Cody,
Alright I'll admit I've not really considered arguments against my position as long as my position is that it is immoral to kill another person for the quest of power and control. I'm not a philosopher or theologian and I am not well-versed in philosophical debate and maybe I've got a rigid view of right and wrong. However I have a compass inside me which points to what I personally think is right and wrong and that's all I've got. If you don't mind giving me something clear that I can understand why Ross's actions were justified please give them to me. I'm not stupid or stubborn, but the moral justification of his actions aren't apparent to me and they seem to be overt to you. If you've got a way you can put it so that I might understand you I'm willing to listen.
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2015 at 1:27 AM
From: "Cody R Wilson" <codywilson@???>
To: "System undo crew" <unsystem@???>
Subject: Re: [unSYSTEM] Silk Road Trial is starting.
Alec, it's because you've never actually considered the arguments against your position. Where to begin? Nietzsche on free will and responsibility as the tools of the theologian? The instinct of life and will to power? It's there in Sartre too. As far back as Spinoza.
Free men are the makers of their own morality and independent, long-range will.
JG, yes naivete is what continues to strike me too from all of this. Surely we were all shocked he was caught in San Francisco. I want to think he was just riding the dragon. Caught up in an incredible and growing singularity, a composition that had always exceeded him.
How to the understand the daily beyond-the-law of his situation? I am still not making of him a hero.
On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 12:21 AM, Alec Spier <alec.spier@???> wrote:
I don't really understand the ambiguity here. He's down with killing people whom may not have even been the ones that threatened him. How confident can you be in your offsec that you can pinpoint someone from their handle via Tor and be sure it's not a patsy being set up?
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2015 at 12:04 AM
From: "Alec Spier" <alec.spier@???>
To: unsystem@???
Subject: Re: [unSYSTEM] Silk Road Trial is starting.
He could have just said "ehh.... Well fuck this has gotten too hairy. I'm just going to send all coins to different addresses and in a month or two post an option for anybody to get their coins back with their SR credentials. If anybody doesn't get their coins I'll just pay them out of my jillions. Time to be on my way with a plane ticket to INSERT-NATION and be on my way with my gazillions and gazillions of dollars"
You don't kill people. It is that simple. Killing people is wrong unless it's absolutely, entirely necessary, and as demonstrated above it wasn't necessary, he could have walked away a free man, his greed was his downfall and he deserves to be in prison for attempted murder.
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2015 at 11:49 PM
From: "Juan S. Galt" <eljuangalt@???>
To: "System undo crew" <unsystem@???>
Subject: Re: [unSYSTEM] Silk Road Trial is starting.
Fundamental there are 3 choices human being have in the face of conflict.
A) seek to find a win-win scenario. This means seek to establish Universal* (your word Cody, not mine) rules of interaction. This is what Bitcoin IS. A set of rules by which to exchange value. This is also what the internet is, a set of rules by which to transfer & exchange information.
B) Seek to impose your will on the other regardless of their preferences, aka win-lose. This is how the state operates and what they are doing to everyone in prison and everyone harmed by the war on drugs, and the pharma monopolies. This path is one of power struggles and violence. Did Ross act unethically for threatening violence, when the alternative was being caged by the state? Given that the state is the one raising the stakes of this poker game, and without them this would be a non issue, than it is obvious to me they must enter the moral calculation.
C) avoid interaction. This one has its limits ofcourse and is an extension of B. It could be argued that Ross is responsible for attempted murder simply because he made the choices that landed him in that situation, for even getting involved with building Silk Road and setting him self up to be in that situation.
You see, blackmail does not simply go away once you pay them off. The attacker can keep coming back, and to not comply in Ross's situation could have been life in prison. What would you have done Adam? what alternatives?
Yes he ended up there regardless, though so far he has not been charged with attempted murder.
Ultimately, if Ross is guilty of anything, I think it is of Naivety. Had he encrypted his journal and named it "Cat pictures"... or not used his gmail with his full name on it... maybe than this would be a different story.
Perhaps he should have waited for decentralized markets to emerge.
Given all of this, was he not aware of the state's brutality?
And I must ask, did his friends and family not warn him of the ruthless beast that writes the laws? This counts regardless of whether they knew or not what he was up to.
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Adam B. Levine <adam@???> wrote:
Hey Alec, I'm pretty sure you just got cursed by Cody Wilson!
Adam B. Levine
Editor-in-Chief
Let's Talk Bitcoin!
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 6:12 PM, Cody R Wilson <codywilson@???> wrote:
May you be faced with a terrible choice, Spier. You should be slower to second-guess him.
On Feb 6, 2015 8:07 PM, "Alec Spier" <alec.spier@???> wrote:
http://voluntary.net/bitmarkets/
^^ like this as theres support for Tor and Bitmessage. If we could get the openbazaar arbitration scheme integrated or rep-based arbiters as optional it would be superior to both current products.
Cody: "Ross may have acted unethically in his actions. But we should consider that he was supremely ethical as well."
Actions speak louder than words... maybe I misunderstood this statement but it sounds a bit chickenshit honestly.
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2015 at 6:33 PM
From: "Cody R Wilson" <codywilson@???>
To: "System undo crew" <unsystem@???>
Subject: Re: [unSYSTEM] Silk Road Trial is starting.
Adam, yes I'll do it. I don't want you to think I'm avoiding you.
Circling back to your point about tyranny's obsolescence.
I want to talk about soft tyranny and State power's abstract and constitutive dimension. Its construction of the individual subject as a political unit. There are walls to tear down other than the physical. That's why I took the time to do this Foundation song and dance. The moral majority in Bitcoin is hideous and due a real reckoning.
Regarding disruption without alternative, I'm sure it's clear I cast my lot with the secret complicity all people have with the disaster. Take the world financial and the sovereign debt games for examples. We all know no real break from this circus comes without a reset and some hard landings. Alternatives or no.
We're all allergic to this overwhelming power. We're all praying to see something, anything else.
On Feb 6, 2015 6:22 PM, "Adam B. Levine" <adam@???> wrote:
"Firstly, I've not discounted the value of openbazaar. With any luck it will be vibrant and successful and copied. The markets will be black and we may rejoice. Supposing it all goes down that way, do you really stop being a liberal?"
I have no problem with black markets, my point is that by just allowing projects like this to emerge they naturally obsolete the monopoly of the state and make it impossible to have most forms of tyranical government because the government isn't a party to the transactions.
If on the other hand we emphasize the disruptive nature and antagonize the status quo without actually building solutions on the tech that is now available we'll find it illegal and then while it will still be continued by people willing to break the law the progress will slow down exponentially and the utility will drop to a fraction of what it would be if it was not just disruptive but also obviously too useful to fight. You might say this is good because it forces the hand of the state, I think that's a really short sighted point of view given things are naturally being obsoleted as we continue to build.
Seems like we've all made our points, Cody did you want to come on Let's Talk Bitcoin! to chat on this and related topics? I think it's a very relevant discussion.
Adam B. Levine
Editor-in-Chief
Let's Talk Bitcoin!
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Cody R Wilson <codywilson@???> wrote:
Firstly, I've not discounted the value of openbazaar. With any luck it will be vibrant and successful and copied. The markets will be black and we may rejoice. Supposing it all goes down that way, do you really stop being a liberal?
This thread was about Ross' Trial and now judgment, and ethical questions like yours which were not entirely rhetorical. The conversation became about morality and murder.
I say a militant ethics is required, and bad subjects necessary, to depose the state-form. A great place to start examining your head is with your acceptance of universal morality, which I offer is as much a "product" as Swiss cheese.
Ross may have acted unethically in his actions. But we should consider that he was supremely ethical as well.
On Feb 6, 2015 5:52 PM, "Adam B. Levine" <adam@???> wrote:
The gun thing? As mentioned, you seem to take on the mission of proving that the state can't actually enforce their monopolies of control as being the entire job. That is great but again only demonstrates that the illusion is an illusion, it does not provide any alternatives or solutions. Things like OpenBazaar are actual solutions so that when the current paradigm falls apart there are better systems not just hypothetically theoretical but actually working in real life before we needed them.
What good is it destroying the existing paradigm if you've got nothing better to replace it with? Decentralized tools that enable p2p interactions and commerce without a trusted third party seem to solve that.
So aren't projects like what Brian and I are working neccesary alternatives for when people come around to your way of seeing things? I just don't get the whole point out the problem but shit on attempts at building something different and better thing.
Do you really not see the difference between openbazaar and silk road? They are structured very differently.
Adam B. Levine
Editor-in-Chief
Let's Talk Bitcoin!
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 3:45 PM, Brian Hoffman <brian@???> wrote:
How many have you guys sold? I feel like I haven't heard about it since it came out. Seems irrelevant.
On Feb 6, 2015, at 6:42 PM, Cody R Wilson <codywilson@???> wrote:
Can you hear me sighing?
Take DD's little Ghost Gunner. At once a reversion, a baiting of the state regulatory imagination into overdrive, and the literalization of its own nightmare. We understand the spirit of terror.
So, no. I'm casting all these pearls because so many of YOU have become them, and you don't have to mettle to stand in judgment of Ulbricht.
On Feb 6, 2015 5:33 PM, "Washington Sanchez" <washington.sanchez@???> wrote:
"Meet terror with terror..."
What a skilful use of the leviathan's ideological hegemony to justify a corrupt conscience. You are not merely emulating their tactics, you have become them. How disappointing.
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Sincerely,
Cody R. Wilson
codywilson@???
The University of Texas School of Law
Class of 2014
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Re: [unSYSTEM] Silk Road Trial is s…
