Not sure why a convicted felon away for life gets any credibility in the tech community. Yes, many in these parts think he was just "running a website", including his mom. Tells you a thing or two about his upbringing.
Mr Ulbricht was a kingpin drug trafficker and I really couldn't care less for his technical opinions. If he were to take a modicum of responsibility for his actions, then perhaps there would be a pathway for him to have a voice in the community. His vote is irrelevant until then.
Ulbricht was not a drug kingpin himself, but rather he created a marketplace for drug kingpins, right?
Also it may be beneficial to judge a person's technical capabilities separate from that person's ethics--both good and shitty people have cool tech ideas.
Martha Stewart got done for felony tax evasion, I still read her recipes from time to time.
People typically don't consider white collar crimes to be a big deal. (Drug trafficking isn't normally white collar, but in Ulbricht's case it was pretty white collar. Uber, but for drugs?)
> but in Ulbricht's case it was pretty white collar
Ross tried, on multiple occasions, to hire hitmen to kill people he didn't like. I think once you get into wetworks, it no longer counts as "white collar".
There's a distinction between allegation (and even conviction/settlement) and fact. On a case this high profile and with such high stakes there's plenty of motivation for spurious allegations. That they didn't follow through is telling
My point was that it shouldn't have been harder. Prosecute everything so that if one charge doesn't lead to conviction, another will. And given the money needed to catch him, the legal expense would have been justified. According to a sibling reply, the hitman was actually a scammer. Not a lawyer, but it seems like they could have easily tried him for attempted murder.
He was not convicted, but it's pretty plain to see that he did it.
Fortunately, the people he hired for the assassinations were really just scam artists who conned him out of some money. The prosecution decided that it would not be worth it for the state to pursue murder charges in such an unprecedented scenario.
On the other hand, the assassination attempt was taken into account by the judge for sentencing.
I don't think a life sentence was appropriate, but I don't think you're concern here is really what happened.
judges have some discretion when it comes to which end of the minimum/maximum end of the scale to sentence someone convicted of a particular crime, and using facts entered into evidence and never contested when exercising that is pretty standard.
We dismiss a felon's voice at the polls for life. I don't agree entirely with this as they did their time, but that's not the case here.
In this case, Mr Ulbricht is doing time, doesn't mea culpa (quite the opposite -- he and his supporters think he's a victim), and is now commenting on yet another technical topic (first was bitcoin) the impacts of which are detrimental to him in his predicament.
If he were to have been an ex-con at the time of writing who took responsibility for his actions, I may have had a different opinion.
If you Google "silk road screenshots" the first image is one showing "Cocaine" as a category. Users didn't create categories; admins of the site did. Kind of blows away plausible deniability.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that he was unaware that silk road was being used for drug sales. I think the dispute is whether a person who ran such a website can still have interesting ideas to share.
I think they meant "many in these parts think he was just running a website which enabled drugs to be sold" vs the accusation that he hired hitmen or was running a drug cartel.
> Not sure why a convicted felon away for life gets any credibility in the tech community.
Because the fact that he is a convicted felon or the duration of his sentence have nothing to do with his technical skill or ability? (Aside from the fact that his failure in opsec lead to his arrest and incarceration.) Just because someone is punished for doing something bad doesn't mean they suddenly stop having good ideas.
Another way to look at it, if you were in a room with Ross Ulbricht and he was telling you to not touch a wire because while you're standing in a puddle because the wire is electrified are you going to ignore him because he's a convict?
Think of the most terrible thing you've ever done, the thing you tell no one. Do you think that other people should instantly discount all your good ideas if they found out about the terrible thing that you've done?
No, because he is without remorse and his ideology doesn't support reparations for his crimes.
If Mr Ulbricht were so motivated to make amends for his actions, he would offer solutions for reducing suffering. Instead, with simplistic ideals, he proposes to redo social media in a manner that has no clear pathway to reduce suffering. It is, at best, haphazard.
The dangerous wire analogy doesn't hold. Very different situations.
Personal demons are similar. Make reparations for pain and suffering.
The US Federal Government allowed Perdue Pharma to ravage the US with a corrupt OxyContin prescription system?
Sure he was a drug dealer, but if you’re that holier-than-thou the attitude should extend to the whole pharmaceutical industry who are just drug dealers in white coats a lot of the time.
It's similar to when Hans Reiser murdered his wife. Bloodlust was similar, the minor difference is that Ulbricht was too stupid to verify the deed was done.
> Because he was a programmer, contributing to Linux, people on /. and elsewhere wanted him to not be guilty. They identified with him on some level. As the evidence started to mount against him, it made people look for crazy ways in which he could not be guilty.
Ulbricht's supporters see themselves in him. Each one of them fears the idea of being imprisoned for murder. Therefore, seeing Ulbricht as extension of themselves, they want him to get away with murder.
I believe in rehabilitation and forgiveness because bearing a grudge weighs on me, not on the begrudged party. There’s already too much negativity in the world for me to want to add more. Plus he’s in prison for cutting into the TLA drug monopoly more than for anything he actually did imo
Would love to know if he is writing and posting this himself or if he is writing his thoughts (and drawings it seems) on paper and passing them off to someone else to post.
There’s no point in decentralizing social media. Hardly anyone would use it.
The whole point of why social media is so popular is people want attention.
In large numbers.
Likes, follows, comments. That’s for example, why it will be hard to dethrone services like Instagram or YouTube. The only way they fall is if someone swallows up all the attention. (Eg: tiktok)
Decentralization is a Pipe dream that goes against natural human behavior and instinct.
I think you can decentralize certain demographics, the same demos that were frequently socially active online for long before big social media came along.
But those demos are already somewhat decentralized, and engage with centralized social media to largely to engage outside of their demo, getting back to the original objection.
Yes but what I mean is that there will be two groups of people online. Those who seek out specialized fora outside of big social media just like they would have in 2005. Some were active then, others are too young to have been.
The other group will simply go for the easiest choice, big social media, and use that.
We had the easy choice and the hard choice back in the 90s too. Internet usually came with some provider, in Sweden it was Spray and in the US it was AOL.
You could get online and just go through their network to find anything you wanted, news, message boards, chat.
I was a young teenager and didn't even look twice at what Spray offered here in Sweden. I was curious, I looked further, deeper for more specialized places.
People haven't changed. Many of us will still do that and end up on decentralized platforms.
But at the same time we have a ton more netizens today than we did 20 years ago so the large majority will most likely just go with the easiest option.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 98.2 ms ] threadMr Ulbricht was a kingpin drug trafficker and I really couldn't care less for his technical opinions. If he were to take a modicum of responsibility for his actions, then perhaps there would be a pathway for him to have a voice in the community. His vote is irrelevant until then.
fandroid is a voice of the irrelevant community of pg's buttlickers until then.
Also it may be beneficial to judge a person's technical capabilities separate from that person's ethics--both good and shitty people have cool tech ideas.
People typically don't consider white collar crimes to be a big deal. (Drug trafficking isn't normally white collar, but in Ulbricht's case it was pretty white collar. Uber, but for drugs?)
Ross tried, on multiple occasions, to hire hitmen to kill people he didn't like. I think once you get into wetworks, it no longer counts as "white collar".
Thank goodness he didn't actually succeed.
I encourage you to read the transcript in which he attempts to arrange the assassinations [1]. It is pretty obvious what he is doing.
To go back to the original point, though, I do not believe that his crimes make his ideas about social networks irrelevant.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-bos...
Not sure why that isn't a crime, but I stand corrected. Thanks for responding with legitimate criticism instead of just downvoting
Fortunately, the people he hired for the assassinations were really just scam artists who conned him out of some money. The prosecution decided that it would not be worth it for the state to pursue murder charges in such an unprecedented scenario.
On the other hand, the assassination attempt was taken into account by the judge for sentencing.
> the assassination attempt was taken into account by the judge for sentencing
There are a whole slew of problems advocating for the ability for judges to sentence people for crimes they were never convicted of.
judges have some discretion when it comes to which end of the minimum/maximum end of the scale to sentence someone convicted of a particular crime, and using facts entered into evidence and never contested when exercising that is pretty standard.
Dismissing ideas because of the origin rather than the content doesn't seem very open minded.
In this case, Mr Ulbricht is doing time, doesn't mea culpa (quite the opposite -- he and his supporters think he's a victim), and is now commenting on yet another technical topic (first was bitcoin) the impacts of which are detrimental to him in his predicament.
If he were to have been an ex-con at the time of writing who took responsibility for his actions, I may have had a different opinion.
> Yes, many in these parts think he was just "running a website"
Because the fact that he is a convicted felon or the duration of his sentence have nothing to do with his technical skill or ability? (Aside from the fact that his failure in opsec lead to his arrest and incarceration.) Just because someone is punished for doing something bad doesn't mean they suddenly stop having good ideas.
Another way to look at it, if you were in a room with Ross Ulbricht and he was telling you to not touch a wire because while you're standing in a puddle because the wire is electrified are you going to ignore him because he's a convict?
Think of the most terrible thing you've ever done, the thing you tell no one. Do you think that other people should instantly discount all your good ideas if they found out about the terrible thing that you've done?
If Mr Ulbricht were so motivated to make amends for his actions, he would offer solutions for reducing suffering. Instead, with simplistic ideals, he proposes to redo social media in a manner that has no clear pathway to reduce suffering. It is, at best, haphazard.
The dangerous wire analogy doesn't hold. Very different situations.
Personal demons are similar. Make reparations for pain and suffering.
Sure he was a drug dealer, but if you’re that holier-than-thou the attitude should extend to the whole pharmaceutical industry who are just drug dealers in white coats a lot of the time.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131449
> Because he was a programmer, contributing to Linux, people on /. and elsewhere wanted him to not be guilty. They identified with him on some level. As the evidence started to mount against him, it made people look for crazy ways in which he could not be guilty.
Ulbricht's supporters see themselves in him. Each one of them fears the idea of being imprisoned for murder. Therefore, seeing Ulbricht as extension of themselves, they want him to get away with murder.
Is there any way to authenticate this?
The whole point of why social media is so popular is people want attention.
In large numbers.
Likes, follows, comments. That’s for example, why it will be hard to dethrone services like Instagram or YouTube. The only way they fall is if someone swallows up all the attention. (Eg: tiktok)
Decentralization is a Pipe dream that goes against natural human behavior and instinct.
The other group will simply go for the easiest choice, big social media, and use that.
We had the easy choice and the hard choice back in the 90s too. Internet usually came with some provider, in Sweden it was Spray and in the US it was AOL.
You could get online and just go through their network to find anything you wanted, news, message boards, chat.
I was a young teenager and didn't even look twice at what Spray offered here in Sweden. I was curious, I looked further, deeper for more specialized places.
People haven't changed. Many of us will still do that and end up on decentralized platforms.
But at the same time we have a ton more netizens today than we did 20 years ago so the large majority will most likely just go with the easiest option.