Interesting piece

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Examining the hidden side of the net and particularly the Silk Road and how it relates to a libertarian world
http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/on-the-high-seas-of-the-hidden-internet/


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[Jamisjockey]

You fail. You know why?  Because all those things that relate to the silk road are illegal, they will continue to be run by criminals.  Just like cartels.
In a "libertarian" world, I'm walking down to the street corner to buy my drugs at the local pharmacy with my bitcoin.  Without taxes.
Maybe the ideals that created silk road were libertarian, but until the activities that are conducted there are legal*, it will always be the type of thing that is run by criminals. 

*Barring the trade in STOLEN property.  See, us libertarians don't believe in theft as a libertarian value. 

[MicroBalrog]

There is that branch of libertarians whom Rothbard used to refer to as 'space cadets'. People who believe that you can invent some kind of technology that will 'obsolete' the state or make it go away.

Bitcoin and encryption are just one more iteration of this technology that is supposedly going to obsolete the state. Previously you could see people on the internet arguing cold fusion, 3D printing, space exploration will do it (and there are sci-fi novels about it).

It will not. People on a gun forum of all places, where we all know guns are morally neutral tools, should understand that the idea is bogus.

The only thing that will make oppression go away is if you persuade enough people to have a philosophical reconsideration of what role the government is playing in people's lives. Even then, you're never going to have a society that is libertarian in all its aspects, because perfection is unattainable.

[zahc]

The only thing that will make oppression go away is if you persuade enough people to have a philosophical reconsideration of what role the government is playing in people's lives

Even this is wishful thinking,  because adults cannot be changed in their ways. Ideological shifts happen through generational turnover. This is why government schooling is so vital to the propagation of the State.

[Scout26]

Perhaps the OP needs to learn a bit more about libertarianism, as he clearly fails to grasp the concept.

HINT: It's about a lot more then making illegal drugs legal.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Wow, that must've hit a nerve...

Never mind the politics for a moment.  Focus on the  business side of things.  The author is exactly right on the business side of things.  

For commerce to take place there must be trust.  Trust comes from identity and reputation.  In the real world this is easy.  Government takes care of identity, and reputation takes care of itself.  Government stands ready to enforce contracts and basic laws, but in the vast majority of cases this is unnecessary.  Reputation, linked to identity, provides all the incentive necessary for honest dealing.

On the Silk Road they found a way to provide reputation without real-world identity.  That was their great success, but it wasn't enough.  It seems obvious in retrospect, but reputation alone isn't worht much without a link to real-world identity (and real-world consequences for abusing reputation).

Whatever else the Silk Road may have been, it was an interesting experiment.