    He's actually a good author, speaker, writer, and dev community member. On the other hand, he's also got a pretty acerbic personality and likes profanity a lot. What he has to say about things outside the realm of development in particular probably isn't going to be considered high-quality and tactful by the likes of you and me. But that's okay, because that's not why I've read/watched him and why he has lots of upvotes.

kyro 13y ago

I notice this quite a bit amongst my libertarian acquaintances. They tend to believe in a world built on complete freedom to exercise self-interest provided their self-interests are to be held up no matter the cost or damage to others and society. Once they get burned or outwitted by others serving their own interests, they cry injustice in the world as if it never existed before.

wallawe 13y ago
Libertarians believe in a freedom of choice, but not at the expense of others. By your interpretation, murder would be justifiable if it were "serving [one's] own interests." You've missed the distinction.

tolmasky 13y ago

I think you have a deep misunderstanding of libertarianism (which is your right of course). Libertarians don't necessarily not believe in laws, they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers. This is kind of the whole point. Its clear that in your world view "justice" is somehow inexorably tied to government, but there others that disagree (which leads to your confusion in thinking that because someone asks for justice he is necessarily asking for government). To illustrate this a bit better, perhaps using an example that you probably agree with Libertarians on: just because libertarians believe drugs should not be illegal, does not necessarily mean they believe drug use shouldn't be discouraged or treated. It is not hypocritical to fight for drug decriminalization but then seek rehabilitation programs for your drug addicted friends. That is in no way acquiescing to the need for drug control -- it is using a different tactic to fight a problem both sides may very well agree exists. Similarly, it is not hypocritical to want the government to stay out of currencies, but still want a method of punishing thieves. You may believe other methods don't work (just like there are a lot of red voters who think its naive to think not putting drug users in jails works), but that doesn't make the other position inconsistent.

zedshaw 13y ago
"they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers" Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws! And even then, what you're saying is they believe someone should bring this guy to justice...and then do nothing to him. Then it's not justice. You're killing me my friends. Just killing me here.
- JohnBooty 13y ago
  "Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws!" I'm nearly as far away from libertarian as one can be, but no - it's not the same as not having laws. Example: Old (American) West-style "frontier justice" where a bunch of townspeople form a posse or a lynch mob or whatever to right some (real or perceived) wrong. (edit: I do understand that this is only one possible scenario, and not what all or even many libertarians want)
  - 13y ago

foxhill 13y ago

this is seriously the most hilarious response to a hacker news thread i have seen in a long time. it's got it all; > Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians wild conjecture? you bet. > who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest please, tell me, what else do they think? perhaps next you can tell me what i think, i'd love to hear it. > We need the government! Please, come find the guy who took all of our illegal drug money and give it back to us so we can continue to say you aren't necessary that's funny, you've quoted one thing, and decided it means the opposite. if he wanted government, he'd have called the police FBI. no, he is calling the victims of the crime to exact justice. there is no centralised government or organisation being called upon. it's the self interest thing you mentioned earlier. > In the interest of the community?! Bwahahahaa! i don't get what's so funny about that - do you find the word community funny? silk road is a community. they buy and sell drugs, which is obviously illegal as hell, but it is still definitely a community. > "I will fight here by your side, even the greedy bastards amongst us." Like everyone on the site?! whoa soldier! making a generalization or assumption about a one or two people is.. understandable. but calling thousands of people greedy because they trade illicit substances? i'm not sure my brain can cope with much more wild conjecture. > "The only way to reverse a community’s greed is through generosity." Just like Ayn Rand said my brothers! so.. this guy is a freedom fighter now? wat. > notices the massive hypocrisy what exactly would that be? drugs are illegal - yes, but are they morally wrong? does taking them somehow devalue a persons worth or their opinion? on the other hand, i think everyone will agree that taking something that does not belong to you is morally wrong. so, i'd love it if you could clarify what you mean here. secondly, on hypocrites - if ted bundy told you not to kill someone, would you disregard his advice because "oh my god why should i listen to him, he kills people all the time". or perhaps if lance armstrong gave you cycling advice, you'd ignore it because he took performance enhancing drugs? please.

zedshaw 13y ago
Haha, Ted Bundy? The ultimate strawman slippery slope argument! Oh so good, all your defenses do nothing but point out the deeper contradictions in the statements. Seriously go back and read your replies to my replies. They're even funnier.

pavanky 13y ago

I can re read the points you made from a libertarian / anarchist tone as well. (I see very little difference in the two). For example: - "whatever means necessary" can mean using illegal (contra legal ?) means to intimidate the guy who stole the bitcoins. - "Given the right flavor of influence from our community" Again without explicitly saying what the right flavor is, he is asking the community to do what they think is right. The rest of your post does not go against libertarian or anarchist principles. But it does fall in line with a skewed version of those terms. I am not defending the silk road here. It is contrary to many of my principles. But your post does feel like a straw man attack.

Houshalter 13y ago

I don't imagine everyone that uses the site is libertarian, not all libertarians are anarcho-capitalists, nor are they all objectivists. Some people just oppose drug prohibition, or the banking system, or whatever. Nor was anything in there appealing to the government or any other "hypocritical" thing. This is the kind of comment I would expect to find on /r/politics, not hacker news.

webkike 13y ago

Most of these people use libertarianism as a guise. They're drug dealers and consumers. That's it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ChuckFrank 13y ago

Actually they are not saying that they need the government. What they are saying is that for any social enterprise to work, there needs to be honor and trust. And that this person broke that honor and trust. And yes, that is in the interest of the community.

michaelkeenan 13y ago

> most hilarious thing...Bwahahahaa!...massive hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness. Amazing. This insulting style of persuasion has been shown to backfire. Here's a study on this effect - Negative Persuasion Via Personal Insult: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022103167900017 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00221031679... An individual directly insulted by a communicator attempting to persuade him will show a “boomerang effect” by increasing the extremity of his initial attitude position You might be correct, but you're increasing the libertarianism in the world, not decreasing it. People ought to step back from their beliefs about whether they right, and instead argue in such a way that, whether they are right or not, they advance the state of knowledge. Insults and ridicule don't do this! Insults can change people's beliefs, but usually in the opposite way we intend, and only by inflaming emotion, not based on any evidence about the world, so they're a tool wielded with equal efficacy by both the correct and the mistaken. Creationists, racists, and all the others we know to be wrong can all belittle and insult their opponents too. Only by sticking to the best kinds of disagreement (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html) can we make progress, because people whose beliefs are wrong can only make flawed arguments. Those who are correct already hold the advantageous ground, so fight there, not in the quagmire of flamewars! More generally, people aren't usually especially at fault for being wrong, so they don't deserve insults. I must be wrong about some percentage of my beliefs, as must you. Any libertarian is likely to be right about something that you and I are wrong about. This HN article didn't need to be a flamewar about libertarianism. Even if you're right, you're opponents will likely respond with a similar tone, and you don't need libertarians belittling you about your views on economics or whatever. It won't change your mind, just as your insults don't change theirs. If a libertarian is to doubt his libertarian ways, it'll be through the same way we might ever be persuaded about something. First, probably, we'll learn that someone we like and respect holds the view, and we'll realize it's a position that reasonable people can hold, not just idiots or bigots or sociopaths. Then we'll learn there's nuances that we'd not encountered before - maybe we'd only heard strawman versions of its arguments before. Then we'll shift slightly such that it seems like it applies in some limited situations. And so on, and maybe we'll hold a new belief after that.

techaddict009 13y ago

Haha You nailed it!!

drewcrawford 13y ago

Lowercase-l libertarian checking in. I don't oppose governments. I oppose some of their laws. Most ordinary people oppose laws--half the country opposes the ACA, the other half opposes the Patriot act. Perhaps libertarians oppose more laws than the average person, but opposing laws and advocating full-on anarchy are two very different things. There is no hypocrisy inherent in calling for the repeal of some laws and calling for the enforcement of others, because this is what Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and all the rest of them do 7 days a week. You reference Ayn Rand in jest but it is worth pointing out what she and other libertarian thinkers have actually said about the role of government: > Such, in essence, is the proper purpose of a government: to make social existence possible to men, by protecting the benefits and combating the evils which men can cause to one another. - Ayn Rand > The free society has an indispensable role for government. The law, in a society of free people, protects the life, liberty, and property of all persons alike, ensuring peaceful conditions within the community. Government performs as an impartial umpire, by interpreting and enforcing the previously agreed upon rules. - Ludwig von Mises > A government which maintained law and order, defined property rights, served as a means whereby we could modify property rights and other rules of the economic game, adjudicated disputes about the interpretation of the rules, enforced contracts, promoted competition, provided a monetary framework, engaged in activities to counter technical monopolies and to overcome neighborhood effects widely regarded as sufficiently important to justify government intervention, and which supplemented private charity and the private family in protecting the irresponsible, whether madman or child -- such a government would clearly have important functions to perform. The consistent liberal is not an anarchist. - Milton Friedman In fairness to you, there are some libertarian thinkers who have been more on the anarchist side (Murray Rothbard comes to mind). But there is nothing inherent in libertarianism that would require libertarians to adopt an anarchist position, and in fact most libertarian thinkers have taken a very positive view of government when it enforces those laws that libertarians think are important. What I'm trying to say is, libertarianism isn't the same as anarchy, and most libertarians aren't working to destroy the government. They're working to change it, to make it better, the same goal that conservatives or liberals or anybody else has. And there's nothing inherently hypocritical about repealing drug laws but keep prosecuting thieves.

plcancel 13y ago

adventured 13y ago

Objectivism doesn't preach that there should be no government, no judicial, and or no police. You clearly don't understand Objectivism. First it has absolutely nothing to do with libertarianism, Ayn Rand was specifically clear about that, and wrote a lot on the subject. It has nothing to do with anarchy; it argues strongly in favor of a government that enforces ethical laws, including property rights (the war on drugs being as far away from ethical as you could possibly get).

spiderPig 13y ago

Haha, exactly! I'm here at work sitting with a big grin on my face for the last few minutes..Unless Silkroad themselves are lying, which I think is very possible.

onezerozeroone 13y ago

You're reading "justice" here to be synonymous with government action. "Whatever means" = their "community" doing whatever it takes to achieve their goals, period. The author is essentially threatening murder, kidnapping, extortion, or worse and encouraging the members of the site to help make it happen.

mbell 13y ago

> "I’ve included transaction logs at the bottom of this message. Review the vendor’s dishonest actions and use whatever means you deem necessary to bring this person to justice." We need the government! I'm not following how you are drawing the conclusion that this is a call for government. It seems more like a call for 'street justice' to me. Much of the rest of the your post is based on this assumption. What I took from that post is more akin to a mafia boss saying 'take care of the problem' in an effort to maintain plausible deniability if caught, but everyone involved knows the real meaning is to track down and kill the guy.

drawkbox 13y ago

Libertarianism isn't Anarchism (although there is a faction for that). It is by their own blurbs "Maximum Freedom, Minimal Government". Which, in principle, is pretty easy to believe in. Robbing data/currency is against a fair law of theft, which I am sure most libertarians agree is a necessary minimal law. Live and let live, and don't take another person's stuff, even anarchists probably believe that.

natmaster 13y ago

You're confusing Libertarianism with some variants of anarchism. Libertarians simply disagree about the ROLE of government - not whether it should exist. Libertarians believe the government should enforce property rights. However, they don't believe the government should make person decisions like who to love or what to eat. Note that only you own yourself, so any harm someone does to someone else or their property is considered an offense requiring action. Also, objectivism is not a prerequisite philosophy for libertarianism. All that is required is the non-aggression principal and voluntarism.

dtsygankov 13y ago
> Libertarians simply disagree about the ROLE of government - not whether it should exist. Libertarianism is a broad and not well-defined term. It incorporates various groups of people that believe in property rights, and believe that government should be "small". Non-existent government is as small as it can get, so most people consider anarcho-capitalism to be a flavor of libertarianism. I use the term "anarchist libertarian" to point out that I am talking about the specific 0-government flavor of libertarianism. > All that is required is the non-aggression principal and voluntarism. But if you define libertarianism like that, anarcho-capitalism becomes the only legitimate form of libertarianism. Minarchists do not respect the non-aggression principle, they mostly suggest that people should be forced to pay for the police / military, and most of them do believe in retributive justice. The non-aggression principle, if followed consistently, implies 0 taxes, and 0 government.

ivanca 13y ago

Why is this the top comment? ... Oh, the author.

zedshaw 13y ago
No, because it's funny and points out the stupidity of most objectivist arguments using their own words. It's the same thing when we all found out the original DPR clumsily ordered overpriced hits on people after spouting off that he wanted a world free of violence. The universal thing about most of these people is that if they believe that everyone should only think of themselves then they cannot be trusted, yet people continue to hand them money and fealty. Eventually, as they continue to implement their flawed beliefs and then scam everyone people will start to realize that a self-interested world view is immediately illogical and not to be trusted. Then again, the ability of many humans to believe completely illogical bullshit is astounding.
- ivanca 13y ago
  What's the alternative? The goverment? You mean, like when HSBC launders billions of dollars from cartels and gets away with it? http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-laundering-fine-management http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-l... And your stupidity is also part of this, he never asked for police enforcement, he asked for the members of the site itself to look for the thefts. Plus, when is a mistake made by the goverment the proposed solution is not "We need the goverment to disappear"; same way here; pretending the only solution is to spawn one is just as dumb. If Silk Road was just a forum instead of actually holding bitcoins none of this would have happened. But you don't expose solutions such as those; you only want to transform this in a circlejerk argument that support whatever you already believed before, a confirmation bias.
dsuth 13y ago
Likewise disappointed at what passes for discussion on this topic, on Hacker News of all places.

kpennell 13y ago

Great...Zed Shaw is here to bestow his wisdom.

bodski 13y ago

Fuck off Zed, its just people selling drugs man, get over it. Not everyone agrees with prohibition. Between you and Miguel Icaaza there's enough 'Bitcoin schadenfraude' to power a small town.

zedshaw 13y ago
Actually, I am against prohibition too, and against most drug laws, and definitely against applying them disproportionately. I'm an advocate for drug abuse being treated as a medical condition, for the sale of hard drugs only by prescription, and for any laws to be applied the same to whites, blacks, and corporations alike. I'm against famous people getting rehab while poor people get life sentences for possession. I also think softer drugs should be taxed like mad with all the money funneled into education and real research into the harmful effects of drug abuse. I also have never done drugs, have never drank alcohol, never smoked, and don't plan to ever and tell people to do the same as me. I believe that drugs and alcohol destroy people's lives and that anyone pushing others to take them are evil people who want to rob another person of their humanity and potentially cause them a life of suffering. The dividing line for me is that while I think drugs are insanely harmful to people, making them illegal causes more suffering than if you controlled them and treated addiction medically.
- sbfgb 13y ago
  I also have never done drugs, have never drank alcohol, never smoked Go for it, it'll either make you less of a tool or cause you a life of suffering. Both sound good.
  - __--__ 13y ago
    Have we gotten to the "threaten the dissenter with bodily harm" bit already?
- bodski 13y ago
  Good points, especially treating addiction as a medical condition. There's a lot of folks on SR, or whichever is the latest online drug market, selling good quality and relatively safe soft drugs. They are able to earn reputation in a community allowing users to have a low risk way to obtain the drugs they would seek out regardless. This, to me, is a step in the right direction. Why would you be against this? So the health concerns worry you. Have you ever considered the health effects the stress of a modern lifestyle on people, especially if they are poor. It's a tradeoff but I think there are definitely people (myself included) who get an overall health benefit from some drugs if it allows them to relax and escape their daily reality temporarily. All we have in our lives is our experiences ultimately. I am convinced light use of Cannabis, Psilocybin and even Ketamine have all helped with my depression. Far more damaging to me were the SSRI anti-depressants my doctor seems so keen to hand out. I have never had the same difficulty stopping any of the 'illegal' drugs I use compared to coming off SSRI anti-depressants. Not to mention the horrible side effects of SSRIs when you are on them.

patcon 13y ago

Please stop flaming this thread. We understand -- everyone else is hilariously incoherent in their views

anentropic 13y ago

LOL