[uououuttt]

I know HN user gwern did some work partially documenting the forums.

It was an interesting place to be, especially towards the beginning. I feel that most of us would've supported violence against those cooperating with law enforcement.

[laarc]

Setting aside personal bias: Kudos for admitting that. It takes a lot of courage to put your beliefs out in the open, or even to talk about the beliefs of a group you once identified with.

I feel that most of us would've supported violence against those cooperating with law enforcement.

Could you help me understand that mindset?

It seems like violence is one reason we as a species took hundreds of thousands of years to discover (or at least to harness) the scientific method. For the first time, we're now in a position to detect a big rock headed straight for Earth, and then actually have any nonzero chance of doing something to change the situation. Studying history, one plausible hypothesis we're in this situation might be: Funnel all of the smartest people together, and figure out a way to let them work together for a very long time on the same kinds of problems.

And to let smart people work together, it's necessary to have systems in place to suppress violence. In short, law enforcement. There have been abuses of power, but on the whole, law enforcement seems like one of the main reasons we're well-off today.

So that's where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to be overbearing or say X is bad and Y is good -- I apologize if I'm failing.

It's just the opposite: I'm interested, and open-minded, to understand how various intelligent people could conclude "It's us or them, and if you're cooperating with law enforcement, you deserve violence." Would you help me to understand the community's viewpoint? Was there any nuance, or is it as simple as "they are traitors, therefore X" mindset? There must be something if so many intelligent people somehow started to believe this, right?

If someone reading this feels like replying anonymously, make a new HN account using Tor. Your reply will be marked [dead] to begin with, but those of us with showdead enabled will see them. The community can now vouch for dead-but-thoughtful comments, which makes them visible to everyone.

This is the type of topic that usually devolves into a flamewar, but maybe thoughtful conversation has a chance.

[Absentinsomniac]

I can try to give a reply. You have to remember what SR was for. These were people who were not only using SR, but active in the community as well. They were mostly engaged in illegal activities, a good deal of whom were active offline as well taking part in illegal activities.

Law enforcement is a constant point of anxiety for every single person involved in this process. If someone who you thought you could trust is now actively threatening your freedom (or access to a substance, which is also a form of freedom), you take action to prevent this. In general, I don't remember the mindset actually being "pro violence" in an abstract sense, but it was hostile to law enforcement because law enforcement represented the end of ones freedom.

And they weren't wrong. The drug war was (and is) a very real thing. I think it goes without saying that most were for the freedom to consume, produce, distribute, and use any drugs they see fit. Law enforcement were encroaching on that freedom. They were the aggressors coming in and disrupting a pretty peaceful process. In many cases, unprovoked. I don't think that's much of a misrepresentation.

[laarc]

(Trying to figure out how to reply without sounding like I'm challenging an idea or putting someone on the defensive... All I can think of is: Thank you for the reply. Know that I respect everyone's viewpoint, and that we're only trying to chase a mystery.)

If someone who you thought you could trust is now actively threatening your freedom (or access to a substance, which is also a form of freedom), you take action to prevent this.

So I've spent five minutes mentally putting myself in that situation, and... I don't know. Am I just a coward? It's important in the abstract sense to fight for freedoms, and perhaps in the literal sense when one system (i.e. country) is at war with another.

But the idea of taking a bat to someone's head for betraying my trust in them is... Well, that's really the question to explore, right? How could someone actually do that, let alone approve of someone else doing that? The question is far too pointed, though. Just trying to understand.

[FatalLogic]

>But the idea of taking a bat to someone's head for betraying my trust in them is... Well, that's really the question to explore, right? How could someone actually do that, let alone approve of someone else doing that?

But, implicitly, you already do approve of that. Your government commits various forms of violence in your name, as all governments do - most notably in the form of military and police actions, some of which you may not agree with.

[xorcist]

> Your government commits various forms of violence in your name, as all governments do

That's why we have separate systems to keep the violence in check. Granted, it may not always work that well in practice, but it is important to the system that there are checks and balances in place. The question here regarded the moral system where someone can unilaterally decide someone else deserves to be murdered, and what makes people voluntarily choose this system.

[FatalLogic]

A more complex system, with checks and balances, seems far more robust and stable than a dictatorship, such as the Silkroad was, that is a good point. For questions of responsibility or guilt or blame, it shifts this from an issue of individual responsibility to shared responsibility, but that seems like mental trick to evade responsibility by diffusing it so much that nobody feels they are responsible.

Ironically, the operators of the Silkroad probably would have preferred to use that legal system and its checks and balances to deal with threats.

But they were denied access to "legal" methods, mainly because they were operating a market for illegal and dangerous molecules that many people like to ingest (these bad molecules should not be confused with the many legal and dangerous molecules like alcohol, nicotine, saturated fats, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc)

[icebraining]

If you are being targeted by the "checked and balanced" system for doing what you believe to be an harmless activity, isn't that enough to lose your faith in it?

[Absentinsomniac]

Well, I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I'm not an authority here. (I'd be a little dumb commenting with this account if I were.) My activity was very minimal, to the point where I doubt law enforcement would find it worth their while even if they knew who I was and the extent of my "involvement". I'm replying because those more involved might not want to share their (more informed) experiences for obvious reasons.

In my experience, at the lower levels I think the vast majority of the community wouldn't have actually done anything. You don't have to do anything to sit behind a keyboard and "support" the idea of an informant getting knocked off or roughed up. How could they justify supporting that kind of violence? In my opinion, the place had kind of a revolutionary appeal. Like the darkmarkets were going to change everything. How could the system maintain these dangerous and harmful laws if we are here, operating in plain sight? I'm sure that would only be bolstered by the extreme convenience and safety the whole thing provided. Nobody really wanted to go back to the old way of buying and selling, for a lot of them online had been their only actual experiences in this area.

Further up the chain, some of those guys had serious amounts of money involved. Some had people under (or worse, over) who depended on access to this site. There was tremendous financial stake involved.

Further, I remember a lot of people felt that there were people in the community who would actually follow through with this sort of thing had there been enough actionable intelligence. I'd be surprised if there weren't. Or they could just hire a hitman. It seemed like a doable thing to have some big-deal drug dealer or one of his guys do something like this. This is literally just speculation though, as there was no public discussion that I ever saw involving anything resembling this. I'm pretty sure at least some of the people would have objected on the grounds that it might draw even more LE attention to the place.

I remember reading some discussion going on about one of the darknet sites that shut down and stole everyones money. A lot of people wanted the stolen coins tracked down so they could go after them and serve them justice. Some people thought it would actually happen. Others thought even if they were found, nobody would do anything. Who really knows.

[fweespeech]

> Am I just a coward? It's important in the abstract sense to fight for freedoms, and perhaps in the literal sense when one system (i.e. country) is at war with another.

You aren't a coward. Violence is an action of last resort and as long as you have the ability to fight politically [i.e. lobbying, protests] it is a tool to be avoided.

I think your reaction is more an unconscious understanding that violence is an extreme action of last resort rather than something to avoid a decade in prison for knowingly violating the law.

[icebraining]

Putting someone in prison for a decade is violence. If you believe there's nothing wrong about what you did, isn't using violence just self-defence? Is no law unfair enough to warrant more than passive submission?

[fweespeech]

> And they weren't wrong. The drug war was (and is) a very real thing. I think it goes without saying that most were for the freedom to consume, produce, distribute, and use any drugs they see fit. Law enforcement were encroaching on that freedom. They were the aggressors coming in and disrupting a pretty peaceful process. In many cases, unprovoked. I don't think that's much of a misrepresentation.

The problem this is we, as a society, have decided that isn't legal and there isn't any constitutional protection to consume any substance you want.

This being the case, its the sort of thing you protest as a conscientious objector [even to the point of partaking and getting arrested], it isn't the sort of thing you kill for.

You kill as a means of self-defense and only in response to the application of force that directly endangers you in a way that is beyond the pale. For instance, being blocked from the political process or an intruder in your home.

We, as a society, have accepted that the rule of law is imperfect and violence is only an option if you are being abused to an obscene degree.

[icebraining]

LE was threatening to lock him up for life. How is that not abuse to an obscene degree? It's not like he initiated violence for the political goals; he did so only when he faced a real threat of violence against him.

I don't condone his alleged procurement of murder, but I think people are misstating what happened.

[stickfigure]

This is somewhat too simplistic. The Black Panther Party is not universally regarded negatively today, and some of its statesmen have been lionized in media. You can find plenty of fictional movies in which the hero cathartically kills the bad guy in the end - and "corrupt exploitative cops" is a trope.

For better or worse, we glamorize violence when done for a just cause. There's a wide interpretation of "just" - consider for a moment that some of the latin american drug lords managed to become popular figures in their communities. And there are plenty of people that romanticize the mafia.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is a thing.

[uououuttt]

Absentinsomniac gave an answer that echoes my feelings. I was a dealer for many years (not on SR though), so I had to think about this. I'm not sure 100% what I personally would have done in the situation, but if someone snitches on you then that is more or less tantamount to violence. You'll get your home raided, and then you'll be thrown in a cage for many years. Much of it did come down to "it's either you or me" -- I know that sounds simplistic, but when you're faced with some draconian prison sentence for doing something you feel is entirely moral, it's easy to feel that way.

I also agree that the online drug scene tends toward higher quality, more accurately marketed products with far less risk of the violence that is typical on the street. SR users felt like they were part of a movement that was making things a lot safer for drug users/buyers, so if an outsider was threatening that by cooperating with LEOs then, in a utilitarian sense, any sort of action against them was justified.

[mkelley82]

I am reminded of the quote ""Give me liberty, or give me death!" - Patrick Henry

[tedunangst]

Give me liberty or give them death?

[Absentinsomniac]

I still feel like there were lines most didn't want crossed, however.

[chillwaves]

Exactly. Otherwise you become the cartels in Mexico.