Silk Road forums
Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: Sputnik2785 on March 03, 2012, 11:43 pm
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I was doing some thinking last night and came up with this little idea for SR. I propose a new vendor lockout sometime in the not to distant future for SR. All the vendors that are currently operating within the existing SR can remain and preserving the original SR microcosm indefinitely. However all new vendors will be required to join "Silkroad 2", just a copy of the original SR with a little bit different look and feel, etc. Once it has been populated to the same capacity as the original SR it too can be closed off and the process repeated once again. I figured this system would reward longtime venders and keep disruptive/destabilizing elements to a minimum.
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Heh, go back to the bong.
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Change is inevitable, and only comes when necessary, I wouldn't worry about it!
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More generally, compartmentalization is always a good idea since it prevents the good ship Silk Road from sinking if we hit an iceberg!
Compartmentalization is one way to achieve diversification. Diversification is a wise strategy in any business or system of any kind.
However I don't think your idea of implementing it takes into consideration some of the disadvantages. Primarily that 1 person controlling the hidden services is a critical point of weakness, better to have more market based competition or a really loose but densely interconnected framework of some kind (think of the post war Japanese business strategies like Keiretsu).
Vendors are better off adopting a policy of vertical integration to make sure their roots go deep. This is where a vendor controls the means of production and related production as well as the smuggling/distribution of product. Makes a very stable business possible in a rapidly changing world.
The Silk Road corporation should adopt the exact opposite model, a 'wide model', called horizontal integration. This is essentially a highly decentralized method of constructing a system. P2P systems like Bitcoin and BitTorrent are examples of this model in software. They evolve extremely rapidly in response to the environment and I would say they are actually impossible to kill. Kmfkewm's ideas about what the ideal Silk Road should be are essentially heading in this direction. It inevitably means giving up a lot of control however, DPR wouldn't have absolute powers, but in return he'd have sponsored the creation of a new world able to grow beyond recognition in scope and scale.
Once this happens, and it will, even if the Silk Road doesn't follow this model, then it's Game Over for LEO and the Drug War, they will have irrevocably lost for all time. It'll be a Berlin Wall moment in history.
That won't even be the end of it, that's not even the Big Picture, that is just one aspect of a long running historical process, the impact of the Black Market's structure informs the legitimate market too, and it's happening in our lifetimes. Control will slip away from the nation states of the world and world GDP will increase. The city states of the world will adopt different economic and political strategies, and it is they who will be the real movers and shakers, not countries.
There has always been a conflict of interest between the countryside and the city, ever since the markets began three centuries ago they have been gathering the people, the industry, the wealth and power of the world to centralized locations we call cities. Today, the citizens of Beijing, Mumbai, London and New York have far more in common with each other in terms of wealth, health, education and ideologically, than when you compare a citizen in a far flung province with a city dweller. The re-birth of the City State is the logical end consequence.
Markets become more decentralized, Governments and other organizations such as Corporations become more centralized. It sounds like a contradiction but it isn't when you think about it, it's just what has been happening for centuries but it is speeding up faster and faster. There was 1 billion people in the world in 1900, and something like half of them lived in the countryside or small population centers, compare and contrast that to today.
The question you ought to ask yourself, is what is my place in this world?
tldr; The tide is favorable and the wind is in our sails, even though it will be a bumpy ride on this Road.
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Markets become more decentralized, Governments and other organizations such as Corporations become more centralized.
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tldr; The tide is favorable and the wind is in our sails, even though it will be a bumpy ride on this Road.
Pine, you're very insightful. I would have never considered this angle to the discussion at hand. Thanks for provoking thoughts.
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I always feel smarter after reading Pine's answers. Discussions about drugs and an education in economics. Nice! :)
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"Green Road" we run purely on green energy... from hamsters
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"Green Road" we run purely on green energy... from hamsters
Where would we hide the hamsterwheels so that Google wouldn't arrest us?
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If everyone has a hamster running at once we cannot be traced, but seriously sr 2.0 is dumb... just divide up the sections into their respective .onion links or leave it b.e...t.
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If everyone has a hamster running at once we cannot be traced,
OMG delicious delusion!
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More generally, compartmentalization is always a good idea since it prevents the good ship Silk Road from sinking if we hit an iceberg!
Compartmentalization is one way to achieve diversification. Diversification is a wise strategy in any business or system of any kind.
However I don't think your idea of implementing it takes into consideration some of the disadvantages. Primarily that 1 person controlling the hidden services is a critical point of weakness, better to have more market based competition or a really loose but densely interconnected framework of some kind (think of the post war Japanese business strategies like Keiretsu).
Vendors are better off adopting a policy of vertical integration to make sure their roots go deep. This is where a vendor controls the means of production and related production as well as the smuggling/distribution of product. Makes a very stable business possible in a rapidly changing world.
The Silk Road corporation should adopt the exact opposite model, a 'wide model', called horizontal integration. This is essentially a highly decentralized method of constructing a system. P2P systems like Bitcoin and BitTorrent are examples of this model in software. They evolve extremely rapidly in response to the environment and I would say they are actually impossible to kill. Kmfkewm's ideas about what the ideal Silk Road should be are essentially heading in this direction. It inevitably means giving up a lot of control however, DPR wouldn't have absolute powers, but in return he'd have sponsored the creation of a new world able to grow beyond recognition in scope and scale.
Once this happens, and it will, even if the Silk Road doesn't follow this model, then it's Game Over for LEO and the Drug War, they will have irrevocably lost for all time. It'll be a Berlin Wall moment in history.
That won't even be the end of it, that's not even the Big Picture, that is just one aspect of a long running historical process, the impact of the Black Market's structure informs the legitimate market too, and it's happening in our lifetimes. Control will slip away from the nation states of the world and world GDP will increase. The city states of the world will adopt different economic and political strategies, and it is they who will be the real movers and shakers, not countries.
There has always been a conflict of interest between the countryside and the city, ever since the markets began three centuries ago they have been gathering the people, the industry, the wealth and power of the world to centralized locations we call cities. Today, the citizens of Beijing, Mumbai, London and New York have far more in common with each other in terms of wealth, health, education and ideologically, than when you compare a citizen in a far flung province with a city dweller. The re-birth of the City State is the logical end consequence.
Markets become more decentralized, Governments and other organizations such as Corporations become more centralized. It sounds like a contradiction but it isn't when you think about it, it's just what has been happening for centuries but it is speeding up faster and faster. There was 1 billion people in the world in 1900, and something like half of them lived in the countryside or small population centers, compare and contrast that to today.
The question you ought to ask yourself, is what is my place in this world?
tldr; The tide is favorable and the wind is in our sails, even though it will be a bumpy ride on this Road.
Man, this is some heavy shit Pine but 100% true and concisely delivered, kudos. FWIW your thoughts are some of my favorites on here, always take the time out to read them.
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If everyone has a hamster running at once we cannot be traced, but seriously sr 2.0 is dumb... just divide up the sections into their respective .onion links or leave it b.e...t.
x2
its basically what stealth is...
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When i joined S.R. it was the dog's bollocks,now it's just bollocks.All this shadow crap and all.Myself,Friends,Vendors and Purchasers are all starting to head over to BMR.it is now what S.R.used to be like!I think that you need to put it back how it used to be or this ship may as well be called the TITANIC.
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The demand for drugs seems to outweigh the supply so I can understand vendors wanting to go stealth and only sell to a select few. I see Silk Road becoming more and more insular and private and I have no problem with it as long as I'm on the right side of the fence.