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You need to take a lesson from Ghandi and adjust accordingly:

In my opinion: most people incorrectly read an axiomatic nature to the "non-violence" (revolutionary) approach of Ghandi. Ghandi was not a pacifist in the lay sense. He was a pacifist in the terms of Vedic consciousness and was a daily student of Bhagavad Gita;

And that would prompt the question of why did he opt for non-violence as the 'correct' approach;

And per my analysis, he did so because he recognized that the British Empire motivated its political balast -- from aristocracy down to plebe; whatever held it together -- by the declared shared justification that "we are civilizing the world.";

And Ghandi basically put all of his forces towards attacking that notion;

And by demonstrating (beyond argument) to balast of the British Empire that Ghandi and the Indian Nationalists were in fact more civilized than the Empire, he basically demoralized the affective corps of that Empire. That is why he won.

In the current situation, the fraction of 1% that truly wield global power in our world view us nearly in sub-human terms. And the corporate mirror to the world -- under their control -- pretty much paints their opinion of "us".

To take your example, the motivation for the policy decisions that are accepted by the current regime's 'political balast' -- these are the bright young things furnished by the scientific, academic, cultural, and economic mills -- is their (pretty accurate) assessment that without the police force, without the governing order, the un-washed brethren would eat them up like so much cake. So here, the internalized justification is that "at least this violence is policy driven and under control".

If the layer under the elite balast -- that's the middle class -- demonstrates that they are thoughtful & capable of self determination and self ordering, then this order of things will collapse, just like the British Empire.

So, it is entirely appropriate to remember that "a people get the government that they deserve".

I don't see how this interpretation is compatible at all with Gandhi's suggestion to the British to lay down arms rather than fight the Nazis, or for the Jews to have let Hitler eradicate every single one of them because it would be "heroic." These suggestions seem straightforwardly nonviolent rather than strategic in some fashion, considering the motivations of German imperialism. Appealing to a concentration camp guard's civility and humanity probably wouldn't get you far.

eternalban, that "more civilized than the Empire" line is the most interesting thing I've heard in a long time. Please email me.

If you don't mind, and if you two actually have a discussion upon the topic, could you make a gist of it on github or something like that? I'm very much curious about conversation such as this, and maybe others will feel the same.

The success of the Indian Independence Movement was probably also facilitated by the fact that by the end of WWII the UK had lost almost all of its political power and economic power to the US and was in no position to control unrest in such a large colony. In particular since the US was unwilling to help the British with any of its colonies or puppet states, as they intended to become the new empire.

I read a science fiction story many years ago that argued that if Germany had won WW II, India would never have become independent because the Germans would simply have executed Gandhi and any others who advocated Indian independence.

Truly love your comment. As for the current situation; I'd like to argue that it's not about violence at all though.

It's about the belief that capitalism is the true(est) reflection of personal worth and that monetary wealth itself determines personal value.

In the future I predict that technology will let us return to the original notion for which money is but an imperfect proxy: credit, or deservingness.

It's not until the wealth of the rich actually becomes dependent on their goodwill that they will behave as though it is.

But what of the layers of society—education, entertainment, media (most of which has become entertainment)—where the elites are poisoning the well, actively undermining the ability of the lower classes to function respectably?

s/Ghandi/Gandhi/g

Perhaps I was reading too much into pmorici's comment.

I understood it to say not only that "FreeMarket" would be a convenient name because it sounds like "free market", but also to say that such a place/site/network actually is the free market because if someone wants to buy X for $Y, and someone wants to sell X for $Y, then a transaction happens, end of story.

In other words, "FreeMarket" is simply an honest and straightforward name for what it is (or strives to be).

Thanks, I've updated my reply to reflect this. If that's what (s)he was saying, then that's actually a very strong position.

Your comment demonstrates perfectly why "DarkMarket" is a horrible name. You assumed we were discussing the market in the context of only drugs and went off on a rant about how you hate government drug policy. Now imagine if you held the view that the so called war on drugs was good policy and you can see why calling this thing DarkMarket sinks it before it can even get underway.

You don't have to play the politicians word games but totally disregarding their MO is playing into their hand.

Politicians just by supporting current drug regulations are responsible for "millions of deaths"? Do you have evidence to back up that extraordinary claim?

AFTER EDIT: I note a downvote for disagreement. So I will ask the obvious follow-up question. With what part of the two questions I originally posted do you disagree, and what facts and reasoning should I consider to change my opinion?

Something many folks fail to realize is that the War on Drugs has origins dating back a century ago: [1]

    Although Nixon declared the War on Drugs public enemy number one in
    1971,[14] the policies that his administration implemented as part of the
    Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 were a
    continuation of drug prohibition policies in the U.S., which started in
    1914

During this time there have been many wars fought where a principle component of the reason for the war was the War on Drugs.

In Mexico, the "official count" (always an underestimate) is now over 100k. [2]

In Afghanistan, Opium has played a major role in almost every war and genocide, where deaths have exceeded several million. [3][4][5]

You can do your own research for the number of deaths that the War on Drugs has caused in just about every country on the planet (Russia, China, all countries in South America, especially Columbia). Summed up "millions of deaths" is easily accounted for by bad drug-related policies.

And that's not even counting all the drug-related deaths that are caused thanks to illicit drugs being illicit. How many people have blamed the deaths of their loved ones on "illegal drugs" when the truth is that it is the War on Drugs that killed their son, spouse, loved one? When you don't know what you're actually ingesting/smoking/injecting (as a consequence of the substances being illegal and not regulated), again the death toll leads to the millions.

And then there's the number of lives ruined (not killed)...

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#History
    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War
    [3] https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/
    [4] http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270611.htm
    [5] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175225

Well, if you want to include the Opium Wars of Chinese history (which I am familiar with as a student of the history of China) as part of the "war on drugs," we have to realize that in those wars, the drug-pushers were the British colonialists, and the drug-prohibitors were the conquered Chinese officials of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. And if you include all historical wars of that nature in your count, yeah, maybe you can reach a count of "millions" of people who have been killed in "wars on drugs" over the course of history. But then that has nothing to do with online networks related to Silk Road and the comment to which I first replied here has nothing to do with the submitted article. So take your pick. On my part, I have seen no evidence in this thread that a new secret online network for drug dealers will make the world a safer place for the masses.

AFTER EDIT: I'm still not seeing any historical or transnational policy comparison support from reliable sources for the proposition that the original comment to which I asked two follow-up questions is factually correct in the context of this thread, which is about a proposal for a secure online network and not specifically about legalization of the sale of currently prohibited drugs.

I didn't include it, and you don't have to to get to millions within the past decade (it's also something for which accurate stats don't exist, so you have to estimate and combine the externalities). The citations I included are from recent history.

Nor am I saying that this "DarkMarket" will make our lives safer. We need these drugs legalized and regulated on the open market. That would make all the difference.