alt Hacker NewsHe did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.
He killed children.
- "During the sentencing hearing, Forrest heard from the father of a 25-year-old Boston man who died of a heroin overdose and the mother of a 16-year-old Australian who took a drug designed to mimic LSD at a post-prom party and then jumped off a balcony to his death. Prosecutors said the two victims were among at least six who died after taking drugs that were bought through Silk Road."
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/silk-road... ("Silk Road Mastermind Handed Life in Prison for Drug Bazaar" (2015))
It's squarely within the Overton window to impose extremely harsh sentences for people who sell heroin*. Most (?) Asian countries *execute* people who sell heroin. Trump himself has proposed, multiple times over the years, executing US heroin dealers[1,2]—which underscores the incredible degree of hypocrisy behind this pardon.
*(It's also within some people's Overton windows to contemplate the opposite of this, in a framework of harm minimization. I can't steelman this argument in the specific case of Ulbricht. Is it harm reduction to sell heroin? Is it harm reduction to sell fatal drugs to high-school age kids?)
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43465229 ("Trump urges death penalty for drug dealers" (2018))
[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/05/10/1152847242/trump-campaign-exe... ("Trump wants the death penalty for drug dealers. Here's why that probably won't happen" (2023))
Replies
Ulbricht didn't kill those people. Those people took drugs under their own autonomy and died as a result.
>It's squarely within the Overton window to impose extremely harsh sentences for people who sell heroin.
Some of us see a major difference between selling heroin to someone, and building the marketplace from which these victim's freely bought drugs.
I think he is owed some responsibility, but he didn't kill them.
> He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.
> He killed children.
Nit: People died, who may not have died, because of his actions but he didn't kill them. Very few people are forced to take drugs.
Yes, but Ulbricht is a very different case. He's white, you see.
Isn't the australian other story _LITERALLY_ the age-old "a friend of a friend's cousin jumped out of a window on LSD because they thought they could fly?"
I'm surprised they didn't call in the witness who thought they were a glass of orange juice.
Other than the fact that he was not a drug dealer and other criticism others have already pointed out, Carnegie Mellon University's researchers did an analysis of Silk Road gathering data on a daily basis for eight months before it was shut down. Some of their findings include:
> “‘Weed’ (i.e., marijuana) is the most popular item on Silk Road” (p.8)
> “The quantities being sold are generally rather small (e.g., a few grams of marijuana)” (p.12)
https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/TR-CMU...
2+ life sentences for a website which sold weed is just outrageous. Also note that since 2012, people have become a LOT softer on weed and even other drugs have been legalized since then. Trump himself has said that he has friends who have benefitted from weed.
This is so stupid. By this standard, automobile manufacturers kill 44,000 people in the US every year, including countless children. 3,500-4,500 people in the US are murdered by swimming pool contractors every year.
Wait until you hear how many people home swimming pool salesmen kill, and their victims are even younger children.
Hell at least illegal drugs can be lifesaving. No one needs a home swimming pool.
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"He killed children" is a pretty massive leap- he didn't sell heroin, he sold shrooms. Other vendors on the site sold heroin. And there is the matter of personal responsibility to consider- nobody forced those people to take heroin, and if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere. The Sacklers are responsible for far more human misery in that regard, to an almost inconceivable degree, and they never have and never will see the inside of a cell