zlacker

>>Ozarki+(OP)
I think his original sentence was absolutely deserved—even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped, I think it's clear he did many things in the same vein. Even if you support his original pursuit of a free and open online marketplace, I think most people would agree he took it a bridge too far in the end.

That said, I do think he absolutely deserved to be released, not because he didn't deserve to be locked up in the first place, but because he's clearly been rehabilitated and has done great work during his time in prison. All that considered, ten years seems like a not unreasonable prison sentence for what he did. I hope he'll continue to do good when he's released.

>>rappat+0c
"he took it a bridge too far" is a massive trivialization.

The guy operated a marketplace for illegal goods in order to enrich himself. The illegality wasn't just incidental, it was literally his business model -- by flouting the law, he enjoyed massive market benefit (minimal competition, lack of regulation, high margins etc) by exploiting the arbitrage that the rest of us follow the rules.

Said a different way, he knowingly pursued enormous risk in order to achieve outsized benefits, and ultimately his bet blew up on him -- we shouldn't have bailed him out.

>>offsig+SK
His sentence was excessive and cruel to make an example out of him. There’s a serial child rapist in the same prison serving less time.

>>silver+gN
The state hates more than anything someone who operates on first principles that the empire is wrong.

A serial rapist, even one that would happily do it again, will often repent and quickly admit guilt. They have no interest in undermining the philosophical basis of the state. They will posture themselves as bound but imperfect citizens under the law.

Ross violated the only remaining national holy religion, the rule of law. He was sentenced for being a heretic.

>>ty6853+9O
> Ross violated the only remaining national holy religion, the rule of law. He was sentenced for being a heretic.

Good.

Let's keep in mind that the shared faith in this "holy religion, the rule of law" is the only thing holding together your country, my country, everyone's countries, and civilized society in general. Take that away, and everything around us will collapse, regressing the few survivors of that event to the prehistorical lifestyle of small tribes slaughtering each other for what little scraps the land has to give.

>>TeMPOr+SS
I'm from Germany. I could tell you something about blindly following the "rule of law". If you throw morality out the window the law can become a very ugly instrument.

>>kybern+9U
No, "Rule of Law" means "Rechtsstaatlichkeit". What you mean is "It's law, so it's always right" i.e. "Rechtspositivismus".

>>omnibr+sW
Yes, Rechtsstaatlichkeit only means that the state and its organs have to follow the law themselves. It doesn't say anything about the moral quality of the laws.

The Nazi state had to follow its own laws. They just had such laws that enabled the total lunacy that the 3rd Reich was.

All I'm saying is: If you decouple laws from morality you get a really bad time.

>>kybern+l31
You are absolutely right saying that rule of law is not sufficient condition for the existence of modern society. It was a bit confusing still, because nobody claimed the opposite: the comment you replied to was saying rule of law is a necessity.

>>ivan_g+ea1
It's not sufficient, but it's still necessary.

>>rbanff+Nl1
Exactly what I was saying.

>>ivan_g+xs1
You may have been saying this but the parent comment that spurred the discussion was making the explicit assertion that "the rule of law is the only thing holding together [...] everyone's countries, and civilized society in general".

Saying that law is 'the only thing' necessary for the existence of modern society effectively means it is also a sufficient condition. So yes, someone did claim the opposite.

>>tpoach+o52
I doubt that modern society does fulfill the sufficiency criteria [1], so „the only thing“ can be right, but also it is not the claim that it is enough for survival.

[1] USA regressing to a globally disrespected oligarchy under Trump is a good example.