is the only point of bitcoin drugs??

[Elwar]

-Or the assassin market. How many people wanted to hire assassins but were assassinated upon payment before crypto-escrow? I bet more than one.

lol...why was that not the BitPay sales pitch during the Bitcoin bowl?  

[turvarya]

cause if it is.  i think we should stop fighting.  and use the US dollar instead..

I applauded loudly when the silkroad bitcoin-enabled illegal-drug website was shutdown because I knew a lot of people would draw this exact conclusion.

Bitcoin could enable a thousand good and noble efforts, but if it makes it easier to do any form of evil, that's what will get all the news and influence opinion.  That's what people will immediately think of when they hear the name "bitcoin".

We should all fight against illicit use of bitcoin to protect the good name of bitcoin.

Hmm, drug user ->

Bitcoin:
Wants drugs, goes online, open Tor/Silk Road 3, pay bitcoins for drug, wait for drugs in the mail.

Cash:
Wants drugs, goes to the gang area of town, buys drugs, dealer is selling from rival gang's corner, gun fight breaks out, tries to get away with his life.

So, you choose the violent option?

Trolls have been missing a good slippery slope argument here.

What about child pornography gangs? I don't think there are any, but honestly, I've never seen an actual drug gang either. -Or pimps for adults. Pimps are usually violent in movies -- well, not porn movies, cause porn studios have a reputation to uphold, obviously. ....

If children were sexually abused in the privacy of their home rather than beaten on the street AND sexually abused, should we applaud bitcoin's triumphant entry into the market and post comments on news sites about how bad child rape was before bitcoin came on the scene?

-Or the assassin market. How many people wanted to hire assassins but were assassinated upon payment before crypto-escrow? I bet more than one.

As far as I know(I am not an expert on that) there is not much money in cp.
Your example about children are raped on the streets is just ridiculous. Cp is not produced on the open street. If it is send via your post office or via the internet or traded on the street is also pretty much irrelevant for the children.

[Kluge]

cause if it is.  i think we should stop fighting.  and use the US dollar instead..

I applauded loudly when the silkroad bitcoin-enabled illegal-drug website was shutdown because I knew a lot of people would draw this exact conclusion.

Bitcoin could enable a thousand good and noble efforts, but if it makes it easier to do any form of evil, that's what will get all the news and influence opinion.  That's what people will immediately think of when they hear the name "bitcoin".

We should all fight against illicit use of bitcoin to protect the good name of bitcoin.

Hmm, drug user ->

Bitcoin:
Wants drugs, goes online, open Tor/Silk Road 3, pay bitcoins for drug, wait for drugs in the mail.

Cash:
Wants drugs, goes to the gang area of town, buys drugs, dealer is selling from rival gang's corner, gun fight breaks out, tries to get away with his life.

So, you choose the violent option?

Trolls have been missing a good slippery slope argument here.

What about child pornography gangs? I don't think there are any, but honestly, I've never seen an actual drug gang either. -Or pimps for adults. Pimps are usually violent in movies -- well, not porn movies, cause porn studios have a reputation to uphold, obviously. ....

If children were sexually abused in the privacy of their home rather than beaten on the street AND sexually abused, should we applaud bitcoin's triumphant entry into the market and post comments on news sites about how bad child rape was before bitcoin came on the scene?

-Or the assassin market. How many people wanted to hire assassins but were assassinated upon payment before crypto-escrow? I bet more than one.

As far as I know(I am not an expert on that) there is not much money in cp.
Your example about children are raped on the streets is just ridiculous. Cp is not produced on the open street. If it is send via your post office or via the internet or traded on the street is also pretty much irrelevant for the children.

I was more thinking child sex trafficking and I guess I decided to blur that together with child pornography and 80s-90s movies with gratuitous pimp-slapping. Okay, let me get this back off-topic -- let's change what I said there to being about child escorts. ... but then there'd still be turf wars - the opposing sides would just order the invaders' escorts.

So... wait. We need to remove the "turf," right? A local group of nobodies isn't going to go kill a guy 500 miles away for selling vacuum-packed weed and taking what would've been their transaction. -But that doesn't really apply for child exploitation since they aren't generally mail-order (in Soviet Russia, child bride mail-orders you! ). Uhhh... Anyway, there's probably a troll with a functional brain who'll go with a similar line of melodrama some day.

[Flashman]

What about child pornography gangs? I don't think there are any, but honestly, I've never seen an actual drug gang either. -Or pimps for adults. Pimps are usually violent in movies -- well, not porn movies, cause porn studios have a reputation to uphold, obviously. ....

If children were sexually abused in the privacy of their home rather than beaten on the street AND sexually abused, should we applaud bitcoin's triumphant entry into the market and post comments on news sites about how bad child rape was before bitcoin came on the scene?

-Or the assassin market. How many people wanted to hire assassins but were assassinated upon payment before crypto-escrow? I bet more than one.

As far as I know(I am not an expert on that) there is not much money in cp.
Your example about children are raped on the streets is just ridiculous. Cp is not produced on the open street. If it is send via your post office or via the internet or traded on the street is also pretty much irrelevant for the children.

I am of the opinion that active pedos are rapists pure and simple. However, when the only outlet at all is child rape, then society is failing those encumbered with this "mental" problem and their victims. Law enforcement lost moral authority in my view, when they started going after simulated CP, art, adult girlfriends dressed as schoolgirls, that sort of thing. Also believe that non-active pedos, should be able to communicate together, as group therapy if nothing else. IMO, to insist that all pedo thinking persons intend to harm children is the same as thinking that everyone with heterosexual normative (or Homo) thoughts, fantasies, and those who seek material related to that are rapists. Therefore, if bitcoin enabled access to materials that involved no children in production, then that IMO would be a societal win. The alternative IMO is sealing up the valve on the "pressure cooker" of pedo thinking individuals and expecting them not to explode.

However, who wants to have to moderate/gatekeeper that shit?

[picolo]

cause if it is.  i think we should stop fighting.  and use the US dollar instead..

This question has been answered to when Silk Road was destroyed and the price of bitcoin raises. Not 1 Bitcoin out of 1000 is used for drugs. Dollars are used for drugs.

[Snail2]

cause if it is.  i think we should stop fighting.  and use the US dollar instead..

Most of the drug markets are running on fiat... so yeah stop fighting and fall back to sea shells and bags of barley.

[drugs]

No. Bitcoin is a decentralized peer to peer currency and you can buy many things with it, one of those things being drugs, which is a good thing. I know what we can buy is limited right now but that is changing and growing daily and the hope for the future is that one day we can buy absolutely anything we want with it.

[ChuckBuck]

No, that's not the only point!  Not just for buying drugs.

Bitcoin is used for various ponzi schemes, money laundering, hiring of hitmen, funding terrorist organizations anonymously, and stealing your exchange side wallets claiming to be "hacked".

It is all these nefarious things all rolled into one!  













Leave now before Bitcoin steals and desecrates everything!  

[bitcoinmaniac52]

i think bitcoin started because of its easy access and untracable like usage but as people became more and more aware of bitcoin then they used it for other things because its not as much of a hassle as a credit card or anything else that takes fees. also its good to use for gambling if its illegal in your state or country

[Flashman]

In as much as bitcoin supports victimless freedom of expression and victimless freedom of lifestyle, I support bitcoin's enabling of those.

While I am uneasy that it may enable psychopaths to get guns, and drug money may ultimately support violent cartels, I regard this as an artefact of prohibition, that is not really bitcoin's problem. However, if it allows a level playing field such that average citizens may defend themselves against psychopaths who will make all efforts to obtain guns whatever, or enables ethical sources of drugs to compete on a level playing field with cartels, then it's pushing things the right way.

Anyway, drugs are not THE point, they just happen to be a "headline" hot button topic that can be seen as an extreme of the freedom of lifestyle/expression continuum. Maybe innovation flows first to where it is most needed/wanted, so that use case was a disproportionate early adopter.

[Elwar]

Being able to do something illegal and get away with it shows that the currency would even be useful under a tyrannical government.

Imagine using bitcoins to buy a bible in a country where that is illegal. Would you consider that immoral?

[TheGame]

Being able to do something illegal and get away with it shows that the currency would even be useful under a tyrannical government.

I think fiat will also just work as well for that, though obviously the price or supply can be manipulated by those in power as they see fit. But I agree bitcoin should be used to purchase whatever you want just like any money should.

[picolo]

No, that's not the only point!  Not just for buying drugs.

Bitcoin is used for various ponzi schemes, money laundering, hiring of hitmen, funding terrorist organizations anonymously, and stealing your exchange side wallets claiming to be "hacked".

It is all these nefarious things all rolled into one!  













Leave now before Bitcoin steals and desecrates everything!  

All fiat currencies are used for many more many crimes.

[KenJackson]

Being able to do something illegal and get away with it shows that the currency would even be useful under a tyrannical government.

OK, score one.  Good point.

But it's still a very bad idea for bitcoin to be known as the medium of exchange for illegal drugs.  It's like painting a bullseye on it and daring Congress to outlaw, regulate or tax it in some very egregious way.

Bitcoin enables freedom.  But a lot of lawmakers and policy makers hate freedom and don't need much excuse to curtail it anyway they can.

[Bitcoinpro]

slow down cupcake

[mlferro]

Being able to do something illegal and get away with it shows that the currency would even be useful under a tyrannical government.

OK, score one.  Good point.

But it's still a very bad idea for bitcoin to be known as the medium of exchange for illegal drugs.  It's like painting a bullseye on it and daring Congress to outlaw, regulate or tax it in some very egregious way.

Bitcoin enables freedom.  But a lot of lawmakers and policy makers hate freedom and don't need much excuse to curtail it anyway they can.

Surely this is one of the major problems of Bitcoin. Difficult to solve.
But think on the bright side, with Bitcoin you break boundaries and shun corrupt governments

[Beliathon]

Sure, if we can agree that the only point of dollars is violence.

[Elwar]

I recall a similar debate when Bittorrent got started.

There were several people who would not use it because it was being used to send child porn.

Bittorrent is still going so I guess it was not boycotted by everyone.

[Sniar]

Gambling credit

[giantblckdld]

 
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