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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

> That’s also not to mention guns and all kinds of other dangerous & illegal parts of it.

I think it isn't mentioned because Silk Road didn't actually facilitate any selling/buying of weapons or any items "whose purpose was to "harm or defraud."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)#Produc...

> I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when he’s supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.

He's the candidate that was preferred by Christians, yet probably he was the least Christian-like candidate. Just today/yesterday he criticized a Bishop for values that are clearly Christian, people seem to swallow it. I'm pretty sure trying to add logic/reasoning to the choices he makes is a lost cause.

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> Silk Road didn't actually facilitate any selling/buying of weapons or any items "whose purpose was to "harm or defraud"

There was definitely a fake ID tab on it. Isn't fraud one of the main purposes of having a fake ID?

Guns were definitely for sale on Silk Road. Ulbricht stopped selling them because it wasn't lucrative enough.

I can't find the original post, but this post quotes his comments at the time when he closed the gun forum:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.msg1079466#msg...

> Ulbricht stopped selling them because it wasn't lucrative enough.

While technically accurate, the tone of the Ulbricht quote differs somewhat:

  The volume hasn't even been enough to cover server costs and is actually waning at this point.  I had high hopes for it, but if we are going to serve an anonymous weapons market, I think it will require more careful thought an planning.

Sounds like his next step was anonymous assassination markets.

I saw guns on it when I joined years ago.

There's a reason Wikipedia doesn't accept "I saw it" as a citation.

Wikipedia isn't perfect, but if I had to put odds on Wikipedia vs "rando on internet forum who claims to remember something from years ago", I'm going with Wikipedia 10 times out of 10.

As you wish. I have a lived experienced with Silk Road. I am not random for myself.

Well, I didn't. Stalemate?

Not at all. (I haven't seen you)

Facebook doesn’t make the comments that will kill people

"Facebook is a communication tool for friends and family that is sometimes used for illegal activity" is categorically different than "Silk Road is a tool created to facilitate illegal activity."

Probably the first social media genocide was organized on Facebook, the Rohingya genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

Similarly, the first social media revolutions were also organized on Facebook (and Twitter): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

There are many Christians who would happily to get in long arguments over which values are “clearly Christian.”

If you really want to understand, it’s not hard. It just requires making an honest effort to try, without judging. And that’s what stops people who don’t understand it. Try chatting with an LLM sometime about what it looks like from their perspective. Knowing it’s not a human makes it easier to avoid getting upset.

> If you really want to understand, it’s not hard. It just requires making an honest effort to try, without judging

I was brought up Christian, sealed my religiousness with a confirmation when I was 15 (which required studies and field trips), and been around religious people for a lot of my younger life. Oh, and my mom worked at a church where I grew up, spent a bunch of time in the church, for better or worse.

I'd like to think that the values of compassion and mercy are two of the most fundamental Christian values, at least from the protestants I spent a lot of time with. It seems to me, that the American bastardization of Catholicism, might not actually be very Christian if those two values aren't include in there.

I'm not religious anymore, but if I learned anything from (truly) religious folks, then it would be that you should treat your fellow humans as just that, fellow humans.

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