[wpietri]

Are you asserting he did not attempt to have anybody killed? Or just saying that a court never determined it?

Regardless, court convictions correctly use a very high standard of proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Legal_st...

That's appropriate because a) it's important to be very careful when assigning criminal penalties, and b) they spend a lot of time and money getting at the truth.

But when discussing things casually, as here, neither is true. I'd say HN runs somewhere between "reasonable to believe" and "balance of probabilities". And that's about right. If I'm wrong about Ulbricht, no particular harm comes to him; if more information comes to light and I change my mind, there's no damage to undo.

[BeetleB]

The whole thread is about a harsh court sentence, so yes - it is very appropriate here.

> And that's about right. If I'm wrong about Ulbricht, no particular harm comes to him; if more information comes to light and I change my mind, there's no damage to undo.

Would you not agree that what you said is equally true for one who judges people at roughly the same high standard as courts?

[wpietri]

If you want to use a court-like standard, sure, go wild. Although I think it's a mistake in that you don't have a court's powers. You're guaranteed to err on the side of the guilty even more than a court, even though you have much less reason to bias your judgment that way.