Slashdot Mirror
Online Narcotics Store 'Silk Road' Is Showing Cracks
pigrabbitbear writes "It always sounded like a hoax, didn't it? Silk Road: an Internet website where you can buy any drug in the world? Yeah, right. But it's real. It was almost two years ago that we first heard about the site, which hosts everything from Adderall to Ketamine, LSD to MDMA and tons and tons of weed. After it started to pick up a ton of press and exposure, we all thought that certainly the Silk Road would get shut down. It's super illegal to sell drugs or even to help people sell drugs. But it didn't. Silk Road survives to this day. However, with the arrival this week of the first conviction of a Silk Road-related crime, you have to wonder if Silk Road's days might be numbered after all. The trouble is brewing in Australia, where a guy named Paul Leslie Howard is facing as many as five years in prison for selling drugs on Silk Road. We're not talking millions of dollars worth of drugs, but we are talking about thousands of dollars worth. And just as Silk Road natives had feared, Howard was one of those Silk Road n00bs who read a newspaper article about the site and decided to try it out for himself."
Showing crack just now? But that's like a staple drug.
SilkRoad is a sort of eBay for drugs. One guy was caught selling drugs, big deal : there are still thousand of others selling drugs on the site. It's like saying "Craigslist is DOOMED : a date rapist was caught using it!"
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
..and they paid for it.
Definitely no cracks here.
Trusting that the person you are buying from or selling to is not a cop or is actually going to provide what they claim seems insane. If you are a buying you have to give a place to send the drugs and a seller has to get those drugs to that place. Either option seems fraught with chances to get caught.
This violates every idea about never getting caught; everyone you don't know is a cop, all phones are tapped, etc.
If you get caught selling drugs on Silk Road it's entirely your own fault. You can use the site anonymously with Tor. You can receive funds anonymously with Bitcoin. You can send drugs anonymously by dropping it in an unattended mailbox.
Now for the people buying drugs it's a whole different story. You have to show up in person and pick up the drugs. You don't know who you're dealing with, so there could easily be a cop waiting for you when you go to get it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
From what I can tell, this doesn't affect Silk Road at all.
It just seems to me that obtaining goods/services physically is just naturally more open to observation/interception. I would think this was obvious.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
A brilliant strategy: A stoned out populace that 1) pays taxes and 2) doesn't give a shit about anything.
What's not to like?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
bet he does that too
You misspelled 'idiot'.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Cops are watching as soft drugs are sold in coffee shops. They just want you to be safe, that's all. That's why guns are outlawed, firearms are a safety hazard.
I don't see how the prosecution of one person spells the end for a website, or an entire online trade.
It's a little bit like saying busting one dealer will bring down the entire drug trade in a country. The Silk Road, or other sites like it (which I imagine the savvier users will have switched to as soon as the Silk Road got media heat), will continue for as long as there's a demand.
Just legalise it all already.
"All the drugs you want?" I don't like or do drugs. Makes me feel extremely uncomfortable not feeling normal. I just don't get why people want to do drugs.
Sure, Ron Paul wants you to be able to buy drugs on the street or in walmart - as long as you pay taxes on them. Don't let the slashdot paullowers tell you differently, their interest is in getting you to pay more taxes so they can pay less.
And what's wrong with that? We quit spending money on this pointless "War on Drugs", and start making money off the Rastafarians. And we might finally have space in our jail system for "Real" criminals. The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
Wow, that's an impressive display of logic!
The "quit throwing people in jail for pot (and other drugs)" position is somehow "removing your power in the name of liberties while giving more power to the wealthy."
How about this position: complete legalization of all drugs. Not just "medical MJ", not just "decriminalization", but full scale, "buy organic pot brownies at Whole Foods" legalization. No special sin taxes, just ordinary sales tax like any other item up for sale.
That's the libertarian position. Any talk of "tax it just like alcohol" is a sop thrown in for those sitting on the fence who might need a little something in exchange for letting go of their anti-drug prejudices.
There's lots of potential problems with the implementation of this policy, but "removing your power in the name of liberties while giving more power to the wealthy" sure as heck ain't one of them.
The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
and Border Patrol, the Tobacco Industry, the Alcoholic Beverage Industry. Definetly, will help the junk food companies. Doritos and Taco Bell will make a killing.
Based on past reports, this guy was caught *buying* on Silk Road to resell in person. This is sensationalism.
However, it's always good to see SR get more press, because this is a really perfect example of many of bitcoin's advantages over the traditional banking system. And I'd say 1 buyer busted in thousands is pretty damn good. Remember, sellers have virtually no risk-exposure to law enforcement through SR.
One conviction in two years? That doesn't sound so bad.
So the root cause of this problem is newspapers then? I agree, the sooner we're rid of them the sooner we can all get on with our business.
A brilliant strategy: A stoned out populace that 1) pays taxes and 2) doesn't give a shit about anything.
What's not to like?
We already have that, it's called TV. The fact the viewer remains miserable doesn't matter, they docile and are too scared to fight back. The dulling of the masses while the oligarchy destroy the middle-class is all that matters.
2. should be "about anything that matters".
He was importing for overseas. DUMB !! So he was not a seller, he was a buyer. It was just a matter of time before he got caught.
In TFA, he was importing drugs via Silk Road from Europe and then selling it in Australia. It doesn't say how he got busted, but I'm assuming that drug sniffing dogs at the post office probably got him busted. This guy was an idiot and deserved to get caught.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
I don't think you have an inkling of how common marijuana use is in Middle America. An enormous amount of people with steady, respectable employment and dedication to their careers are toking secretly. Legalizing marijuana would not suddenly make the nation's workforce drop out.
While that might continue to be a problem with hard drugs like heroin (but even here therapeutic approaches are better than an unproductive "war"), legalization of marijuana would result in prices dropping down to that of tobacco. How much of a problem is it now for people to steal from others just to buy a pack of ciggies?
I own a pacifier factory, how else will I stay in business?
There are plenty of things on Silk Road, which are completely legal. Silk Road exists for its anonymous feature, not necessarily illegal.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
And businesses that would like to have employees that show up and work.
Those businesses can do random drug screenings. Is it that hard for you people to think of optional alternatives to a taxpayer-funded drug war?
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
Legalizing marijuana would not suddenly make the nation's workforce drop out.
Also, legalizing pot wouldn't immediately make it ok for employees to be stoned at work. Alcohol is legal and yet most employers don't allow employees to be drunk at work. Businesses can still make sobriety a condition of employment.
How about this position: complete legalization of all drugs. Not just "medical MJ", not just "decriminalization", but full scale, "buy organic pot brownies at Whole Foods" legalization.
Check back in about 3 years and see how Colorado is doing ;-)
No special sin taxes, just ordinary sales tax like any other item up for sale.
Well, OK, we are going to tax it specially, and it will, like liquor, only be available in special stores.
Goddammit, lift the +5 cap on modding just this once, Dice! The parent deserves +50 Zillion!
--FWIW, this post courtesy of Tor since I modded already :-)
Finally finished with school, and NOW I find out where to get Adderall.
Wow - in the US they would have executed him with lethal injection.
Summary: This guy goes on silk road and buys drugs in Europe and gets it mailed to himself in Australia. Consider how easy it is for him now to get caught picking up the drugs. Silk Road is still an awesome anonymous place for people selling whatever legal or illegal products. It's the pick up that is tricky. Speaking of which, there are plenty of legal things on silk road, or at least legal in the originating country.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
It's just hard to believe that, in an economic sense, even with all the invasive gov't and corporate snooping and tracking...even with all that, SilkRoad exists.
It's a truth of economics...the black market **will certainly** exist in any human system. Heh...in Soviet Russian the side supplies YOU
Seriously look at Soviet Russia. They had strict authoritarian controls inside, and embargoes outside, yet 'yankee blue jeans' and Marlboros were ubiquitous to the point of being parodied (Berserker!)
The black market is a certainty. Process it and behave accordingly.
Thank you Dave Raggett
You have a drastically oversimplified idea of how drugs work.
Sure, Ron Paul wants you to be able to buy drugs on the street or in walmart - as long as you pay taxes on them. Don't let the slashdot paullowers tell you differently, their interest is in getting you to pay more taxes so they can pay less.
That, and of course to remove you power in the name of "liberties" while giving more power to the wealthy. That is how they bring you fascism for the people.
Excuse me, your bias is showing...
We don't mind paying taxes, and we don't want to pay less than you, we'd just like the taxes to be used to pay down the debt and get rid of wasteful spending. Then, gasp, everyone pays lower taxes because we're not servicing trillions in debt. We as citizens get arrested or go bankrupt for "running a deficit".
The wealthy already have the power, bought and paid for to both Dems and Repubs.
3. This is the first time evidently someone has gotten arrested for it. It probably won't be the last. I'm not familiar with how silk road works. I'm guessing there are barriers to try to prevent law enforcement or other criminals from using it to find out when and where drug transactions are going to be happening. I'm also guessing those barriers are not foolproof.
Chances are Silk Road is crawling with cops. But they are not focused on catching buyers or occasional sellers, but are more focused on catching the bigger distributors. Probably they don't even cite Silk as their principal source when prosecuting. Hard to prove much of anything on the internet to a jury, easier to trot in some Joe Undercover cop and have him explain a (probably at least half truthful) account of how he came to know about those deals, without mentioning that first info came via silk.
One off buys are not worth chasing.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Paul is also fine with states executing drug dealers. The Pauls are not reasonable people, they're conservative ideologs.
.
You can purchase Marijuana Tax Stamps in Texas which means that you can now legally purchase Marijuana, sorta.
Or at least if you get caught you can pay the tax pretrial and have it dismissed.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I'm curious what evidence you have in support of your statement. Quote? Reference?
...) to the individuals and to voluntary organizations.
I consider myself a libertarian (small 'l') and I think Ron Paul has many good things to say (does that make me a "Paullower" as you put it?), and I do not support taxes of any kind, including on drugs.
As a libertarian, one faces this type of dilemma frequently: I think drugs should be legal, but the only two options at this point are (1) the state prohibits them or (2) the state allows but taxes them. Both options are unlibertarian. But which option is worse? This is the type of false choice which libertarians want to avoid by separating the state out of those concerns and leaving decisions (use drugs or not, put social pressure on users or not, accept users in your home or not,
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
It is certainly reasonable to ask users to self fund any (or at least some) of any societal costs due to the action or behavior. We have user fees for dozens of things - cars, planes, hikers, hunters. Drug use really doesn't need to be excepted from that.
Except for caffeine, of course. That's different.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
Alcohol is fully legal - and yet there are quite a few moonshiners out there.
Making drugs legal won't stop the issues, it will merely change them, like it did when they legalized alcohol.
The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF. And businesses that would like to have employees that show up and work.
Businesses already deal with employees that show up drunk, or don't show up at all.
Not to mention Locos Tacos.
1) Been working three software development jobs (one 9-5, two freelance) while getting high daily for over a year and nobody's ever complained...only time I've taken a day off so far was two days to go a thousand miles for my grandmother's funeral. And I'm usually one of the first people into the office in the morning.
2) nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs known to man. I've never heard of someone stealing to get cigarettes...except middle school kids who can't get them legally...
I can get an ounce of marijuana for $40 and it ain't bad. Alone that would last me over a month. There is no way in hell I would ever have to steal to support my habit.
If I am so goddamn broke that I cannot afford $40 a month for Pot then I am doing something so horribly wrong that theft would not solve my problems.
Getting taxing drug sales is just a way of getting more people to consider the argument. Here are the better arguments.
The fact of the matter is that people who want to do drugs, do drugs. They will find a way to get access to them. Because it can only be sold by shady individuals, it is easy for these dealers to push harder drugs or spike their drugs with more dangerous elements. In other words, you are making the health risks even worse than they were already by banning drugs. If drugs were legal, they could be make by reputable companies that have something to loose if they make bad products.
Black markets form around banned products that are in demand. Since drug dealers cannot go to the police with their problems, they take matters into their own hands. This causes a lot of violence between the various dealers. By removing the ban, you can potentially decrease the violence (and collateral damage) associated with drugs.
Because their is a high risk associated with dealing/making drugs, drugs can be priced at a premium. This is why gangs and cartels use drugs to fund their enterprises. By making drugs legal, you lower the cost of drugs such that gangs and cartels can no longer justify taking the risk. You essentially defund the gangs and cartels. Without funds, they become significantly smaller threat to society.
All in all, if individuals are going to do drugs anyway, wouldn't you rather it be out in the open instead of a dark hole? In the open, the government has some level of control over it, it can be made as safe as possible, and bring in some level of income. In a dark hole, it will fund violent crime, be extremely costly and futile to stop, and be increasingly unsafe.
Societies best way to stop drug use it not to ban it but to educate in order to change cultural norms. Look at smoking. At no point did we ban it but a significantly lower percentage of people use it today than they use to. Of course, banning is easier and it makes people feel good. People don't usually like to take the hard (but effective) route. They want a easy solution right now.
Well, OK, we are going to tax it specially, and it will, like liquor, only be available in special stores.
And just like liquor taxes, the fiction of using the tax on drugs for any drug rehab/educational purposes will be proposed, ballyhooed, and ignored in real life. The money will be siphoned off to pay more government employees.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"removing your power in the name of liberties while giving more power to the wealthy" is a problem of the Libertarian philosophy in general. They propose to abolish or equalize political power while pretending economic power is not a form of power at all...thus making the wealthy into oligarchs with absolute power over their domain.
The OP states that he was selling drugs on Silk Road, this not true. He was buying drugs from silk road and selling them locally to make a profit.
Silk Road anonymity favours the seller because they can post the goods anonymously at any post box, the buyer takes a risk when he collects the delivery.
I watched an interview with him on TV, he was stupid, he was regularly buying large amounts of drugs to resell and taking no precautions. Even then it took the cops a long time to eventually catch him.
Basically he was taking the buyers risk for the people he was selling to and he got busted. If he had stuck to personal use only he would only get busted for using not trafficking and he probably wouldn't have been caught at all.
You are making a lot of mistakes. One, you are assuming that drug users don't already have steady jobs. At least in regards to marijuana smokers, all of them I know have jobs except for a few students.
Two, while it is true that legal drugs are not necessarily cheap, a competitive market that isn't taxed or regulated to death is going to be considerably cheaper, especially if such actions result in the loss of control by cartels.
Three, you seem to think that the legal availability of drugs will result in increased drug abuse. The opposite is probably the case. Being legalized means that addicts can more openly seek treatment. I've also seen some good arguments that legalization of cocaine would pretty much destroy the meth market.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
And Cops. The burden of proof to arrest and convict someone of a shooting is rather high. Especially with a culture that does not "snitch". This leaves the police unable to arrest & convict people they know committed crimes but cannot get anyone to testify to. Drug charges provide all the evidence needed. So police will arrest someone for a drug charge because they can't get them on the real crime they committed.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Sure, Ron Paul wants you to be able to buy drugs on the street or in walmart - as long as you pay taxes on them. Don't let the slashdot paullowers tell you differently, their interest is in getting you to pay more taxes so they can pay less.
And what's wrong with that? We quit spending money on this pointless "War on Drugs", and start making money off the Rastafarians. And we might finally have space in our jail system for "Real" criminals. The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
Alcohol. Tobacco. Big Pharma. Entire divisions of the ATF. Believe me I'm certainly not trying to justify the current laws, but if you think for one second that the only ones who are against this are the Cartels and the ATF, then you need to put down the joint and pull your head out of your ass. There are literally hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that rely on the current FUBAR model.
And if the Cartels and ATF are truly the only ones affected out of all that, then I'd have to question who's running this fucking country, because it sure seems like they are.
The catch is in the delivery. I know someone who received, unexpectedly, a brick of hash in the mail. He almost had the package unwrapped when the feds kicked in his door. His disabled brother was visiting that afternoon and both were arrested. Getting stuff from Point A to point be gives law enforcement a pretty good shot at an offender.
No, their interest is getting you to pay more out of your own pocket so they can pay less. There really is little reason why I should have to pay for your excessive consumption of health care, insurance, or government services. You want that stuff? You pay for it.
Well, and I wonder if anyone else noticed that GP is a parentless, off-topic post out of left field. Nobody said anything about Ron Paul, libertarians, or taxes in the first place.
What. The fuck.
And businesses that would like to have employees that show up and work.
Exactly, because there's nothing absolutely 100% legal for adults to use these days in America that could ever make employees show up late for work or have their employment performance impacted in any way.
Nah, I'm just foolin' with ya, it's called alcohol.
And people who don't like having druggees steal their stuff so they can sell it for drugs.
I always wondered why liquor store clerks frequently worked behind either bulletproof glass or at least a cage setup. I guess it's not the persistent crime such establishments deal with due to some people's addiction to alcohol, since, according to you, we clearly don't have problems with people stealing/fencing stuff to support a drinking habit.
In fact, in nearly any discussion about drugs that are illegal today in America, you can swap in alcohol instead. All the same arguments against legalization would apply just as well, except we already deal with all the downsides of alcohol yet nobody's talking about getting rid of THAT again.
Oh, cut the crap and demagoguery.
Most libertarians would be happy to turn back the clock on government regulations and government taxes to more traditionally American levels, for the simple reason that the current situation is not sustainable. Progressives are so much into sustainability, why don't you start with finances?
Sure, Ron Paul wants you to be able to buy drugs on the street or in walmart - as long as you pay taxes on them.
Ummm.. that's what just about every forward thinking Democrat, Republican, Green and independent wants too.
As a small business owner, I haven't always been able to afford insurance for myself. In Mexico I can go to the pharmacy and just buy the medicine I need, no expensive doctor trip required. Sure a retard could OD on something or mix the wrong things, but they could just as easily step in front of a buss too.
There's a problem with over prescribing antibiotics, I concede that. However, ask anyone who's worked in many doctor offices. The Drug Sales Rep shows up, drops off samples, sings the praises of the new wonder drug, and the Doc invariably increases prescriptions of the damn drug, so it's not like this shit is an exact science folks, otherwise marketing like that would have no effect on prescriptions. All I'm saying is that I should be able to get my meds refilled without visiting a doctor if I don't care to (or have the money to).
Governments hate anonymity and payments they can't track, and they are just itching for excuses like "drugs" and "child pornography" to push through regulations to outlaw efforts like bitcoin and tor.
A flawlessly rational and well reasoned set of points. Expect every politician to instantly ignore all of them.
That sounds... sintaxtic!
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
If I am so goddamn broke that I cannot afford $40 a month for Pot then I am doing something so horribly wrong that theft would not solve my problems.
Now honestly, do you think this isn't true for 95% of the convicted thieves in most economically developed countries?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
That I'm fine with. Kill social and moral regulation entirely...If I want to marry another dude or shoot up drugs that's not your concern....end our imperial wars...and restore same financial regulations and taxes. Hell if you end the wars you may not need to do much with taxes....though I'd still favor a system that promotes greater wealth equality. High rate flat tax with the first 30k or so exempt, something like that...or just a wall st. transaction tax...
That's what most socialists want....or at least where we'd like to start or actions we would strongly support.
In America it seems that most people who identify as Libertarians are anarcho-capitalists...So as an anarcho-syndicalist I agree completely on the political side of their ideology, but cannot tolerate the cultural/economic aspect.
It is legal to grow your own plants and transfer up to a ounce of pot to another person in Colorado (passed last election). The government has until July (if I remember correctly) to come up with the framework for the full retail sale of Marijuana. Washington state is also working in a framework to sell legal pot.
I'm a (somewhat frequent) drug user, and I'm more politically involved than almost every sober friend I have. Basically, you have no idea what you're talking about.
One off buys are not worth chasing.
Whew!
There's lots of potential problems with the implementation of this policy
I can think of a big one. In five to ten years we would have ads with the slogan "Take Fakitol, it won't cure your cancer, but will make sure you don't give a shit about it". Once you legalize all drugs, there is a humongous incentive for big pharma to find the most addictive stuff they can and sell it to you, preferably when you are young and inexperienced. I'm not sure I want to live in that world.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Don't forget the giant private prison system in the U.S.
I wish I had saved some mod's for this one, but since I did not, how about an 'amen.'
of course drugs would be cheap if they were legal, making cocaine, pot, heroin etc. isn't anymore complicated than making coffee, tee, cacao
the only thing setting the high price is the risk involved because it is illegal.
far to many people make a living fighting the "war on drugs", storing criminals or the high profits it enables, for it be made legal anytime soon and they all have money some of them lots of money to lobby it to stay illegal
I believe statistics showed that alcohol use dropped after prohibition ...
that is the heart of the problem, drugs being illegal put tons of shady money in the hands of shady people and has the risk of corrupting the whole society
$40 an oz? That's some Mexican dirt weed you got there.
I'd buy a new heinie. Mine's got a crack in it!
The Texas MJ Stamp though is an accidental legalization due to how Texas defines double jeopardy, you have actually been able to buy them since 2008.
http://www.ndsn.org/nov96/drugtax.html
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
See what happens when you give mod points to Aussies? LOL.
Do you think they do this in other countries right now?
Superb post. That's all I have to say.
RP is an ideological loon but he is spot on with his drug policy. There's not a snowballs chance in hell he will become anything more than an old man ranting on a street corner, not because he has a sane drug policy but because he has insane economic/foreign policies.
Thing is from what I've seen of RP and his selfish band over the last decade, most of them are against corporate welfare just as much as they are against social welfare, (despite the fact they rarely understand either). Since he is firmly against corporate welfare he will never get the nod from the real fascists within the GOP, he will always be their crazy uncle that lives in the basement.
Oh and BTW, even if RP was a closet fascist, paying "unfair" taxes does not mean you are living in a fascist state, even the most brainwashed RP worshipers understand that much.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
implying that Big Pharm doesn't do that now!?
In fact, in nearly any discussion about drugs that are illegal today in America, you can swap in alcohol instead. All the same arguments against legalization would apply just as well, except we already deal with all the downsides of alcohol yet nobody's talking about getting rid of THAT again.
I didn't say alcohol is great and drugs are bad. Alcohol clearly has horrible detrimental affects on our society, and clearly legal alcohol does result in a monetary and mental and physical impact on well-being. Almost 100% of the population knows someone personally who has been killed as a result of drunk driving. So, yes, I would say that having legal alcohol is a responsibility which too many people cannot bear, and I believe that drugs are even more likely to be abused than alcohol.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
WTF? Here in NZ we get anally-raped to the tune of NZ$350 for an ounce.
Here we've been metric 35 years or more; metrically a proper O should be 32gm including bag but for some reason we don't use the metric system for matters of weed.
Regular Slashdotter posting anon because marijuana, _unlike_ alcohol, is a mind-altering drug and _must_ be treated _very very differently_ by society.
Damn, how *are* you supposed to make sarcasm obvious in the written word?
There is no logic to this article. This is akin to saying that the automobile industry is in danger because some drug dealer got caught making a run across the border. I believe the writer of this articles should consider laying off the narcotics and stop being so paranoid. This guy got caught, probably due to exposing himself for a chance at some decent amount of cash. I should also mention this is Australia, a country they are notoriously hard on drug dealers.
The Tobacco Industry would be delighted to sell you dope, naturally it doesn't want you growing your own dope.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Have you been watching the news lately? I don't think they care whether they are routing suppliers or buyers.
I am John Hurt.
Most people cant get an oz of weed for $40.
Desire for drugs is not a dichotomy. The world is not divided neatly into "the straight edge public" and "junkies who will do anything for drugs".
Alcohol is legal, and research shows that an increase in price causes a decrease in consumption.
Alcoholics will keep drinking viper fluid even if you ban alcohol, and teetotalers will not touch it if you paid them, but the whole gray area in between is influenced by availability.
Almost 100% of the population knows someone personally who has been killed as a result of drunk driving.
And if alcohol cease to exist, not prohibited but disappear as it never existed, almost everyone would know someone who has been killed as a result of impaired driving. Driving tired or distracted cause more accident then drunk driving. There is always something more. Peoples die all the time and there is nothing you can do about it.
Drink driving... it not like I am going fast. Talking on the phone... it not like I am drunk driving.
Fuck off.
All the "pot heads" I know are engineers (and various other professionals). They all turn up to work on time. They all do a good job. They are all interested in working for a living. And I bet half the people you know who are "reliable", "responsible" and all other sorts of things ending in -ible also have smoked or do smoke pot.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The world is not divided neatly into "the straight edge public" and "junkies who will do anything for drugs".
Perhaps not, but I would argue the decrease in violent crime, being able to zero out cost of "The War on Drugs", being able to make drug use as safe as possible, and the ability to regulate the industry is worth the possibility that there are a few more drug users or the current drug users do more drugs.
We best off making drug use as open and safe as possible now and spendinf more time and resources on educating and encouraging people to stay away from drugs from the start. It is a cultural issue not a criminal one.
Good point. This idea might work, but we must avoid creating new problems such as the physical addiction you mention.
If the legal framework for manufacture of designer drugs required a proven lack of physical addictiveness, it wouldn't help the heroin addicts but it also wouldn't make things any worse for the rest of us. Perhaps this is already a part of the FDA guidelines for new drugs.
Assuming most consumers would seek to purchase drugs legally if they were available, the money they spend would contribute back to the economy rather than flowing into the black market's back pocket. I suspect this is fairly decent chunk of change already being spent, so wouldn't legalisation of drugs be a shot in the arm for the economy?
Legalising drugs is no cure-all and will have its own issues. We need to decide for ourselves if these are preferable to the issues we're currently handling.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
I smoke weed all day every day and pull in six figures. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Alcohol is fully legal - and yet there are quite a few moonshiners out there.
This is because, to fund the wars, the federal government decided to create some very tyrannical taxes on alcohol and regulation on the operation of distilleries.
The so-called moonshiners were previously legal small-time distillers.
Due to the legal regulations and taxation regime, there can be no such thing as a "small" distiller; I believe the government-imposed starting cost to be a legal operator is a few million $$$ cash up front.
I can get an ounce of marijuana for $40 and it ain't bad.
Yes it is.
His bust has to do with interdiction of the package -- which is how they've been finding drug dealers for decades now.
If he left evidence at his home, or on his home computer due to lack of encryption, of use of the Silk Road, then that's why they found it. Sounds like basic human intelligence methods to me -- with no real connection to the Silk Road. Everyone knew these risks were present and I don't think it's going to change much.
I can think of a big one. In five to ten years we would have ads with the slogan "Take Fakitol, it won't cure your cancer, but will make sure you don't give a shit about it".
Then regulate the marketing of it; like the marketing of cigarettes is regulated.
And require a license to possess, sell, purchase, or use it, that requires paying a fee and passing a multiple-choice test, demonstrating knowledge of the risks: and someone underage must have consent of a guardian, plus a minimum of two additional adults that may be related, and a third adult reviewer who may not be related or know them, to interview them, and vouch for their character + ability to understand the drugs' effects, and understand and comply with their obligations under the law (such as amount allowed to be in possession at any point in time, not using or possessing unsealed or uncovered drug packages in a public or social setting, not driving for sufficient time after using, and not transferring drug person to person, except through a lawfully licensed intermediary).
I think if anyone could have figured their way out of this honeytrap it would have been John McAfee. He essentially did the same thing on a much more massive scale and was able to escape from the people trying to lock him up. So where is that service on SR? I'd pay a hefty sum of BTC if someone could "McAfee" me out of the situation and give me pointers along the way. This guy just needed a crack team of prostitute-spies to run interference and covertly install key loggers while he made his escape like a BOSS. He would have been out of that country faster than you can say "catfished trojaned blackmail email".
Even if they were, it would be ridiculously hard to. The recipients can just deny ordering that package if they put a fake name on it, and there's nothing to prove they did. Hell, they can't even bust the smarter escorts out there because they accept "donations", which in practice should be a lot easier than busting somebody for a random package.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Exactly, because what libertarians are really into is giving power to the wealthy and stripping people of their rights. Wait, whu....t?
Interestingly that's the direction we're going here in BC. Pharmacists are getting more power to renew prescriptions and to suggest alternatives as our government has an interest in dropping the price of healthcare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Are you retarded? When I worked loss prevention cigarettes were one of the most commonly shoplifted items. They don't need to steal to get cigarettes, they just steal the actual cigarettes.
You forgot one thing: the doctor gets a cut from the pharm company for sales...I mean prescriptions.....
Don't forget the biggest lobby against it:
Big Pharma.
The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
And people who don't like having druggees steal their stuff so they can sell it for drugs.
Obvious troll is obvious.
Who's gonna steal your stuff when they can plan some seeds [b]anywhere[/b] and grow their own pot? It's called [i]weed[/i] for a reason. Shit will grow in your back yard, or basement closet. In your attic, or even on a rooftop if you're in the city. I'm talking about seeds, dirt, water, light... nevermind the grow machines made specifically indoor growing.
Who's gonna steal your TV for tomatoes?
A quicker path to fascism is to outlaw something that people enjoy. Then you can use tax payers money to fund a vast empire that executes or puts people in prisons for either supplying demand or trying to enjoy themselves. Prohibition is the fascist weapon of choice. On the Ron Paul/tax drugs, you might have a point, tax enforcement will just replace prohibition but hopefully on much lower scale.
Wealth equality is easy to achieve: you make everybody equally poor. And, actually, that's pretty much the only way of achieving it.
That's because your politics are driven by ideals: you think that if you just try hard enough, you can create an ideal society through government intervention. But that's like thinking that if you just try hard enough, you can create a perpetual motion machine. Worse, people like you tend to accuse everybody who disagrees with your means of achieving that end of being selfish crooks.
I've spent time in socialist countries and it was miserable. And the closer a country gets to socialism, the more miserable and poor people end up being, the more their liberties end up being restricted, and the more corrupt government becomes. And that's why I can't tolerate the "cultural/economic aspects" of socialism or progressivism, and about half of America seems to agree with me.
A way of doing that, would be to make a red light district were the harder drugs would be available. Of course, pot, tobacco, and Alcohol would be legal for home use. But, you would have to purchase a place to flop and purchase the harder drugs (Coke, Heroin) at the red light hotel or whatever. One way in one way out, you don't come out if you're not sober. Even could have a treatment facility in the red light district.
Chances are Silk Road is crawling with cops. But they are not focused on catching buyers or occasional sellers, but are more focused on catching the bigger distributors. Probably they don't even cite Silk as their principal source when prosecuting. Hard to prove much of anything on the internet to a jury, easier to trot in some Joe Undercover cop and have him explain a (probably at least half truthful) account of how he came to know about those deals, without mentioning that first info came via silk.
Hmm, I don't know about this. Surely the US Dept. of Justice has taken an interest, but how do they go about busting people? I have heard of zero high-profile, SR-related busts. The big sellers are the professional ones - they deliver what they promise (ensures repeat sales, good reviews, and more sales), they use stealthy packaging, they avoid leaving fingerprints, they ship carefully (multiple locations, away from home, etc.), and they tumble their bitcoins to make them really, really tough to trace. I suppose the law men could be exploiting an unknown vulnerability in SR (and they surely look for them), but for now that site looks pretty successful. If some SR big fish got busted, even offline, word should get back to the site, no?
I'm more interested in the privacy, security, and freedom implications than the drugz, but this is all very interesting stuff, since most all other forms of communication and money transfer are much more susceptible to snooping by Big Brother.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
It would be great if these guys exposed them and shed some good light on hackers.
accessing someones open account on facebook is not hacking
I've spent time in socialist countries and it was miserable. And the closer a country gets to socialism, the more miserable and poor people end up being, the more their liberties end up being restricted, and the more corrupt government becomes.
The same could be said of capitalism.
Most libertarians would be happy to turn back the clock on government regulations and government taxes to more traditionally American levels, for the simple reason that the current situation is not sustainable. Progressives are so much into sustainability, why don't you start with finances?
Define "traditionally American levels" - taxes today are lower than at any point from 1933 to the mid-eighties, yet median income, as a percentage of GDP per capita, has been trending downwards since the '80s; meanwhile, CEO pay has skyrocketed. Do you call that sustainable?
(Do not sign anything.) -- Fell, Planescape: Torment
Um, last time I looked, cop promotions were based on performance. And I've read in the far past that DEA-types were bitching that they had to stop surveilling a few 'big time dealers' in order to make a couple fast flashy street dealer busts to put the agency in the papers and justify its budget. Arrests are a metric of police 'performance', the more arrests, the bigger the promotions. And it's way easier to bust a 4 block dope dealer than it is the guy who's setting up boatloads of dope to come in, even though busting the importer and breaking the network results in fewer drugs on the street until the new network gets into place.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Was it any different in, say, the Middle Ages, maybe worse?
Stop blaming TV for human nature, specifically conformism in this case.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
BitCoin Prices are jumping past few days. Looks like this case is bringing more attention to Silk Road and people are wanting to try it out? Ha
Looks like Silk Road days aren't numbered - they just got a boost
Also, fund drug clinics that administer (not just give out) drugs for free along with councelling. That way no one, not even the homeless and jobless addicts, will need to rob or steal. But more importantly, serious drug addicts can get help out of their situation and on to a more normal life. (See the Swiss method.)
This is in turn will further reduce the overall cost of drugs on society, as crime and their effects cost society in a variety of ways.
Clinics provide another avenue for educating school kids on the dangers of drugs.
and I believe that drugs are even more likely to be abused than alcohol
Do you believe that alcohol is less dangerous than all other (currently illegal) drugs out there? Even for drugs beyond marijuana there's plenty of evidence to the contrary...
Also please keep in mind that given the legalisation of a range of drugs, people may "experiment" with multiple but then find that they settle on one or two of a lesser danger for longer term use. The health risks of taking MDMA at nightclubs every second weekend for example is (if well managed) significantly lower than the health risks of drinking large quantities of alcohol at nightclubs every second weekend (as many younger people do).
These days, I only drink alcohol in social settings with family (e.g. a glass of wine or beer with a meal). I haven't been drunk in an extremely long time. Alcohol is quite simply not my substance of choice. I've tried a very wide range of drugs; including (but not limited to), Marijuana, Cocaine, Speed, Meth, MDMA, LSD, and many more. I found that MDMA is something I enjoy perhaps once every few years or so; LSD is something I enjoy for the mind-expanding qualities that it provides and I use around 3 to 4 times a year; and the rest are all very uninteresting to me (as with alcohol). Cocaine I might do again if it were legal and significantly cheaper (it feels good; but not for long; and doesn't even begin to compare to MDMA for "good feelings"), but only in the right circumstances and definitely not often.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
An ounce for $40? Where the hell do you live? I live in weed country and that'd be an awesome price for a quarter and not awful for an eighth.
Actually I think the doctor over prescribing antibiotics stuff is overblown. If you're not taking the antibiotics every day for years, the resistant bacteria in your body have a chance of vanishing after a while.
Whereas at the hospitals and farms that are using antibiotics EVERYDAY for decades, it should no surprise that bacteria at those places are resistant - it gives them a significant edge over the nonresistant ones.
I bet most people catch the superbugs (e.g. MRSA) from hospitals and farms- whether directly or indirectly.
Nowadays the meat is contaminated too:
Nearly half of the meat and poultry samples -- 47 percent -- were contaminated with S. aureus, and more than half of those bacteria -- 52 percent -- were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics, according to the study published April 15 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110415083153.htm
So if you're unlucky you might get an infection from contaminated food whether handling or consuming.
Despite the war on drugs the banks helped the mobsters transfer BILLIONS of drug money from country to country.
The mobsters would find things a lot harder if they weren't able to move billions around.
And Mexico would be in a better state since the drug lords would have smaller armies and fewer guns.
Craiglist is used for mostly legal things, the silk road exists only to serve an "illegal" purpose, which is selling drugs. I'm not all that familiar with how they stay anonymous, but if there's a way to unravel that system, it would come through cases like this most likely. I think this guy got busted for selling drugs outside the silk road, as per the article, and was overall a stupid drug dealer. A quote about human stupidity and why we can't have nice things (for a user the Silk Road is heaven.. till they OD) is in order I suppose.
What's stupid is this article.. and I do understand how oft-mentioned this is, but do the editors perform /any/ tasks? Or is it a sort of 'publish or perish'?
Hahahaha Sardaukar86 had to "eat his words" -> http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 where he must show he must not create new problems for himself by being outnumbered 243++:1 as the ratio against him since he opened his big mouth and stuck his foot into it.
I've spent time in socialist countries and it was miserable. And the closer a country gets to socialism, the more miserable and poor people end up being, the more their liberties end up being restricted, and the more corrupt government becomes.
While "very" socialist countries have, on the whole, been fairy miserable and corrupt places, I'd really like to know your reasoning behind the second half of your statement.
It seems to me that many of (but not all) the countries with the happiest citizens, lowest abject poverty, and best standards of living are those that are highly socialised democracies. They are still for the most part capitalist, but the government retains significant control (through fairness regulation) to discourage a lot of the evil that can spring from the dog-eat-dog style of unbridled capitalism.
you think that if you just try hard enough, you can create an ideal society through government intervention
While I'm not the person you're responding to, I find this a very unfair statement. It's not an "all or nothing" approach and noone beyond the most hardline of socialists believes you can through government intervention ALONE create an ideal society. But it IS a fair statement to say that the purpose of a government should be to regulate and benefit the society as a whole. They are created by the people and therefore should be FOR the people. This is, in essence, a socialistic statement. By a government being "for the people", it has to consider the well-being of all the people; and this will mean disadvantaging some a little in order to advantage others enough to bring them up to a certain standard. It's not about achieving full wealth equality; it's about removing the situation where there are those in society experiencing the abject poverty that leads to many of societies ills (beyond simply things like crime; I personally don't like living in a city where I walk past homeless people each day and have them beg cigarettes from me... I expect my tax money to be used to HELP these people).
In such a system, you may be concerned that many would abuse the privilege and simply allow the government to take care of them to the minimum standard; then remain unemployed and happily living out their days care-free. There are those who do this, but they're actually far fewer than you might suspect. I grew up in a country that would've done that for me - I could've remained unemployed forever after leaving school and still paid my rent, had my medical issues taken care of, eaten enough food to keep me going, and still had a few dollars left over for cigarettes, alcohol and other "luxury" items (although admittedly, really not much). But I wanted more from life that the minimum. I wanted to be able to drive a nice car; I wanted to be able to have a big screen TV; I wanted to travel the world; I wanted to buy a new computer more often than once every five to ten years; and above all of these material things, I wanted to feel useful and productive instead of being looked down on. So, I started working - as did the vast majority of people I knew.
Now, where I grew up wasn't perfect, and sadly from the looks of things it's getting less perfect as times goes on; but what I've described should be considered the absolute minimum of "socialist leanings" in any civilised society.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
$40 an oz pot would last me well over a month. I'd likely never bother finishing it. That sounds disgusting.
Syntax Tic? Is that like, a rare Tourrette's symptom wherein a patient will burst out into uncontrollable exclamations of "include !" and "int x;!"?
No shit Sherlock. We pay taxes on tobacco and food. What makes you think you wouldn't pay it on Weed and Heroin?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Quit confusing the guy with facts - it's not nice.
I am very surprised at how much ignorance is evident about the Silk Road marketplace. Slashdot is supposed "News for Nerds," but there is a lot of technophobia splashed all over the comments section of this story.
1) Silk Road is only accessible via Tor. I would expect the average Slashdot viewer to be more aware of Tor, and the security and anonymity it offers.
2) Silk Road exclusively uses BitCoin for its transactions. To any average crypto-nerd, or even a beginning crypto-nerd like myself, BitCoin is a marvelous application of cryptology in a social environments. Is there really this much ignorance of BitCoin even in a highly-tech-aware venue such as Slashdot?
3) Silk Road customers and sellers and strongly encouraged to encrypt all communications with PGP, and PGP use is routine on that marketplace. Of all things, this should immediately pique the curiousity of any security-minded technophile. Isn't widespread adoption of PGP one of the long-term ideals in the security world?
Security, anonymity, encryption, peer-to-peer ... how come so few people have ever seriously looked at this remarkably post-technological creation? Regardless of your interest in drugs, from a freedom/liberty/technology standpoint, Silk Road is pretty amazing.
Your behaviour is rather predictable. Observe:
"I'd call it since you stalk me.. lol! apk" (from http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42744373)
A fifty year old man behaving like a thirteen year old is quite a sad thing to observe. You demonstrate little more than your immaturity with this post, as whatever it is you accuse me of eventually proves irresistible to you. Before long, you simply cannot avoid showing yourself up as the hypocrite you are.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Physical vs psychological addictiveness is mostly a sham. Shades of grey. Any psychoactive substance can and will be addictive to someone, depending on their intentions. The families, the society, its values (and economic design) are going to control the approach and intention that people take to drugs, legal or otherwise. And a society where drugs are regularly used past the point of mental and physical safety has problems that legalization nor prohibition are going to improve. Only people wising up will fix the damage that overuse of drugs (too often and/or too much) causes.. And once people get into the habit of using too much and/or too often, it's very hard to fix that, without abstaining. That is why prohibition is the easiest model in modern society. The legalization model that doesn't allow commercial promotion of drugs, and that treats addiction as a medical disease (not a criminal one) is the appropriate one for modern society in my opinion.
I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I'd just like to add two things:
If the legal framework for manufacture of designer drugs required a proven lack of physical addictiveness, it wouldn't help the heroin addicts but it also wouldn't make things any worse for the rest of us. Perhaps this is already a part of the FDA guidelines for new drugs.
Sadly and stupidly, the potential for addiction is barely considered by regulating authorities like the FDA. If it were, LSD would be legal and Morphine probably wouldn't be used for pain relief except in the terminally ill.
Legalising drugs is no cure-all and will have its own issues. We need to decide for ourselves if these are preferable to the issues we're currently handling.
It's definitely something that needs serious consideration - what a lot of people don't realise however is that a lot of this serious consideration has already been done; presented to various governments and then simply ignored or thrown out. There's a lot of emotion tied up in drug legislation, especially with the idea that any drug with limited proven medical use should automatically be illegal (the powers that be seem to ignore alcohol in this point of view though). It's as if the very "concept" of a recreational drug (besides alcohol) is so abhorrent to them that they'll ignore any and all evidence passed to them. They also seem to discard the evidence pointing towards some currently illegal street drugs being useful for psychological issues (MDMA and LSD both have good proven track records in this regard).
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Physical vs psychological addictiveness is mostly a sham. Shades of grey. Any psychoactive substance can and will be addictive to someone, depending on their intentions.
Sorry, but I call bullshit. I'm a smoker; I hate it. I want to quit and have tried many times... I'll be trying again very soon in fact. It's HARD.
I'm also an LSD user. I could choose to never take it again, and while I'd certainly be "sad" that an important and valuable part of my life was gone, I'd have no "cravings" for it as I do with cigarettes.
I AM addicted to cigarettes but I don't enjoy them. I AM NOT addicted to LSD despite enjoying it immensely.
The problem is that physical addictions start off as psychological ones for the most part. There are no drugs that will get you hooked after one use (no, not even meth or heroin). However if you take those, enjoy them thoroughly and then take them again, you'll find a physical dependence beginning to build up. This is how it was for me (and a billion or so others) with cigarettes.
There are some drugs that have no potential to be physically addictive - LSD being a prime example. You could take LSD daily for a year and at the end of it, you'd be able to stop without a second thought.
That said, taking it daily like that wouldn't really work either. The brain builds up a tolerance to LSD that takes a week or so dissipate. If you take LSD just once, the same amount within a week will have drastically lower effects (often none at all). Given the lethal dosage of LSD is somewhere around 80 to 100 times the amount one normally takes for a trip; only the truly idiotic (and extremely rich) could ever really OD on it.
I used to take LSD between once and twice a month in my younger days. That was what I would consider extremely heavy usage. These days, it's around 2 to 4 times a year. I've never in my life experienced a "need" for it as I do with cigarettes and I've seen others with alcohol or cocaine.
The legalization model that doesn't allow commercial promotion of drugs, and that treats addiction as a medical disease (not a criminal one) is the appropriate one for modern society in my opinion.
On this, I believe we agree. However I'd also include in the model a case where the recreational drugs are only produced by companies licensed to do so (no home growing of marijuana or production of LSD); they are taxed sufficiently that the government receives money that can be used to help those who do abuse them (as with alcohol); and a legal age assigned to use (keeping it the same as alcohol would make sense simply for ease of enforcement; and the reasons for the alcohol age limit generally also apply directly to other recreational drugs).
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Hahahahahaha, you call that payback? Thats some pretty limp whining, APK. You bet I can take it! Especially if all your attacks are as clumsy and ill-aimed as you've managed thus far.
As patiently explained earlier, I've merely responded to a single one of your whines and have used a couple of your other posts as examples. Apparently you're a touch delicate as answering your snivelling questions is enough to traumatise you into accusing me of stalking you. Poor baby, I pity you: life must be a bit tough for you.
Nothing you say here detracts from your own towering hypocrisy. You the stalker, you the wailing sook, you the predictable man-child, you the hypocrite accusing me of both stalking and AC sockpuppeting when I've demonstrably done neither and you continue to engage in both behaviours.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
read em and weep while you eat your words http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3406867&cid=42701491 your post history shows the rest
No, it couldn't. Capitalism has lots of problems, but producing poverty and restricting liberty are generally not among them. Socialism does have some real benefits, but it has even higher costs. A country can choose whether it wants to be Cuba or the US, but it can't choose to have Cuba's level of equality with America's wealth and liberty.
You may not like them, but low taxes, high inequality, and high CEO pay certainly are sustainable. Why wouldn't they be?
(And you should really read some economically more sound literature; the pages you point to are full of basic errors.)
I'm not sure what you're getting at. People who make such statements generally imply that it would be better if US "dog-eat-dog style of unbridled capitalism" were more like European "highly socialised democracies". Is that what you were trying to get at? There are several things wrong with that analysis. First, the US is itself a "highly socialised democracy", with a vast social safety net. Americans have a significantly higher standard of living than Europeans, and lower absolute poverty. Also, Europeans are nowhere near as happy, educated, or well off as they or Americans seem to think they are. And the social safety net in Europe is not all it's cracked up to be either, and it's busting European budgets. For the US to become more like Europe would mean a significant decline (and that's the direction Obama's progressivism is taking the nation).
That view of government is what monarchists, fascists and socialists have held for centuries: we are looking for the right kind of "good government" that can then help everybody. The problem with it is that it doesn't work with real human beings in the real world. There is a long string of historical failures, and economists and social scientists have a pretty good idea of why it's failing.
"Welfare" comes in many forms, and many people do exactly that: many corporations, union members, farmers, government bureaucrats, and other groups manage to lobby government instead of contributing productively. Note that this isn't a left-vs-right issue: when people complain of "corporate welfare" or of "political union corruption", they are both right.
We shouldn't let people starve, and we should make sure everybody has a basic education and basic health care. But that can be done with a fraction of the entitlement spending we (US) or Europe is spending right now. Most government spending in the US and Europe goes to groups who really don't need it, but have the political power to push it through.
We shouldn't let people starve, and we should make sure everybody has a basic education and basic health care. But that can be done with a fraction of the entitlement spending we (US) or Europe is spending right now. Most government spending in the US and Europe goes to groups who really don't need it, but have the political power to push it through.
Let me first say that I totally agree with this statement. I think you're right on a lot of points, however:
First, the US is itself a "highly socialised democracy", with a vast social safety net. Americans have a significantly higher standard of living than Europeans, and lower absolute poverty.
This is something I absolutely can not believe without seeing some figures. I've been to the US many times, and I live in Europe. There are parts of Europe that are relatively poor, yes; but the largest and most populous areas all seem significantly better off than I've seen in the US. I see and hear of very few homeless here; the "poor" can get by without working themselves to death with 2 (or more!) jobs; and people here seem to be a lot happier than most of the people I met in the US.
Purely anecdotal of course, since I haven't looked up the figures. I'd invite you (or someone else) to do so though if you're going to make claims that fly in the face of my (and many other people's) experience.
It is of course worth noting that both Europe and the US have different areas with different levels of wealth. It's not fair to compare downtown Manhattan with downtown Bratislava; but it's also not fair to compare rural Germany with rural Arkansas. Any kind of comparison should be fair about exactly who and what is being measured.
My personal view is that the "ultra rich" in the US tend to be FAR richer than the "ultra rich" in Europe, while the poor tend to be poorer than in Europe (on average) and there's also a greater percentage of them. So simply taking averages (mean) can often be deceptive.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Here's a simple number that sums it all up; it's median equivalized household income, meaning it's not sensitive to outliers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
There are lots of other statistics you can look up yourself, but they all end up pretty much telling the same story. Except for Luxembourg and Norway, Americans are economically better off than even well-performing European nations, and economically far better off than Europeans as a whole. Another way economists like to look at this is how people spend their money; there are consistent patterns depending on the standard of living. The richer you are, the less you spend on food, for example. That also pretty much gives the same result.
I know what you mean, but you can't judge standard of living that way. Cities like London, Paris or Berlin look nice and well-maintained, but that doesn't mean that the people living there are well off. Many of those destinations are also highly subsidized, at the expense of the rest of the country. On the other hand, just because people look like bums or their homes look like dumps to you in the US doesn't mean those people are poor. And I suspect that you tend to meet young people who tend to be just out of college and have lots of debt in the US; they quickly get richer, but then probably don't have time to hang out with European tourists anymore.
He did get quite the reaction from you troll so it is effective.
Here's a simple number that sums it all up; it's median equivalized household income, meaning it's not sensitive to outliers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
Thanks for the link, however I might point out this from the wikipedia article you referenced:
Please note that the amounts shown in the following table are not "median household income" figures as defined by the U.S. Census, since median equivalised disposable household income reflects an amount remaining for spending or savings after deduction of taxes and other social contributions, according to the Eurostat definition.
To me, that makes this chart somewhat less useful for defining anything about standard of living and quality of life. The "deduction of taxes and other social contributions" varies wildly in many countries and also what is seen for that money also varies a great deal. Since a typical American will pay for many different kinds of costs from his AFTER tax income; and a typical European pays with them in BEFORE tax income; this needs to be taken in to account when looking at "take home pay".
I know what you mean, but you can't judge standard of living that way. Cities like London, Paris or Berlin look nice and well-maintained, but that doesn't mean that the people living there are well off. Many of those destinations are also highly subsidized, at the expense of the rest of the country.
I'm sorry but that's utter rubbish. The "moderately wealthy" in Europe don't tend to live in those big cities since they're scummy stinky hellholes (sorry to anyone living there...). Most of the really nice places in Europe are specifically outside of the big cities. Sure, the big cities have some nice "old quarters" where all the tourists go, but get away from that and they're really nowhere near as nice as the smaller towns for quality of life (especially things like larger apartments with all the modern trimmings - the big cities tend to have small, cramped apartments that haven't been renovated in over 20 years). If we were subsidising the cities, I'd expect them to be at least somewhat nicer than the rest of the country!
And I suspect that you tend to meet young people who tend to be just out of college and have lots of debt in the US; they quickly get richer, but then probably don't have time to hang out with European tourists anymore.
Well, I work for a large international company for the European HQ. When I first met colleagues from our US headquarters, it surprised me to see their comparatively low standard of living compared to my own (in fact, other than larger houses; I really viewed them as doing quite poorly compared to myself). I can't judge for a whole country, but I can at least say that the impression I got is that my own personal standard of living is higher than that of the person who does my exact job in the US; and for that matter, his boss as well.
And even if we were to take the chart you gave at face value (which I do find hard to do), you did originally say "Americans have a significantly higher standard of living than Europeans, and lower absolute poverty." (emphasis mine). The values I see there hardly qualify as "significant".
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Oh, don't worry, we save lots of money by eating roadkill and shoving our old people off cliffs, so that makes up for it. Really, where do you get your "information" about the US and other European nations from? Pravda? Or do you just make it up out of thin air yourself?
Let me translate those "insignificant" numbers. A 20% difference (UK) amounts to about 10-40 years worth of growth at Europe's anemic growth rates, and a 40% difference (France) puts the median at the US poverty line.
Well, and I was actually living and working in Europe for a dozen years, paying European taxes, getting European healthcare, living in European homes, watching European TV, and paying into European retirement plans (a really bad deal). When I moved to Europe, I actually believed all this stuff about a better standard of living, an educated and cultured populace, and liberal attitudes. At first, couldn't figure out why reality differed so much from the image Europe projects of itself, but after looking at the economic numbers, it became quite clear.
A friend of mine was convicted weeks ago and he was a user of Silk Road. It had nothing to do with the website but because he got lazy, stopped encrypting his SMS, didn't bother to use TOR some of the time and stopped using Truecrypt on his hard drive. Not to mention he let other users know who he was in real life and when they fell out it was blasted over Facebook that he was a drug dealer.
He'll be doing 2 years of a 4 year sentence in prison with plenty of time to think about how stupidly lazy he was.
Oh, don't worry, we save lots of money by eating roadkill and shoving our old people off cliffs, so that makes up for it. Really, where do you get your "information" about the US and other European nations from? Pravda? Or do you just make it up out of thin air yourself?
Woah, that's quite a strawman you built there. I never said the US was "poor"; just that I dispute the differences you're trying to assert.
You never actually denied what I said though - is it or is it not true that there are many things that Americans pay out of post-tax income that Europeans typically pay out of pre-tax income? If this is true, then that must be taken in to account when looking at post-tax incomes as a comparative factor, otherwise the European incomes appear artificially lower than reality.
As for "where I get my information" - I quite clearly said that it is all anecdotal from experience and I do not have any hard figures to back it up. If you or someone else presents me with figures, I'll be happy to have learned something. The figures you provided thus far though appear to have a bias that I'd like to be able to correct for (or easier: see some figures corrected for this) if we're going to have any kind of meaningful exchange.
There are two additional things that I think must also be taken in to account with the numbers.
First is the concept of using the "median" when looking at income. In my understanding, the distribution of income in Europe is a lot flatter than in the US. A waitress here probably earns more than a waitress there (although tips do make that harder to calculate with any kind of certainty); but a CEO there earns significantly more than a CEO here. This can move the median quite significantly (in either direction for either side). If you for example imagine that 60% of the households in Germany earn the equivalent of $21500 per year, and 40% of people in the US earn $10000 per year with the rest over $25000. The median in Germany will be $21500; the median in the US will be over $25000 but overall quality of life is generally speaking better for Germany (yes, that is arguable; but from my point of view, having less people at the level of poverty that causes additional crime is definitely an improvement of quality of life). This is of course a drastic oversimplification, but does highlight that median is not a good measure.
The second thing that I think is important with the numbers you provided is that it's household income. It makes no distinction between a family where one person works and a family where both parents work. Many people (including myself) consider it much better "quality of life" to have a parent at home with the children than to have two parents working. This could dramatically effect the household incomes figures, while not indicating a better standard of living in the higher income figures.
Well, and I was actually living and working in Europe for a dozen years, paying European taxes, getting European healthcare, living in European homes, watching European TV, and paying into European retirement plans (a really bad deal). When I moved to Europe, I actually believed all this stuff about a better standard of living, an educated and cultured populace, and liberal attitudes. At first, couldn't figure out why reality differed so much from the image Europe projects of itself, but after looking at the economic numbers, it became quite clear.
I'm sorry if your experience in Europe wasn't particularly pleasant. There are nice places and horrid places all over the world - including of course both in America and in Europe. So far, my experience here in Europe (6 years in Germany this time around so far (and probably the rest of my life) and 1.5 years last time when I lived in the Netherlands)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
No, it is absolutely not true. And it shouldn't need disputing. When someone with a reasonable education claims the earth is flat, do you bother "disputing" it, or do you just laugh? Go look it up.
You have lived in Germany and you believe that people in Europe don't have to pay for their health care out of their salaries?
Well, gosh, that is why people use the median: it is insensitive to the kind of difference in income inequality ("high CEO pay") people love to complain about. And frankly I doubt you'd even be able to tell a European and a US income distribution apart.
Yet, you yourself observed that the homeless and poor are primarily an issue of urban environments, both in the US and Europe. Did you live in US suburbs? In mid-sized cities and towns? You know, where most middle class Americans actually live? Do you know why US cities have so many street people?
The quality of life in New Zealand is extremely high, because it is beautiful, has a great climate, and is sparsely populated. However, its standard of living and economic opportunities are not so great. I mean, did you come to Germany for the nice beaches?
Which part of "There are lots of other statistics you can look up yourself, but they all end up pretty much telling the same story." was so hard to understand?
I'm not trying to persuade you of the correctness of my data, I'm challenging your assumptions and suggesting you to go out and educate yourself. If you're not willing to do that, nothing I can say is going to convince you.
He did get quite the reaction from you troll so it is effective.
What a retard. You accuse me of using troll AC accounts (which I haven't - I don't need to hide in disgrace as you do, APK) then procede to do the JUST THAT against me.
You sad old cunt.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
He did get quite the reaction from you troll so it is effective.
How do I know it's APK posting this drivel?
Easy. He still thinks I'm stalking him. Despite having it explained to him multiple times, he still doesn't understand that I'm actually just answering his own question. Therefore, you think I'm stalking him. It's basic logic, really.
Pity you fail logic, APK.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Tell us how yer words tasted since ya hadda eat 'em http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 Sardaukar86?
Tell us how yer words tasted since ya hadda eat 'em http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 Sardaukar86?
Tell us how yer words tasted since ya hadda eat 'em http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 Sardaukar86?
Prove I had to eat them, cocksucker.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Ya prove it yerself by "eatin' yer words" 250:1 here http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 Disprove apk on hosts files over adblock, ghostery, & dns http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3445509&cid=42831729 then. How'd yer words taste when ya hadda eat 'em Sardaukar86 on that very same sentiment from you only to have yourself outnumbered nearly 250 to 1? ROTFLMAO!