zlacker

- "and if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere"

That's very unlikely to be true in the case of the high-school kid who died buying a synthetic drug off the internet. They almost certainly did not have a dealer connection sophisticated enough to sell that. They almost certainly would have lived, if Silk Road were not available to them at that point in their life.

You're advancing an argument about drug markets and personal autonomy in the general case, but it's a very poor fit to the concrete facts in the specific situation we're looking at.

>>perihe+(OP)
IMO these are circumstances too far removed from Ulbricht to hold him directly responsible. How many people bought drugs from the Silk Road, used them safely and responsibly, and in doing so avoided contact with violent criminals who they'd otherwise have to buy from, potentially saving them from the violence/misery/blackmail/overdoses that so commonly accompanies association with drug dealers IRL?

Though I think this argument is tangential to the point on proportionality- Ross's sentence is an affront to justice when considered in the context of the Sackler's treatment

>>cheese+M3
"association with drug dealers IRL?"

I'd rather get my milk from the corner store than some anonymous reseller on amazon. Real life drug dealers operate in markets too.

>>greent+i6
So would I, but the milk guy at the corner store probably isn't going to stab you over a matter of 20 dollars