Cyber-libertarianism: Silk Road battleground individualism vs authority

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-04/stilgherrian-silk-road/4998476

by CPAhem • 13 years ago

35 56 13 years ago

abc.net.au

"as long as we've gathered together in groups to organise ourselves into herds and packs and tribes and villages and nations, as opposed to streaming mindlessly through the oceans like shoals of mackerel"

What? Mackerel? "Streaming mindlessly through the ocean"?

Argument-from-assways-understanding-of-evolution is the new argument from authority, it seems

VMG2• 13 years ago

FTA:

Silk Road and its like must not only be defeated, they must be crushed out of existence and deter anyone from attempting anything similar.

I'm hoping this is satire

Edit: Apparently this is not the opinion of the author. From the comments:

Just to be clear, the sentence you're quoting is not my belief. It's my description of the obvious [?] strategic imperative from the viewpoint of centralist forces should they feel a threat from emerging individualist forces.

lotsofcows• 13 years ago

I'm trying to work out the difference between a herd and a shoal. Fish form hierarchies too.

gum_ina_package• 13 years ago

Is it just me, or does anyone else see not buy into the idea that the Internet is something that's dramatically altering the course of human evolution?

The author seems to think that with so many people being online that humans are evolving into something else and thus the way our society organizes itself is also due for a dramatic change. Personally I don't see things that way, instead I just see the Internet as a logical progression of our communication tools. It's existence, to me, doesn't mean anything more than it makes human's true nature more apparent.

danielweber• 13 years ago

Cooking altered human DNA, so it's possible for societal changes to show up in genes.

OTOH, that was 10,000 years ago, and it takes many many generations for it to happen.

return0• 13 years ago

In our times, it takes only an ethical decision to start producing artificially 'evolved' humans.

mseebach• 13 years ago

Evolution, no, society, yes. New means of communications change the dynamics of how groups and alliances are formed which shapes dissent.

The internet has radically lowered the cost of friction of communication and coordination in all but the smallest groups - in that it shares a lot with the printing press which did much the same thing for printed material.

vbuterin2• 13 years ago

It's not that humans are evolving into something else, it's that the internet dramatically reduces communication costs and allows for levels of cohesion not seen since the village days, except on a global scale. If you try to deeply understand economics (any school), one thing that comes out again and again is that low information is in some sense the root of all evil.

This can even be described formally:

Theorem: given perfect information and zero communication cost, any reasonable decision-making method must produce a Pareto-optimal outcome (ie. one that cannot strictly be improved upon).
Proof: suppose otherwise. This means that the decision-making method in question produced outcome X, where outcome Y would have been possible, preferable to at least one person and unpreferable to no one. By the perfect information criterion, everyone should have realized that this would have happened, and by the zero communication cost criterion everyone would have come together and agreed to produce outcome Y instead. Thus, outcome X cannot have happened.

Note that the above applies to markets, democracy, Reddit-style karma systems and any other mechanism where every individual has nonzero power (so, maybe not pure dictatorships). And the further we fall from this perfect information / zero communication cost ideal, the more all of the various social problems we are familiar with today arise.

Centralized systems tend to historically emerge in low-information environments, as otherwise it's too easy for people to come together and realize that it would be more efficient for them to cut out the middleman. The internet is inherently much more decentralized than the communication media of the 20th century, under which only a few select parties could be broadcasters and everyone else is a passive consumer. Thus, it massively broadens the solution space for methods of decision-making, allowing for the growth of mechanisms that do not rely on central authorities. This is the fundamental insight of so-called "cyber-libertarianism", and applies to governments, large corporations, schools and even families.

pachydermic• 13 years ago

What? Your theorem doesn't even match with the basic prisoner's dilemma. True, in the classic version of this game there's no communication... but the point is the same - just because an outcome is Pareto efficient doesn't mean that it's a stable equilibrium - people's rational self interest can result in worse outcomes. I don't know what kind of economics you're talking about. Most of the absurd simplifying assumptions really have to do with the idea that people have perfect foresight and their statistical guesses are unbiased - and that we perfectly understand variance/risk and all that jazz. It doesn't have as much to do with how we communicate with one another, rather that we are super awesome flawless statistical machines when in reality we all suck at statistics (have all kinds of biases and heuristics to rely on) in every day life.

And just because information is cheaper doesn't mean it's free. At the very least it costs us time - at least in the current form of the internet it's not like there's simultaneous, effortless, instant communication between every human being on Earth. Now that might change things.

But I don't think you fully made the case that the internet is fundamentally different than a "better" or more effective printing press. My point, I guess, is that maybe we approach that zero cost world, but will never reach it. And that there's a fundamental distinction between being at zero cost and being at any positive cost... so that the internet is more like a printing press rather than a zero cost communication mechanism.

fburnaby• 13 years ago

Hmm. I might be a "the internet is altering the course of human evolution" person. But it depends on what you mean by "the course of human evolution".

Do you mean "human evolution" in the typical biological sense, like talking about our genes and our physiology? Or something broader?

I'm pretty convinced that using the Internet has somewhat (not necessarily dramatically, but somewhat) already altered how I think about the world an dhow I see it. Certainly it has altered how I behave and spend much of my time. It also has clearly altered (I'd say dramatically) how we communicate, who we communicate with, and thus also who we consider to be part of our "in-group" (I'm thinking about Peter Singer's expanding circle). That has a huge impact on our moral attitudes, even. Very central changes to what we're like. Some people (I think rightly) consider this to be an evolution, in the broad systems sense of the word.

As for actual biological evolution, I guess that's less obvious to me. But it sure doesn't seem impossible. Yes, the beginning of the Internet is in some sense a consequence of our nature, not a cause. But now that it's here, it can interact with us; it is part of our environment, and could affect our biology. This idea isn't strange to ecologists, who typically refer to it as "top-down" forcing.

So my attitude to this is that, no, the existence of the Internet doesn't only "make our true nature more apparent". Or rather, it makes our true nature apparent in the same way that the elongated shape of some flowers illustrates the nature of hummingbirds (http://www.rubythroat.org/Article860629.html). From that article: "It's obvious that a hummingbird's long narrow beak is an adaptation for feeding on long narrow flowers, but the corollary is also true: There are species of tube-shaped flowers that are adapted for being pollinated by organisms with skinny, tapered mouthparts." I want to say something similar: "Yes, there is an ecological relationship between us and the Internet, and thus the Internet reflects our natures, but it's also its own thing, a part of our environments, alongside which we should expect to evolve."

One interesting advocate of this view is the science historian George Dyson, if you're interested in exploring the idea more.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

I'm in total concurrence with you. I think the major advance was the telegraph or maybe the telephone. Reducing communications latency from 3-5 days to milliseconds.

Technology is great, but people dramatically overestimate how much impact it has on social organization. Look at cities. Cities are the archetypal expression of civilization. How long have cities been built in more or less the same way? They have been recognizably modern for a century (people were coming down from Westchester to work in midtown Manhattan on electric trains 100 years ago), and have been structurally similar for hundreds if not thousands of years.

People were sitting around complaining about taxes and oligarchs during the Roman Republic 2500 years ago.

FBT• 13 years ago

While you make a solid point, I will point out that the newest, hottest technology can make a difference, as in this very case. Silk Road was something new, and different from anything one could do with a telegraph or telephone. For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a effectivly a independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound by any lawmakers whatsoever. It was true anarchy, the kind libertarians dream of, and it worked. The medium of the internet allowed it to run in that fashion, and still be a civil place. For the first time ever, Hobbes was wrong. In the state of nature as it is on the internet life is not nasty, brutish, and short. No one died in horrible fighting and murder on Silk Road, unlike in unregulated areas in real life. (Such as real-world drug dealers.)

the_watcher• 13 years ago

>but people dramatically overestimate how much impact it has on social organization. Look at cities. Cities are the archetypal expression of civilization. How long have cities been built in more or less the same way? They have been recognizably modern for a century (people were coming down from Westchester to work in midtown Manhattan on electric trains 100 years ago).

Cities are still built more or less the same, but the internet has inarguably enabled more people to work in the cities, by making remote work a possibility. Yes, people have commuted to work for years. But how long have there also been people who did not commute, yet still called those who commute their colleagues?

Sagat2• 13 years ago

I don't buy into it because most people don't use it for truly ground breaking projects, but rather as a social themed timewaster. They remain in their small communities (now more of a friends list) and don't "evolve" into a new being or anything like that. Just the old deal with faster ways of communicating.

hershel• 13 years ago

One view of history(and evolution) is that progress enables cooperation at a larger scale: from single cells, to multi-cell organisms, to tribes, to cities and to states, and that those abilities radically change how the world looks.

The internet has defently been a big step in larger(and higher quality) collaborations, so it makes sense it would radically change how the world looks.

Nursie8• 13 years ago

Silk Road did not represent a threat to centralism. If we had legal, government-regulated or government-operated drug sales then SR might have been more in line with what the author thinks.

In reality the government took down a large criminal enterprise headed by an individual who seems to have been engaged in other criminal activity (hiring contract killers).

noarchy3• 13 years ago

Silk Road was criminal because the drug warriors decided that it was. I don't think the only alternative to the punitive system of fines & jails should be a bureaucracy of regulation. The latter is the likely outcome, of course, since legislators have a tough time making changes that don't keep them firmly in charge (or...pretending to be, in the case of the drug war).

Nursie8• 13 years ago

That's not really the argument I was making but it is one I will make.

Where drugs are concerned, hell yes we want regulation and bureaucracy. I want to buy from a store (maybe even a pharmacist) who sells products from a well known, traceable and accountable chemical/pharmaceutical company. I want guarantees from the manufacturer that any contaminants are known, non-toxic and biologically inert. I want someone to sue if it's not the case.

I don't buy alcohol from some forum member with half a dozen good reviews, who claims there's no methanol in his moonshine. I buy it from a store that's well run and well regulated.

Edit: tl;dr - SR, to me, is not even close to a good model for legalised drug sales.

MarcusVorenus2• 13 years ago

I'm not an individualist and I'm a strong supporter of the Silk Road. Drug prohibition is just dumb policy; it doesn't work, it's expensive, it makes drugs more desirable for teenagers and it ends up causing more suffering than if they were completely legal. I'm hoping these anonymous marketplaces go mainstream to force politicians to start thinking about better ways to reduce drug use, such as education and rehab.

atmosx4• 13 years ago

It's still an illegal non-taxed market-place. The fact that we don't agree with a set laws, doesn't make ethical overnight to overstep, break or elude them.

Of course his applies to the financial market also, regulating Wall Street would be a far better good (morally and financially) for the US than any SR clone out there.

The right way to go, is to fight for your policies and vote for them when time comes. Not evading the law or hoping that illegality will reach a scale where the government will be forced to accept it.

On a positive note though, in countries like Netherlands iirc where many drugs are legal, people don't die on the street and drug (as in heroin) addicts have proper med-care if they chose to do so.

noarchy3• 13 years ago

Breaking/disregarding bad laws has sometimes been a very good way to see said laws changed or abandoned. It is probably a safe bet that millions in North America are disregarding drug laws, possibly every day. The black market in controlled substances is a thriving one, showing that many will accept the risks imposed by the State, and participate in that economy regardless. Since those in power are still to some extent at the mercy of needing the consent of those they rule, the people can make a powerful statement by refusing to comply.

a3voices• 13 years ago

The fact that we don't agree with a set laws, doesn't make ethical overnight to overstep, break or elude them.

That's a very controversial opinion. Do you disagree with Martin Luther King Jr.'s tactics in the civil rights movement?

"King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest[74] out of 29.[75]" - Wikipedia

MarcusVorenus2• 13 years ago

Moderation in the pursuit of a better world is no virtue. As a consequentialist, I disagree with your premise that subverting bad laws is unethical behavior.

VMG2• 13 years ago

The right way to go, is to fight for your policies and vote for them when time comes.

Why?

ksrm• 13 years ago

The fact that we don't agree with a set laws, doesn't make ethical overnight to overstep, break or elude them.

On the contrary, the mere fact that something is illegal does not make it unethical.

zamryok• 13 years ago

Different approaches to the question of "HOW to bring about change" (as opposed to just "WHAT change is needed") are the reason so many political tendencies exist. Your approach can be described as reformist, and it surely hasn't always proven to be the "right way to go" (other commenters have mentioned the civil rights movement). On the other hand, "hoping that illegality will reach a scale where the government will be forced to accept it" is a strategy frequently adopted by anarchist, libertarian or autonomist trends that hope to create pockets of resistance outside the "system" and try to expand them to bring about change from the outside.

I doubt that there is only one "right way to go" that applies to any situation, but I think that any tactic that can bring about a powerful long-term mass movement is more likely to succeed: for example in the case of the Civil rights movement mentioned, civil disobedience was only one of the methods used, along with discussions, massive marches, boycotts, threatening escalation, and alliances with certain people within the system who have more access to power and who supported the movement.

Which brings me back to the OP's point: individualism vs. authority. Since I personally believe that building mass movements that support freedoms is the most effective way to protect them, individualism (as a method of organising) seems to be another obstacle to building a strong opposition to authority, and thus indirectly serving it.

scottjad• 13 years ago

MLKJr: "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'"

otikik3• 13 years ago

Words don't make libertarians – actions do. The Dread Pirate Roberts may have talked like a libertarian, but he acted like a thug.

Don't call it "Cyber-libertarianism" when it's only "cyber-drug-dealing".

lmm• 13 years ago

A group is judged by the actions of its members. You don't get to say that a libertarian who does bad things must have been "not a real libertarian", any more than e.g. a $religion can say their terrorists must've been "not real $religionists".

flycaliguy• 13 years ago

Yeah, but isn't taking a hit out on somebody considered an initiation of force? Which if I remember correctly is a distinctly non-libertarian thing to do.

EthanHeilman• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

eksith• 13 years ago

There comes a time in someone's life when it's time to admit that the whole point of assigning a label is so that [whatever it is] which is assigned said label fits under it and all things that fall outside it are ancillary to said label.

Also, please don't follow the Wikipedia link motif. It's extremely trite. If you have a point to make, please use your own words. As you start typing, you may even get a chance to re-examine your own thoughts (I always do).

Sagat2• 13 years ago

Aren't libertarians supposed to consider liberty (whatever that means) as the highest political aim? According to this definition, you can't get more libertarian that Roberts since he put his personal life at risk in order to increase the liberty of a few like minded cohorts.

I support neither drugs, libertarianism nor the Silk Road, but I don't like to see people judging who can or can't be a libertarian based on their own moral preconceptions. The only thing that matters in the definition is how much the individual in question has furthered the goal of more liberty.

otikik3• 13 years ago

I don't like to see people judging who can or can't be a libertarian based on their own moral preconceptions.

I am judging him according to the same principles he said to defend, since he acted exactly like someone who didn't care about them, and was only interested in his personal monetary benefit - even if that meant torturing and murdering others.

Unless you postulate that "He was defending the Liberty of people to say one thing and do the other, regardless of any laws". Then I would have to agree with you.

hackula1• 13 years ago

Libertarians have no problem with someone dealing drugs, in general.

otikik3• 13 years ago

Ah, but not all drug dealers are libertarians. What I'm saying is that according to his actions, which contradicted his words, DPR was all of the former, and none of the later.

anExcitedBeast• 13 years ago

True. We do have a problem with murderers, though.

Cyber-libertarianism: Silk Road battleground individualism vs authority

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