Silk Road: anonymous marketplace. Feedback requested :)

[BCEmporium]

Try to directly relate BTC with SR is the same as linking the Federal Reserve with the drug cartels, taken they use mostly USD...

Still, I don't see the good of SR so far, it came way too soon and may end up linking BTC as "drugs currency"... but let's just hope that will not happen.

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[FatherMcGruder]

While I don't suggest SR or Bitcoin would actively participate in acts of overt violence.  I still think we need to ask if selling tar heroin to a young teen isn't a from of violence in and of itself?

Assuming that it is, what feasible recommendations do you have for Silk Road on the matter?

</feeble attempt to get back on topic>

[greenfloyd]

While I don't suggest SR or Bitcoin would actively participate in acts of overt violence.  I still think we need to ask if selling tar heroin to a young teen isn't a from of violence in and of itself?

It's none of your business or mine, only that of the child and guardian.

In exactly the same way, I consider religious indoctrination to be a form of child abuse, but its none of my business if others indoctrinate their children into their choice of religion.

Ah, though, BitterTea, this system does not require a "guardian," or more importantly, parental authority.  I respectfully disagree that the issue of drug trafficking to (or increasingly by) minors is of no concern to the larger community.  In fact, it's a major concern in many communities.  This building SR controversy is sure to only heighten it.  Rather that be by design or not, remains to be seen.  Perhaps SR will become a poster-boy for why we must regulate drugs and take them out of the hands of cartels, dealers and clandestine Internet markets.

[drugsmang]

The SR controversy is merely senators trying to capitalize from tabloid journalism. it will die out in a week or so when @LulzSec is all over the news for h4xoring another FBI affiliate.

Online drug dealing has been going on since 1993 as far as i can remember. Patrick Kroupa used to sell acid and mesc on MindVox

[Goldenmaw]

I am a single, small and un-influential voice in this community, and I want you gone, Silkroad.  This has nothing to do with my personal views on unrestricted trade among consenting adults, and everything to do with the fact that the united states government in its totality has every motive to discredit, damage and disable Bitcoin by any means necessary, and that if Senator Charles Schumer's current actions have any weight to them, the machinery for this has already been set into motion, using you.

You, Silkroad, are a tremendous liability to Bitcoin, and while the users here who are interested in Bitcoin purely for black transactions will disagree vocally with my opinion, your assocation with us is extremely damaging.  You can and will be used against us, and I for one want you gone.  I do not wish to purchase illegal substances with Bitcoins.  I want Bitcoins to be the image of moral progress to the people in my country, and as public opinions stand, this cannot come to be for as long as puppets like Schumer can gleefully call Bitcoins "the black market currency". I want you to drop Bitcoins as an accepted currency and terminate all association with Bitcoin.

You are, collectively, a huge threat to the Bitcoin movement, for purely political reasons, and I have no doubt in my mind that the cause Bitcoins represents is socially and economically many orders of magnitude more important for mankind's well being than you, Silkroad. I only wish more Bitcoin users here would recognize the danger of your association with us.

[MoonShadow]

Personally, I want Charles Schumer to say the name "Bitcoin" and "currency" together in front of the media as often as possible.  I don't know if Bitcoin is ready for the US government or not, but I'm ready to find out.  In the meantime, any of the talking heads blathering on about Bitcoin adds credibility. 

[BitterTea]

I am a single, small and un-influential voice in this community, and I want you gone, Silkroad.  This has nothing to do with my personal views on unrestricted trade among consenting adults, and everything to do with the fact that the united states government in its totality has every motive to discredit, damage and disable Bitcoin by any means necessary, and that if Senator Charles Schumer's current actions have any weight to them, the machinery for this has already been set into motion, using you.

You, Silkroad, are a tremendous liability to Bitcoin, and while the users here who are interested in Bitcoin purely for black transactions will disagree vocally with my opinion, your assocation with us is extremely damaging.  You can and will be used against us, and I for one want you gone.  I do not wish to purchase illegal substances with Bitcoins.  I want Bitcoins to be the image of moral progress to the people in my country, and as public opinions stand, this cannot come to be for as long as puppets like Schumer can gleefully call Bitcoins "the black market currency". I want you to drop Bitcoins as an accepted currency and terminate all association with Bitcoin.

You are, collectively, a huge threat to the Bitcoin movement, for purely political reasons, and I have no doubt in my mind that the cause Bitcoins represents is socially and economically many orders of magnitude more important for mankind's well being than you, Silkroad. I only wish more Bitcoin users here would recognize the danger of your association with us.

You seem confused. Charles Schumer (and those like him) are the problem, not the Silk Road.

Why don't you "want you gone, Charles Schumer"?

[Goldenmaw]

Because Charles Schumer and those like him aren't going anywhere without an armed revolution.  That's why.  Silkroad, and the entire image of Bitcoins as "the black market currency", has the power to smash the public opinion we so desperately need to build in order to ensure active bitcoin trading by the general public.  For Bitcoin to bloom, we cannot give federal and local enforcement authorities excuses to kick down our doors and seize our hard drives. 

Silkroad is a tremendously good excuse.

[anisoptera]

I have no doubt in my mind that the cause Bitcoins represents is socially and economically many orders of magnitude more important for mankind's well being than you, Silkroad.

The cause Bitcoin represents is literally the freedom for sites such as Silk Road to exist. If Silk Road goes away, the ideology of Bitcoin has failed.

I don't know what you think Bitcoin is supposed to be doing if "Freedom to perform financial transactions regardless of the circumstances surrounding those transactions" isn't it.

[Goldenmaw]

Many individuals who are interested in Bitcoin as a means of challenging the financial power structure that holds the american economy in a ruthless stranglehold would disagree with that statement, anisoptera.  Advancement to a more secure and less easily corrupted form of currency is far more important than weed.com.

[anisoptera]

Many individuals who are interested in Bitcoin as a means of challenging the financial power structure that holds the american economy in a ruthless stranglehold would disagree with that statement, anisoptera.  Advancement to a more secure and less easily corrupted form of currency is far more important than weed.com.

If Bitcoins cannot be used for, as you put it, "weed.com", then it is not, in fact, a "less easily corrupted form of currency". It is the same bullshit with a different name.

"Corruption" includes outside entities being allowed to arbitrarily decide that certain types of transactions are not authorized. If we allow this to happen to Bitcoin, we have lost.

The only people who should be able to decide if a transaction is acceptable are those involved in that transaction. It isn't the financial network's job to enforce laws. The fact that the US is able to use banking policies to enforce their laws on the world economy is wrong, and Bitcoin is the solution, but only if we protect that power.

You have to protect all the speech, even the speech you don't agree with. Today it's Silk Road. Do you think that that's where it stops?

[greenfloyd]

While I don't suggest SR or Bitcoin would actively participate in acts of overt violence.  I still think we need to ask if selling tar heroin to a young teen isn't a from of violence in and of itself?

Assuming that it is, what feasible recommendations do you have for Silk Road on the matter?

</feeble attempt to get back on topic>

Because I'm not sure what's really going on here I don't think I'm in any position to judge what is or isn't "feasible."  If it's a hoax, it's beautiful.  On the other hand if it is not a hoax, then I believe it becomes part of the problem.  Certainly nothing like cartels and gangs, yet still operating as if it, Silk Road, were above the law.  My aim has always been to change the law and make things better for everybody, except of course those who get fat off the way the law is today.

[Goldenmaw]

Then we are doomed to lose.  They will ban the possession and usage of bitcoins, they will subpoena ISPs (successfully), they will devise methods of tracking who is likely to use them, and the same machinery that makes search and seizure of narcotics from individuals so profitable will, with a slight change of its gears, shift to grind miners and traders in their teeth instead of growers.

They will find a way, if we do not have the general public backing us.  This isn't a truly anonymous currency.  We all know that.

When I speak of corruption, I am speaking of how the united states dollar has come to possess a certain sinister quality to it.  It is managed on the macro level by organizations who have every advantage to keep the people using it in debt.  We are a country composed of debt - in essence an economical feudal tyranny, with lords, knights, and peasants who are forced by necessity to serve.  Their whips and prods are debt and interest.  Their collars are credit.  Bitcoin could challenge this, but only with those serfs behind it.  They will not rally to your ideology because they believe drugs to be bad.

I understand your ideology.  Do you now understand mine?  We have different motivations in our support of Bitcoins.  Let's leave it at that, for now.

[anisoptera]

operating as if it, Silk Road, were above the law.

What if what Silk Road does isn't illegal in its country? Just because something is illegal in the US doesn't make it illegal everywhere. Nothing ties Silk Road to any one country, and certainly not the US.

[Goldenmaw]

What if what Silk Road does isn't illegal in its country? Just because something is illegal in the US doesn't make it illegal everywhere. Nothing ties Silk Road to any one country, and certainly not the US.

This is true, and valid, and as unfortunate for the health of Bitcoin in the US as it is fortunate for Silkroad's well being everywhere.

[drugsmang]

Silk Road is not the end of Bitcoin. Bitcoin itself is evil enough in the eyes of the excited states, remember what happened to E-Gold? EBullion? All the arrested LR and Pecunix traders in the US? yeah

[anisoptera]

Then we are doomed to lose.  They will ban the possession and usage of bitcoins, they will subpoena ISPs (successfully), they will devise methods of tracking who is likely to use them, and the same machinery that makes search and seizure of narcotics from individuals so profitable will, with a slight change of its gears, shift to grind miners and traders in their teeth instead of growers.

And then people will use Tor for bitcoin by default. Or bitcoin will change its protocol to evade this. Or Bitcoin will be made illegal, but someone will just start a new blockchain.

They will find a way, if we do not have the general public backing us.  This isn't a truly anonymous currency.  We all know that.

We don't need the general public backing us. We need enough people backing us to continue to use the currency. The number of people who understand that whenever the government speaks about drugs in any way that they are lying is pretty large. I would be willing to bet that for every person who believes the lies, there will be at least one other who has never heard of bitcoin and looks into it to fact-check the government lines.

When I speak of corruption, I am speaking of how the united states dollar has come to possess a certain sinister quality to it.  It is managed on the macro level by organizations who have every advantage to keep the people using it in debt.  We are a country composed of debt - in essence an economical feudal tyranny, with lords, knights, and peasants who are forced by necessity to serve.  Their whips and prods are debt and interest.  Their collars are credit.  Bitcoin could challenge this, but only with those serfs behind it.  They will not rally to your ideology because they believe drugs to be bad.

I understand your ideology.  Do you now understand mine?  We have different motivations in our support of Bitcoins.  Let's leave it at that, for now.

I think you grossly overestimate the number of people whose thoughts on drugs end at "Drugs r bad!". And it doesn't take a lot of work to point out that it's a freedom thing, not a drug thing.

Also, despite BitTorrent being used primarily for illegal purposes, there doesn't appear to be much traction for banning it.

What if what Silk Road does isn't illegal in its country? Just because something is illegal in the US doesn't make it illegal everywhere. Nothing ties Silk Road to any one country, and certainly not the US.

This is true, and valid, and as unfortunate for the health of Bitcoin in the US as it is fortunate for Silkroad's well being everywhere.

The US is not the world, and if the US bans Bitcoin but the rest of the world doesn't, it's not going to be a problem. For Bitcoin, that is. The US might find itself in a bad position.

[Goldenmaw]

Silk Road is not the end of Bitcoin. Bitcoin itself is evil enough in the eyes of the excited states, remember what happened to E-Gold? EBullion? All the arrested LR and Pecunix traders in the US? yeah

They had an easy kill with e-gold.  Completely centralized.  The resources they'll need to take down bitcoin are something else altogether.  But what you say has truth to it - without Silkroad, they would find other excuses to demonize Bitcoin.  It might be an impossible task to keep our image clean in the public eye, but we have to try, don't we?

-------

And anisoptera?  Rather than continue to argue with you, I have a simple question for you.

If you had to choose one service to survive, dooming the other one to failure, would it be Bitcoin, or Silkroad?

[hans030390]

I am a single, small and un-influential voice in this community, and I want you gone, Silkroad.  This has nothing to do with my personal views on unrestricted trade among consenting adults, and everything to do with the fact that the united states government in its totality has every motive to discredit, damage and disable Bitcoin by any means necessary, and that if Senator Charles Schumer's current actions have any weight to them, the machinery for this has already been set into motion, using you.

You, Silkroad, are a tremendous liability to Bitcoin, and while the users here who are interested in Bitcoin purely for black transactions will disagree vocally with my opinion, your assocation with us is extremely damaging.  You can and will be used against us, and I for one want you gone.  I do not wish to purchase illegal substances with Bitcoins.  I want Bitcoins to be the image of moral progress to the people in my country, and as public opinions stand, this cannot come to be for as long as puppets like Schumer can gleefully call Bitcoins "the black market currency". I want you to drop Bitcoins as an accepted currency and terminate all association with Bitcoin.

You are, collectively, a huge threat to the Bitcoin movement, for purely political reasons, and I have no doubt in my mind that the cause Bitcoins represents is socially and economically many orders of magnitude more important for mankind's well being than you, Silkroad. I only wish more Bitcoin users here would recognize the danger of your association with us.

If the government gets involved in this, Silk Road shouldn't make Bitcoins look any worse than when drugs are bought with "real" currency. The only thing the government should care about is drug trade, regardless of what currencies are being used. The currencies are, themselves, completely legal.

Now, IF the government associates Silk Road with Bitcoins and attemps to do something about Bitcoins, then that could be a problem. But then the problem is not Silk Road, but rather the government officials. If they are moronic enough to try and take Bitcoins down because of Silk Road, then that shows our government is full of idiots (though I consider this to be readily apparent) that can't make logical connections and conclusions. Don't blame Silk Road for idiots that run this country. If we keep letting the idiots have their way (which, in your case, would be by blaming Silk Road and trying to get rid of it), then we will continue to be stuck in this idiotic mess.

[drugsmang]

they would find other excuses to demonize Bitcoin.  

@LulzSec just took a $7k BTC donation and announced it was using it to buy servers to pwn the FBI lol

there's other ways to get paid anonymously if you know what your doing. lot's of carders run cleaning services for LR and WM/WU

i can see them going after MtGox. i hope he has an offshore domain name and hosting