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Yesterday a friend received a letter in mail, it contained a controlled substance smoked and enjoyed by countless of millions, it arrived from half the world away. The drug was made extremely flat and vacuum sealed and put in this letter, it was only about as thick as two coins but contained about 8 grams, it looked like a regular personal letter, even smaller than most. he paid using Bitcoins and it was mailed to an address unassociated with him, and it arrived in about a week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)
This is an interesting phenomenon and he has ordered those bicycle blotters and many other things successfully, even at great prices.
Now why is this a controversy? Anyone can get their hands on drugs now, even the hard to get drugs. How will they win the war on drugs with this going on? Dealers sit at home and deal their drugs anonymously with the mail.
It is amazingly curious, and it is growing, the amount of vendors supposedly increase all the time and the amount of drugs sold is as well.
I find it amazing personally, as I'm completely against the patrolling of peoples bodies.
  
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
I had a friend at school constantly telling me about it, it's been around for a bit. I don't really have anything to say about it except good for them.
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Yeah it's been around since february 2011, however, recently, during the last year it has grown and vendors are all over the globe. I'm assuming it will only spread more and more. Curious how the politicians will try to deal with this (probably try to kill bitcoins, which will then be replaced by another currency that is the same, if they succeed)
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On July 30 2013 12:17 Torte de Lini wrote:
whats the controversy?
that anyone can get any drug, even heroin or mdma etc easily delivered with the mail.
(note, it is a greater controversy in nations that have less drug tolerance and widespread recreational use than say the united states)
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Its great.
1. Sellers have feedback like ebay so you know they arent shitty or going to poison you or rip you off.
2. Reputable sellers actually sell the drug they advertise at good quality, no more getting mysterious tablets from some fuckhead in an alley and hoping for the best. I'm not putting anything in my body I'm not damn sure exactly what it is.
3. Easy and cheap, you can get anything you ever dreamed of.
4. You wont get shanked by fuckheads in an alley. You don't even have to interact with fuckheads in an alley.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On July 30 2013 12:39 sob3k wrote:
Its great.
1. Sellers have feedback like ebay so you know they arent shitty or going to poison you
2. Reputable sellers actually sell the drug they advertise at good quality, no more getting mysterious tablets from some fuckhead in an alley and hoping for the best. I'm not putting anything in my body I'm not damn sure exactly what it is.
3. Easy and cheap, you can get anything you ever dreamed of.
4. You wont get shanked by fuckheads in an alley. You don't even have to interact with fuckheads in an alley.
TL;DR: No Fuckheads.
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Mail. Mail. MAIL. Mail means federal government, and drugs in mail means federal prison. Careful.
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On July 30 2013 13:02 Elegy wrote:
Mail. Mail. MAIL. Mail means federal government, and drugs in mail means federal prison. Careful.
uneducated, first of all they cannot prove it was you who ordered it if it gets confiscated, unless they do controlled deliveries (they only do that with very large amounts, which lets be honest, few are going to order)
Read up on it, success rate is extremely good when it comes to domestic shipments in all nations if the seller is any good at packaging (you can see if he is on his feedback)
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You can be against patrolling people's bodies all you want, but that argument only holds water if you're only hurting yourself. By buying illegal drugs, you're helping to support what are more often than not very unscrupulous groups responsible for innumerable atrocities. Then there's the issue of you cashing out on government-run health care, which basically means your retarded habit ends up costing other people a lot of money.
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On July 30 2013 13:53 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You can be against patrolling people's bodies all you want, but that argument only holds water if you're only hurting yourself. By buying illegal drugs, you're helping to support what are more often than not very unscrupulous groups responsible for innumerable atrocities. Then there's the issue of you cashing out on government-run health care, which basically means your retarded habit ends up costing other people a lot of money.
So fat people should be considered criminals, after all, they are often supporters of terrible fast food companies who earn money on other peoples unhealthy living. And how much does obesity cost government-run health care? Yeah, I thought so.
And I disagree, patrolling peoples bodies is wrong, you cannot assume that peoples use is hurting their health as it is common to lead a normal life when using recreational drugs. You can also not assume that you are supporting organized crime, as many growers are just people like you and I, they grow to feed the demand. The laws make them criminals and organized, otherwise they would simply be farmers. I consider them farmers. It's the laws that are responsible for the current situation, not the drug or its users, it was much better before these laws for everyone.
These terrible assumptions you make are what frighten me, that we should judge all people by the worst case scenarios, that is pure idiocy.
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On July 30 2013 13:02 Elegy wrote:
Mail. Mail. MAIL. Mail means federal government, and drugs in mail means federal prison. Careful.
Thats why SR can only work well with bitcoin and Tor. The purchase of the goods cannot be linked to any individual, and even if they were to search your mail (doesn't happen), they can't reasonably prosecute you. Its not illegal to receive a package. Otherwise I could just order a bunch of crack to someone I didn't likes address and put them in jail.
On July 30 2013 13:53 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You can be against patrolling people's bodies all you want, but that argument only holds water if you're only hurting yourself. By buying illegal drugs, you're helping to support what are more often than not very unscrupulous groups responsible for innumerable atrocities. Then there's the issue of you cashing out on government-run health care, which basically means your retarded habit ends up costing other people a lot of money.
Weak argument. I'd be much more morally worried about what the government is doing with my tax dollars than the people you would purchase from on SR. Most sellers are more on the eccentric chemist side of things than the mexican cartel side. Not to even get into the arguments over to what degree a buyer is morally responsible for whatever the recipient of their cash does with it. I would be no more worried that my money is going to nefarious pursuits buying off good sellers on SR than I would buying from any other business. Not to mention the fact that if these groups had more legitimacy (which is benefitted by regulated sales as we are starting to see with SR), they wouldn't be any shadier than any other pharmaceutical company. In reality there is no way to make a market legitimate without demonstrating widespread demand.
As for the government health care argument, thats a whole nother can of worms that really has nothing to do with drugs. Ignoring the fact that a large amount of the drugs illegally sold have little to no demonstrable negative health effects. Its a very slippery slope to declare doing any unhealthy activity to be immoral on this basis. Should overeating or highway driving etc be illegal just because it has a risk of increasing your medical costs? Should not exercising regularly be illegal? Certainly by that argument consumption of alcohol and cigarettes would be massively more criminal than LSD or weed.
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There are still a myriad of hoops to jump through. This will get more popular than it is now (It's already pretty popular) and the feds will crack down on it. They know it's happening, the FBI isn't dumb, and the deepweb is on their radar. However, as Sob3k said, this makes things so much better for any drug user; the TL;DR = no fuckheads is so true, and I don't even do drugs to know how true that statement is. Honestly, people will do the drugs they want to do, it takes a smart person to know what drugs are bad to do, which ones will ruin ones life, and what drugs they can intake if they want at minimal cost to their body.
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On July 30 2013 13:53 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You can be against patrolling people's bodies all you want, but that argument only holds water if you're only hurting yourself. By buying illegal drugs, you're helping to support what are more often than not very unscrupulous groups responsible for innumerable atrocities. Then there's the issue of you cashing out on government-run health care, which basically means your retarded habit ends up costing other people a lot of money.
Yes, as long as drugs are illegal, you´re very likely to support organized crime, which is involved at some point in the business.
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On July 30 2013 15:01 Daswollvieh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 13:53 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You can be against patrolling people's bodies all you want, but that argument only holds water if you're only hurting yourself. By buying illegal drugs, you're helping to support what are more often than not very unscrupulous groups responsible for innumerable atrocities. Then there's the issue of you cashing out on government-run health care, which basically means your retarded habit ends up costing other people a lot of money. Yes, as long as drugs are illegal, you´re very likely to support organized crime, which is involved at some point in the business.
Thats the nice thing about SR though. It works kind of like the music industry.
In the past it was very difficult to sell drugs because in order to do it reliably you need to be able to set up a huge distribution network in order to move them into and out of countries, then you have to have another big distribution net in order to get them out onto the street where they are sold. Doing this manually like traditional drug sales means you need to involve a ton of people to sell by hand, and moving shipments is going to involve smuggling in a car or airplane or ship (which encourages moving large amounts when you have an opportunity). Both of these things involve more and more people doing illegal things, which is how these big syndicates and cartels were created to deal with managing all these criminals responsible for flying aircraft, manual distribution, protecting stock and dealers etc. Its the same reason these huge sleazy moneygrubbing music labels were created to manage the traditional distribution and creation of music.
Now with the internet being used, its having the same effect on the drug market that it did on the music industry. Its no longer necessary for a drug producer to involve all these middleman criminals, and the lack of middlemen makes it unnecessary to produce such huge volumes to take advantage of economies of scale. Now, when you can sell to anyone with the internet just through the mail, you don't need this huge management structure and all the negative shit that comes along with it. You don't have to employ street criminals, and you don't have to employ violent enforcers to make sure these street criminals aren't stealing your money. You just make a batch and sell it directly to the consumer. Silkroad is basically like the Beatport or Bandcamp of drugs. It makes the entire process not only safer and easier for the buyer, but also makes it much safer and easier for the seller, and therefore safer and easier for society as a whole. We won't have to worry about getting caught up in driveby shootings or turf wars, because they serve no purpose when you are doing distributed internet sales. It doesn't have to be organized crime anymore, it can just be a dude in his basement with a chemistry set.
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But you cannot know whether it´s a good guy in his basement, or some criminal organization using this as another way to distribute their product. It´s like the girls on the internet, they are not really into it, but it feels good to think so. 
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On July 30 2013 15:30 Daswollvieh wrote:But you cannot know whether it´s a good guy in his basement, or some criminal organization using this as another way to distribute their product. It´s like the girls on the internet, they are not really into it, but it feels good to think so.
Sure, never can be certain. Still, advocating the solution to organized drug crime is "don't buy drugs" is pretty similar to advocating the solution to STDs is abstinence. In reality on a large scale its completely impractical, and looking back on the entirety of human history i'd say we are about as likely to stop doing drugs as we are to stop fucking. The only way real change in either field has ever been accomplished is to recognize that that the activity is going to occur, and to encourage safer and more mutually beneficial methods of doing it.
TLDR: Silkroad is like drug condoms.
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On July 30 2013 13:53 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
You can be against patrolling people's bodies all you want, but that argument only holds water if you're only hurting yourself. By buying illegal drugs, you're helping to support what are more often than not very unscrupulous groups responsible for innumerable atrocities. Then there's the issue of you cashing out on government-run health care, which basically means your retarded habit ends up costing other people a lot of money.
The problem with this argument is that these unscrupulous groups wouldn't exist if drugs were legal. When someone gets strung out on heroine or meth its very sad and a terrible thing, but you have to wonder if making drugs illegal is actually helping anybody. It certainly doesn't seem to be hurting the supply.
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On July 30 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 15:30 Daswollvieh wrote:But you cannot know whether it´s a good guy in his basement, or some criminal organization using this as another way to distribute their product. It´s like the girls on the internet, they are not really into it, but it feels good to think so. Sure, never can be certain. Still, advocating the solution to organized drug crime is "don't buy drugs" is pretty similar to advocating the solution to STDs is abstinence. In reality on a large scale its completely impractical, and looking back on the entirety of human history i'd say we are about as likely to stop doing drugs as we are to stop fucking. The only way real change in either field has ever been accomplished is to recognize that that the activity is going to occur, and to encourage safer and more mutually beneficial methods of doing it. TLDR: Silkroad is like drug condoms.
I agree that outlawing something that is a personal choice makes no sense. However, outlawing stuff that gets you hooked as quickly as it destroys you, basically robbing you of your free will, absolutely makes sense, because it protects the weak, who cannot evaluate the risk. That said, pot being illegal makes absolutely no sense.
The comparison to condoms would only fit, if condoms, at any point, were largely supplied by criminal organizations. Right now, you cannot tell if you´re not supporting a system of violence, except you made the stuff yourself. In a way, it would be like trusting a fashion label that they produced their products in fair working conditions, without having independent monitoring.
On July 30 2013 17:03 mothergoose729 wrote:
The problem with this argument is that these unscrupulous groups wouldn't exist if drugs were legal. When someone gets strung out on heroine or meth its very sad and a terrible thing, but you have to wonder if making drugs illegal is actually helping anybody. It certainly doesn't seem to be hurting the supply.
That is no argument either. Sure, if the Soviets hadn´t invaded Afghanistan, then the Taliban probably wouldn´t exist. But they do exist and the Soviets retreating did not make the go away. Drug trafficking is so ridiculously big that the legalization of drugs in the whole world would not deal with the problem. I know that the Netherlands have a more relaxed drug policy, and in Prague you can get even hard drugs legally now, but I doubt that dealt with the criminality.
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On July 30 2013 18:03 Daswollvieh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On July 30 2013 15:30 Daswollvieh wrote:But you cannot know whether it´s a good guy in his basement, or some criminal organization using this as another way to distribute their product. It´s like the girls on the internet, they are not really into it, but it feels good to think so. Sure, never can be certain. Still, advocating the solution to organized drug crime is "don't buy drugs" is pretty similar to advocating the solution to STDs is abstinence. In reality on a large scale its completely impractical, and looking back on the entirety of human history i'd say we are about as likely to stop doing drugs as we are to stop fucking. The only way real change in either field has ever been accomplished is to recognize that that the activity is going to occur, and to encourage safer and more mutually beneficial methods of doing it. TLDR: Silkroad is like drug condoms. I agree that outlawing something that is a personal choice makes no sense. However, outlawing stuff that gets you hooked as quickly as it destroys you, basically robbing you of your free will, absolutely makes sense, because it protects the weak, who cannot evaluate the risk. That said, pot being illegal makes absolutely no sense. The comparison to condoms would only fit, if condoms, at any point, were largely supplied by criminal organizations. Right now, you cannot tell if you´re not supporting a system of violence, except you made the stuff yourself. In a way, it would be like trusting a fashion label that they produced their products in fair working conditions, without having independent monitoring.
In many countries that is exactly what occured, including the US.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_comstock.html
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EPT
