I am not aware that Silk Road ever had a genuine "assassination" market.   Fake perhaps, not genuine.As for "illicit drugs":  Probably billions of dollars of 'illicit drugs' are bought and sold, daily, without any connection to the Internet.  If anything, Silk Road made the world a safer place:  There was much less likelihood of being arrested for drug deals, due to little or no human contact.  And because of the concept of "reputation", chances are good that the drugs sold on Silk Road (or other subsequent 'Dark Markets') were more reliable, higher and more-consistent purity, fewer unhealthy 'cuts', etc.   So, it was a BENEFICIAL website.  It simply thwarted the desire of some people who wanted to suppress drug sales and use.                  Jim Bell On Sunday, June 27, 2021, 11:35:53 AM PDT, David Barrett wrote: Just to make sure I understand, you are describing Silk Road, a hidden marketplace for everything from illicit drugs to assassinations, as harmless?  David On Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 9:40 PM grarpamp wrote: While other people get less than 25y for Murder, Rape, etc, and nothing for War, Torture, Infinite Detention, Global Organized Theft, etc. Any questions? #FreeRoss #RIPJohnHurley #McAfeeDidntKillHimself BTW: People actually could buy, did buy, still can buy, and indeed should consider buying... a cannon. Or at least 3D-Print one :)

Hi David. I visited silk road when it was running. It didn't sell assassination. Ulrich had a policy against this. It mostly wasn't about drugs. Drugs were one of many product categories it provided. It was mostly normal things, to support the use of bitcoin. A significant portion of drug purchases appeared to be marijuana, which is now legal in many states. People on the site also sold hard drugs, and services for anonymously transferring mail deliveries to people. It is not illegal to provide a marketplace. It seems to me the portal provided an avenue for hunting down anyone selling these drugs, because they were using the normal postal service to do so. I expect that Ulbricht is serving a sentence far in excess of their crime, because the site was competing with existing criminal marketplaces, and refused to play their game. If Ulbricht had real ties to the real black market, clients and partners would have protected the site from being taken down, like apparently happens in other situations.

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 7:09 PM David Barrett wrote:

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 4:01 PM Karl wrote:

...

It didn't sell assassination. Ulrich had a policy against this.

So this didn't happen? https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss-ordering-5-ass...

And you feel your personal resources to investigate this honestly and accurately exceed the court system?

The link you pasted describes a private conversation, not an actual event or anything sold on the marketplace.

prosecution admitted in court that the purported victims of the Silk Road killings were never found, and that Canadian police couldn't even locate records for anyone with their names

That could be interpreted as an incredibly successful killing. It could also be interpreted as quoting messages exchanged by account hackers to scare a jury. If there were actual recordings of sold killings on the marketplace, they would have used those real trade records, rather than a character-harming quote unrelated to the charges. The marketplace kept records to track trustworthiness between users.

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 7:12 PM Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote:

On Sun, 27 Jun 2021 19:01:16 -0400 Karl wrote:

...

Hi David.

I visited silk road when it was running.

It didn't sell assassination. Ulrich had a policy against this.

It mostly wasn't about drugs. Drugs were one of many product categories it provided. It was mostly normal things, to support the use of bitcoin.

That's nonsense. It was all just drugs, and there's absolutely no reason to apologize for it.

We have YET ANOTHER US govt turd alias 'david barnett' posting the most idiotic trolling nonsense one can imagine : "But but, the US govt is good and drugs are baad!" - Please.

David's able to speak so rationally, how do we protect him?

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 7:35 PM David Barrett wrote:

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 4:19 PM Karl wrote:

...

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 7:12 PM Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote:

...

That's nonsense. It was all just drugs, and there's absolutely no reason to apologize for it.

I agree IF you are in support of unrestricted sale of hard narcotics, then that's fine. It just happens to be that in the US (and virtually everywhere else in the world), most people aren't, and the legal structure reflects that.

...

We have YET ANOTHER US govt turd alias 'david barnett' posting

...

the most idiotic trolling nonsense one can imagine : "But but, the US govt is good and drugs are baad!" - Please.

David's able to speak so rationally, how do we protect him?

Thank you, I appreciate that! The idea that

Be well, David. I don't know you at all. everyone who speaks up in defense of the US government is automatically a

government plant comes from a pretty sad worldview. In

the real world, our representative democracy was built by people who

largely agree with it (tautologically so) -- which means we largely agree with it's fundamental structure, it's general workings, and it's overall results. I know it's not very fashionable to be patriotic these days (Trump was about the worst thing I can imagine for "Brand USA"), but I think part of democracy is recognizing that it's *ok* to dislike the outcome of a good process, while still agreeing the process itself is good.

It's best if we think of ways to improve it. For someone to say they are ok with Silk Road and what appear to be genuine

attempts to hire killers, proven instances of

???? Did you miss my last reply? The link you posted had to use a private conversation as evidence since there was no trade records of such things, and the prosecutor admitted there was no indication killers were actually hired. the sale of hard narcotics, and the

To be clear here, the person in prison did not sell narcotics, right? They provided a platform for general trade, where others sold narcotics. widespread platform for money laundering and tax evasion -- is kind of to

say they are a

???? Bitcoin already exists and people are finally realising it doesn't make anything private. Ross Ulbricht didn't invent bitcoin. pretty extreme outlier. It's not our government's job to reflect the

attitude of every outlier -- and anyone who wishes it did, almost surely would not support all the other equally extreme but very different attitudes our government also correctly ignores.

-david

Looks like you've won here.

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 8:30 PM David Barrett wrote:

...

For someone to say they are ok with Silk Road and what appear to be

...

genuine attempts to hire killers, proven instances of

???? Did you miss my last reply? The link you posted had to use a private conversation as evidence since there was no trade records of such things, and the prosecutor admitted there was no indication killers were actually hired.

My understanding is the crime is *attempting* to have someone killed, whether or not it's carried out. Everything seems to suggest he felt Blake Krokoff was a real person, and wanted him killed, and was offering payment to do so. Thankfully whoever "Blake Krokoff" actually is did a good job covering his tracks, but there's no reason to think that Ulbricht didn't genuinely want him dead.

... except that ulbricht was sentenced to longer than life, and his site would have had to have been compromised to find him, so it's highly possible the evidence was planted by whoever didn't like him. I haven't reviewed this evidence to tell what is real. The document you linked does not back up what you say.

the sale of hard narcotics, and the

...

...

To be clear here, the person in prison did not sell narcotics, right? They provided a platform for general trade, where others sold narcotics.

He profited from them by taking a transaction fee, so yes, he was selling narcotics in every legal, moral, and semantic sense.

That's not the meaning of "selling" in an online anonymous marketplace, to me. You have different experience? widespread platform for money laundering and tax evasion -- is kind of to

...

...

say they are a

???? Bitcoin already exists and people are finally realising it doesn't make anything private. Ross Ulbricht didn't invent bitcoin.

Fair point, but he's not being imprisoned for the existence of Bitcoin. He's being imprisoned for selling narcotics, personally avoiding taxes, and attempting to have people killed.

Those sound like intense things, but you seem motivated to argue here and I don't have a way to tell what is real myself. Most onion businesses did not succeed. Ulbricht's was one of the largest. It doesn't seem appropriate to endanger people who ran these things any further.

On Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:12 PM David Barrett wrote:

On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 6:08 PM Karl wrote:

...

My understanding is the crime is *attempting* to have someone killed,

...

whether or not it's carried out. Everything seems to suggest he felt Blake Krokoff was a real person, and wanted him killed, and was offering payment to do so. Thankfully whoever "Blake Krokoff" actually is did a good job covering his tracks, but there's no reason to think that Ulbricht didn't genuinely want him dead.

... except that ulbricht was sentenced to longer than life, and his site would have had to have been compromised to find him, so it's highly possible the evidence was planted by whoever didn't like him.

Well yes, this is what we have courts for: to investigate this. And unless you feel he had an incompetent lawyer, that's the job of his counsel to defend him.

I'm just saying that the chat log was evidence that he made a genuine attempt to hire a killer to murder someone he believed he knew the identity of. However, if you are willing to basically throw out all evidence you are suspicious of *without evidence it's fake*, then you can sorta believe anything. But clearly you aren't advocating that our court system just consult your personal judgement on what is valid evidence?

I'm sure the court reviewed evidence to the extent that lawyers pushed it to. One of my friends had her dog stolen by an ex. She actually took the ex to court, and in court the ex testified that the dog had always been hers. The case failed, and the thief kept the dog. Courts aren't perfect. But something is up when somebody is serving longer than life for nonviolent crimes. Nobody dies from asking to hire a killer. I don't give weight to circumstantial evidence in political conflicts. Charge people for the reason you're hunting them so everybody can know what's going on. But honestly I know little about the ulbricht case. I have stronger opinions in things I know about. To be clear here, the person in prison did not sell narcotics, right? They

...

...

...

provided a platform for general trade, where others sold narcotics.

He profited from them by taking a transaction fee, so yes, he was selling narcotics in every legal, moral, and semantic sense.

That's not the meaning of "selling" in an online anonymous marketplace, to me. You have different experience?

I think it's pretty common to say "Amazon sells stuff", in the same way that "Silk Road sells stuff". If Amazon started selling hard narcotics, and Jeff Bezos had a chat log of trying to solicit the assassination of someone, surely you wouldn't come to his defense? Regardless, this sounds like a

Amazon is practically a monopoly. Jeff Bezos needs to be kept in line because with that amount of money you can buy ten times the lawyers prosecuting you, to defend you. semantic debate. From a legal perspective, do you agree that online stores

do in fact sell things, and are liable for the products they sell? If nothing else: the fact that Ulbricht

If Ulbricht had made silk road open source and decentralised, we would never have never had this conversation. was arrested for the sale of hard narcotics on his website *should be proof

he was liable*, tautologically so.

(Fun fact: did you know that grocery stores just rent out shelf space to vendors, the physical equivalent of Amazon / Silk Road? So even in the physical world, stores are just marketplaces for a wide variety of vendors to sell products side by side on the shelf.)

You can actually buy illegal stuff on Amazon. The key is to get it delivered before the seller is shut down. Amazon was given an opportunity to implement policies in its software, to keep itself out of prison. Keeps everyone able to get their groceries. I find it frustrating that you seem wholly willing to defend the theory of

our government, but then completely disregard every practical implementation of that theory. You cannot seriously believe that justice would be better served if we had a process that applied your nonexistent level of rigor to evidence gathering and legal proceedings.

We're just bantering, man. I've seen posts here in support of ulbricht, and silk road and cryptocurrency helped people talk about things that were hard to discuss before them. I'm creatively looking for ways to make points, just as you appear to be doing as well. A democracy is defined by being in flux. It is incredibly important that we disagree with it, so we can figure out how to change it.

-david

...

On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 12:34:05 -0400 Karl wrote:

I'm sure the court reviewed evidence to the extent that lawyers pushed it to.

why do you keep playing his game, pretending his nazi courts and his nazi 'laws' have any legitimacy at all?

On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 13:56:36 -0400 Karl wrote:

On Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 1:35 PM Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote:

...

On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 12:34:05 -0400 Karl wrote:

...

I'm sure the court reviewed evidence to the extent that lawyers pushed it to.

why do you keep playing his game, pretending his nazi courts and his nazi 'laws' have any legitimacy at all?

I'll try to answer a guess as to what you mean if you can stop giving me a worse game to play. Everything has some degree of legitimacy.

That's wrong. Criminals like barrett have no legitimacy. And neither has your 'democracy', your government and your country. Everything barrett has said so far is just shameless promotion of crime. Last but not least, the US cesspool is a so called 'republic' (more meaningless jargon of course, but 'technically correct') Not only the US fascist cesspool is a 'republic' instead of a 'democracy' but if you bother to look at the 'elections' that the orange monkey 'won', it turns out that he got LESS VOTES than the clinton cunt. OOPS. It would be an excercise in infinte self-parody to pretend that the US is a 'democracy' in which the guy who gets LESS VOTES is elected. The 'will' of US subjects means nothing.

On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 14:47:01 -0400 Karl wrote:

When devoid of hope, where do we move our hope to? Who comes along?

I don't know about hope, but if you want to solve problem X, it's a good idea to stop supporting the cause of problem X. In this case problem X being tyranny.

[typo]

...

Talking about problems with tyranny ... nourishing people to stop supporting it ...

There's a lot of humanity there. People with

*without

tyranny are full of individuality, full of choice.

...

On Wed, 30 Jun 2021 16:45:42 -0700 David Barrett wrote:

Comments like this reinforce the need to respect and defend the actual institutions we have, as imperfect as they are. He's accused me, without evidence -- or even any statement of what supposed law I broke -- of being a criminal.

indeed you are a worthless piece of criminal shit. And you admited as much. Not that your explicit confession is needed, since everything you said here is evidence of your criminality. But for completness sake :

The idea that everyone who speaks up in defense of the US government is automatically a government plant

you're confessing you "speak up in defense of the US government" which makes you guilty of all their crimes. Then again, you're not only a piece of criminal shit, you are a troll. So, get lost.

We all need to push back on this kind of anti-democratic, anti-justice

you sound like a variation of the typical randroid child murderer...

"I'll fight with my life to prevent conflict" -- Said everyone starting every war, ever. Mainly I just think we need to tone down the aggression. Capitalism, democracy, society, it works. Things are better than they've ever been in the history of the world, and they are getting better. Not perfectly, not equally, but gradually and steadily over the long arc of history. I feel like we just need to appreciate what we've got and do the hard, thankless work of making it better and more inclusive -- and stop exaggerating the scale of the problems we face. We don't need revolution, we need evolution. It's slow, boring, and wonky. It requires patience and cooperation. And it requires respecting the institutions we've carefully built over centuries, and investing in making them better. -david On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 12:17 AM Karl wrote:

On Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:45 PM David Barrett wrote:

...

On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 11:48 AM Karl wrote:

...

...

...

his nazi 'laws' have any legitimacy at all?

I'll try to answer a guess as to what you mean if you can stop giving me a worse game to play. Everything has some degree of legitimacy.

That's wrong. Criminals like barrett have no legitimacy. And neither has your

Comments like this reinforce the need to respect and defend the actual institutions we have, as imperfect as they are. He's accused me, without evidence -- or even any statement of what supposed law I broke -- of being a criminal. We all need to push back on this kind of anti-democratic, anti-justice language whenever we see it. It's fine to disagree; it's fine to call the cops on me for whatever you think it is I've done. But to basically assert judgement without any investigation or process is to demonstrate a complete disinterest in justice itself. There's too much of that going on; silent people need to push back on this corrosive tactic.

-david

I'll fight with my life to prevent conflict and end blaming of others, if I can figure out how. Where are you at?

...

hi david On Thu, Jul 1, 2021, 12:29 PM David Barrett wrote:

"I'll fight with my life to prevent conflict" -- Said everyone starting every war, ever.

That's not preventing conflict. Caps because it sounds like you didn't get my second line after that: DID YOU GET MY SECOND LINE AFTER THAT? Mainly I just think we need to tone down the aggression. Capitalism,

democracy, society,

That's always nice. Takes willpower and freedom. it works. Things are better than they've ever

been in the history of the world, and they are getting better. Not

perfectly, not equally, but

What things do you see as better or worse, equal or inequal? We work to try to make the things you say be true. It is very hard work. I really yearn for earlier times, myself, but if we can be free to talk productively and effectively I think we can be free to accomplish anything. gradually and steadily over the long arc of history. I feel like we just

need to appreciate what we've got and do the hard, thankless work of making it better and more inclusive -- and stop exaggerating the scale of the problems we face. We don't need revolution, we need evolution. It's slow, boring, and

We need somewhere in-between. But we get the whole shebang ;p Everyone who talks is just trying to help everyone else. Sometimes it sounds violent or boring, it's just more important experiences and I'm good ideas being shared unskillfully. wonky. It requires patience and cooperation. And it requires respecting

the institutions we've carefully built over centuries, and investing in making them better.

Or mutating them to heal them? I'm big on respect but not on demanding specific solutions. At this time we need to protect people. People in institutions, and people being harmed by them. That's a dynamic situation needing relevant, contextual decisions. If I can discover that a local council is fully staffed by foreign spies trying to turn the local region into an occupying millitary, it may not be the most important institution to protect. But pretty important to preserve the history of.

-david

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 12:17 AM Karl wrote:

...

On Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:45 PM David Barrett wrote:

...

On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 11:48 AM Karl wrote:

...

...

...

his nazi 'laws' have any legitimacy at all?

I'll try to answer a guess as to what you mean if you can stop giving me a worse game to play. Everything has some degree of legitimacy.

That's wrong. Criminals like barrett have no legitimacy. And neither has your

Comments like this reinforce the need to respect and defend the actual institutions we have, as imperfect as they are. He's accused me, without evidence -- or even any statement of what supposed law I broke -- of being a criminal. We all need to push back on this kind of anti-democratic, anti-justice language whenever we see it. It's fine to disagree; it's fine to call the cops on me for whatever you think it is I've done. But to basically assert judgement without any investigation or process is to demonstrate a complete disinterest in justice itself. There's too much of that going on; silent people need to push back on this corrosive tactic.

-david

I'll fight with my life to prevent conflict and end blaming of others, if I can figure out how. Where are you at?

...

democracy ... works.

Bullshit.

inclusive

Forced communalism at the point of a gun, aka: government enacted murder.

investing in [government]

Never did work, doesn't work, will never work. You had your centuries of trying that, it failed, miserably, and always will... because it's based in force and death, not freedom and life. Go read some anarchism instead.

differentiate between "democracy" and "making decisions with friends" ?

The latter is a discrete self contained set of persons all voluntarily entering into on a thing whose only force is contained entirely within and upon themselves, not upon any outside non voluntarily agreeing parties. "Democracy" and all "governments" as they exist everywhere in the world today, is absolutely not voluntarily entered into by at least 50% or whatever mechanism of its subject humans. It is a brutally deadly willful force applied by the "majority" against all others, saved from "genocide" only by grace or fear of cornered animal response revolt... thus you get just enough murders used as oppression tactic against minority for profit of the majority. You... who have never harmed anyone and or wish to live free and left the fuck alone... must comply with their orders, or die. Murder, that is what these nonvoluntary democracy and governments are. That is always a wrong. As are those who praise and practice it. You have no such rights of murder thievery etc over others. Nor does being born into a murderous shithole country, or murderous shit religion, or murderous shit government, obligate you or anyone to comply follow or do anything that it and its murderers say. The fact that they murder you for not doing what they say, directly proves the abject complete and total invalidity of such nonvoluntary "democracy". It's quite sad. Better to stop doing and participating in that murder system, to get rid of it, for it always turn, and you become minority.

That's not inclusive, man. That's not what the word means. That's slavery or war.

That is what the word, as enforced by the woke mobs of today means... being murdered for not conforming to their idea of "inclusivity", while not harming anyone else. People have the voluntary right to be noninclusive as regards among themselves, so long as not initiating aggression in outward direction towards others.

separate government (laws) and indentured serfdom (money/other power)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indenture Government its laws and people are forcing themselves upon and murdering etc you involuntarily. Indenture is a contract voluntarily agreed by you.

On Sat, 3 Jul 2021 18:21:40 -0400 grarpamp wrote:

"Democracy" and all "governments" as they exist everywhere in the world today, is absolutely not voluntarily entered into by at least 50%

notice that this comes from the piece of trumpofascist shit that is constantly spamming the list with his fake news about the orange money trump WINNING THE US ELECTIONS. then again, grarpamp is the most corrupt asshole on this list, even surpassing barrett, who at least doesn't pretend to pose as anything but a brain dead US nazi bot.

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021, 8:12 AM kt ss wrote:

a pattern repeating everywhere seems to be visible. people are no longer accepting of differing views. worse, all differing views are usually taken to be necessarily hostile.

Ideas: - repetition of clearly reasonable things can provide clarity - some people are used to communicating during arguing or by blaming another group - personally, it can take me both time and repetition to realise my viewpoints are ridiculous when they are - personally, I like Nonviolent Communication, it can be slightly misused to set a norm for what is considered debatable communication and what is just flack. I haven't been able to use it all or most of the time, the habits are too strong. and more importantly, each of these views are formed by an opinion based on

information that is not directly verifiable by individuals. in absence of trust in the channels (supposedly) bringing us facts and institutions of authorities (supposedly) acting for our good, what are the possible futures?

I hear we can do anything, and it's incredibly hard. What needs attention?

On Wed, 07 Jul 2021 21:18:20 +0000 coderman wrote:

look to china for the future:

Did I ever mention that 'coderman' and 'grarpamp' are sockpuppets of the same turd?