Silk Road forums

Quote from: divinechemicals on September 29, 2012, 08:40 pm

I don't mind the first book or future books being libertarian. If you have a huge issue reading things that you disagree with, then maybe you need to evaluate your own opinions to see how strong they are. It's easy to read a book where you're nodding your head the whole time; it's much harder to do as I am with this libertarian reading, having to really think out the things he's saying to poke holes in his arguments. I love that kind of stuff, mental stimulation and all that. I imagine that in the future we'll have books from all different political spectrums to keep things interesting. I think that religion could be an interesting future topic. Although considering the nature of the site, I think it might be more interesting to get into spirituality from maybe a pantheistic or deistic viewpoint rather than attacking Christianity, because frankly that's been done to death at this point. Although I'm atheist, some of the newer spirituality movements have given me pause, and some of my experiences with psychedelics have led me to believe that pantheism might not be so far from the truth. It would be interesting to explore. But DPR runs the show, so I'll read whatever he wants to discuss. I trust him to pick some interesting topics.

I'd love to see discussion on pantheism cause I'm a pantheist myself

Start a thread!

Quote from: DoctaFeelgood on September 29, 2012, 03:40 pm

Quote from: madera on September 29, 2012, 02:13 pm

Quote from: DoctaFeelgood on September 29, 2012, 04:51 am

I don't think religious assignments fall into any of the categories this club is intended to promote the discussion of.  Sorry.

Religion, society and politics are very much intertwined. A lot of political opinion are directly derived from religious views. I think you can have an interesting debate about religion and politics, without making it spiritual or anything.

but only in certain areas where it overlaps with the material.

Well I for one thought this was going to be a libertarian free for all but it appears DrFeelGood it going to be keeping things strictly to his agenda.

Smacks of totalitarianism to me.

Read my opening post.  There are rules and guidelines to this book club and I expect the doctor to keep everyone on track.  It is not a free for all.  Like he said, if you want to start your own thread that falls under "Philosophy, Economics and Law", then feel free, we won't censor it.

With regard to religious discussions, I think they can mostly fall under the umbrella of philosophy, so if you want to talk about that stuff, feel free to start a thread.

As far as material we'll cover for the book club, we'll see who gets involved and what everyone wants to do.  If I try to cram my view down everyone's throat and no one stays around to play, then what's the point, right?

This topic has been moved to Product offers (https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/index.php?board=5.0).

https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/index.php?topic=46472.0

Legalize drunk driving?!?!?

Ohh boy.. looks like its gonna be interesting!

I can already see the debates!

cant wait..

Oh yea!  We don't mess around.  Controversy is our friend

As a request in the interest of security, can the above link to the book be removed and replaced with a generic non-purchasing reference such as Wikipedia or by stating the ISBN & Author & Title. My point is that we should try to ensure nobody purchases through the recommended link as a series of transactions leaves a paper trail for investigators to narrow down people who they may have a suspect list for.

On the whole, looks like a good great read having just flicked through the first few pages scan reading and looking forward to this whole concept. Will discussions of all parts of the book be brought under this topic so that all discussion on a book is within one topic, or are we splitting it as per the assigned week so the same book may be in several topics if it has been chosen to be discussed over more than 1 week.

We put that link so you could have access to the free pdf.  I don't know of another place where the pdf is, so if you are concerned about being tracked by mises.org, just buy the book from another venue.

We will make a new thread for each week and try to focus discussion about that week's material in it's corresponding thread.  So, any discussion about the first assignment should be in this thread.  Next week, we'll start a new thread for the second assignment, and so on.

DPR is this strictly for debating opinion or can you throw in reference books as well? I might have got access to something a bit special.

The threads for DPR's Book Club will focus on the reading for that week.  If you want to link to other materials during the discussion for reference, that's fine, but we want to always bring the discussion back to the material for that thread.  As far as what we'll be reading goes, I let doctorfeelgood fill us in.  We'll get a sense of the correct pace and content for the group as we go along as well.

Also, you can always create your own threads just like on all of the other boards, but please keep it under the broad umbrella of "Philosophy, Economics and Law."

Thank you for expressing a dissenting viewpoint.  I appreciate a civilized debate, so allow me to respond. 

Silk road is nice because it's a fuck-you of sorts to the powers that be...

...but...

It will have no impact whatsoever on the so called war on drugs. It's not going to affect government in any meaningful way. Agorism is a pretty lame strategy.  It may even backfire (from the point of view of agorists) and cause the government to ban tor or bitcoin or both. Of course it can be done, just ask ISPs to do a bit of traffic shaping.

Lastly, DPR is doing this for the money.

Silk Road has already made an impact on the war on drugs.  The effect of the war is to limit people's access to controlled substances.  Silk Road has expanded people's access.  The great thing about agorism is that it is a victory from a thousand battles.  Every single transaction that takes place outside the nexus of state control is a victory for those individuals taking part in the transaction.  So there are thousands of victories here each week and each one makes a difference, strengthens the agora, and weakens the state.

The state may try to ban our tools, but if we never use them for fear of them being banned, then we have already lost, no?  Personally, I don't think they can be effectively banned at this point.  Iran and China, for example, are actively trying and failing.

On your last point, we agree, though I'd like to add some clarification.  Money is one motivating factor for me.  If it wasn't I wouldn't impose a commission on trades, or require vendors to use the Silk Road payment processor.  Money motivates me for two reasons.  For one, I have basic human needs that money allows me to meet so that I may devote my time to our cause.  I also enjoy a few first-world pleasures that I feel I have earned, but nothing extravagant.  In fact, compared to most I know, I still live quite frugally.  I buy better food at the grocery store now, and got some new clothes, and am more generous with my friends and loved ones, but I've always been a cheap ass, and still kinda am out of habit.  Besides that, I don't want the attention that buying big toys brings for security reasons.

More importantly, money is powerful, and it's going to take power to affect the kinds of changes I want to see.  Money allows us to expand our infrastructure and manpower to accommodate the growing demands of our market and to pursue paths that will compliment and strengthen what's already been created here.

All that being said, my primary motivation is not personal wealth, but making a difference.  As corny as it sounds, I just want to look back on my life and know that I did something worthwhile that helped people.  It's fulfilling to me.  If you don't know this joy, you may hear my words as insincere and as a way to manipulate, but I know they are true and resonate with some of you.  There is nothing wrong with living your life to maximize your own pleasure, so long as you aren't hurting anyone in the process, but you will miss out on higher levels of happiness if your focus is always on yourself.  It's paradoxical, but the less you focus on your own happiness and focus on other's, the happier you'll be.  Try it out, you can always go back to being selfish

awesome, looks like a strong consensus so far.  there is no reason the forums should be faster, so that might just be placebo effect