alt Hacker Newsif they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere
"If I don't do it, someone else will" - I suppose this is a convenient excuse that can be applied to anything unsavory, from the little guy selling shrooms at the street corner to nation states making nasty biological and chemical weapons?
Not saying there isn't truth to it, just wondering how as a society we seem to accept that doing unsavory things is a necessity because others are doing it (or they will be doing it soon, so we better be the first)
I say that less to justify Ulbricht's conduct and moreso to hold people responsible for their own actions. "If I don't do it someone else will" is a pretty flimsy moral justification for anything. But accusing someone of murder because they facilitated a transaction between two other parties they never met is a bridge too far, and IMO ignores the responsibility and agency of those parties who willingly participated in the transaction