T-1000

I am curious as to the position of people here regarding raising the debt limit and whether to default on existing debt.

Then the only solution is to require Tor to log all of its users ie. names and addresses available for law enforcement inspection, and to require Tor to restrict access to illegal websites (such as SilkRoad, child porn sites, terrorist websites, etc). I do not think this is an unworkable law, or an overstepping of power. This is the police protecting people from terrorism, child porn, contraband, etc.

I am not a technical person but I guess banning Silk Road would involve the authorities taking control of the domain name, after getting permission first by a court of law. I don't want to consider Bitcoin for the time being, I am trying to specifically gain your view on the Silk Road. Should I take your answers to mean that you think the Silk Road shouldn't be banned?

Shall I take your answer to mean that you think the Silk Road shouldn't be banned?

I'm getting logged out of the chatroom every 30 seconds. It says I have an invalid IP address. I'm in the UK, so it can't be a Florida only issue.

The Silk Road is a platform which has not been banned. 99% of what people sell on it has been banned though. I ask again, do you think the Silk Road should be banned? PS. I want to ban bitcoin, not any of those other things.

OK, but what is your opinion on the Silk Road? You say you don't think about it, but I invite you to think about it. Do you think it should be banned? Or regulated? Or is it fine and should be left alone?

Erm, as you can see I am enquiring specifically about the Silk Road now. Before it was Bitcoin in isolation. Nice contentful post you made there though, well done.

I am also against the "War on Drugs". I also don't do drugs. But it is clear to me that the ONLY and STATED purpose of the Silk Road is to buy contraband. It should be shut down. I ask you about this because you avoided the Silk Road issue in the above discussion which to me is the main issue here. That is what gives Bitcoins value. So I invite you to think about the Silk Road.... do you think it should be shutdown?

Grames, what do you think of the Silk Road, and do you think it should be shut down?

I am not suggesting that don't worry. On a side note, I have found precisely zero people on this forum who agree with Peikoff on this issue. I find this strange to say the least.

In reply to your very last point, pornography is not illegal so therefore nothing. But one of the big uses of the internet is to distribute terrorist recruitment videos. If it got to the point where 99% of the activity on the internet was for illegal purposes such as this then yes I would ban the internet. 99% of the activity on Bitcoin is to purchase contraband. Therefore it should be banned, or regulated such that the illegal activity disappears. You will not address the meat of this topic - I direct you to the newstory again - http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/silkroad/ If you goto the poster page of The Silk Road - http://silkroadmarket.org/ - (you need Tor and another URL to access the actual site) you will see they are even linking to the Bitcoin forum and having open discussions there. This is my last post on this topic. I have noticed that a lot of Objectivists are libertarians/anarchists/gun nuts/. I've just had a discussion in the chat where I've been defending Peikoffs anti-immigration viewpoint. It seems that people here cannot accept that it is RIGHT to promote government intervention in certain contexts. Out.

I put it to you that you are a libertarian. You use the non-initiation of force principle (NIOF) without regard for context. In the context of certain military operations the government can pre-emptively strike (ie initiate force before the other side does). In the context of nuclear weapons in the hands of a normal citizen, the government can legitimately prohibit this. Each of the previous sentences was started with "In the context of", so this is not ethical intrinsicism. Libertarians hate premptive military strikes (look at Cato.org), and prohibition just as you seem to hate it. So I hope you see why you are coming across as a libertarian to me. I put it to you that most of the big users of Bitcoin (in its current form) will be criminals. In this context, how can you justify not either 1)banning it 2)regulating it (eg require Bitcoin exchanges to validate and log postal addresses of users)?

I agree with Objectivism, ie within a free society it is permissible for the government to prohibit anything that threatens national security. Now will you answer my serious question? I ask because I have debated people here only to find out later they are libertarians or anarchists.

This is false. For example it is completely moral to have prohibition of nuclear weapons. Or anything else that threatens national security. Such as bitcoin. Serious question: Are you a libertarian or an anarchist?

If it were just drugs, then you are right. But bitcoins are/will be used to fund terrorism and to launder money from the proceeds of non-drug crime. If you want to help terrorists then allow bitcoin. This is a terrorists wet dream. I would have no problem with bitcoin if each coin was tagged with the name and address of each of its owners on a central database that was accessible to the police who had a search warrant. This is acceptable in a free society for the same reason that govt can pass a law to require stricter security at airports than the airports themselves would like. This is a matter of national security so privacy can be reasonably lifted.

I agree that drugs shouldn't be illegal. However the fact that they are illegal means that my respect for the rule of law makes me condemn those who deal them. I am not an anarchist, and to not condemn law breakers would make an ass of the law. The fact that the law IS an ass sometimes and has non-Objective laws, means that we need to campaign to change the law. Yes, cash is anonymous but it has to be withdrawn from a traceable bank account, it is much less anonymous than Bitcoins. Besides, cash makes up only a fraction of the money supply, a bigger fraction is made up of non-anonymous electronic funds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_supply.svg). The fact that you think my opinion is strange Gramlich, goes to show the extent of libertarian/anarchist ideas prevalence within Objectivist thought. To the extent that this is true, it is a shame.

I think Bitcoin should be outlawed because of its anonymity. It is already being used to sell illegal drugs online, it is only a matter of time before it gets used to launder money from the proceeds of crime or to fund terrorist activity.

Bold mine: I completely disagree with you guys on this. What you are saying is essentially the No True Scotsman fallacy. Obviously people can agree with Objectivism and then change their minds. To say that they never truly agreed with it because they changed their minds is clearly a logical fallacy.

I think it would be immoral of you to work for the charity if you don't support its goals. If you don't care about helping the "underprivileged" and the charity supports the underprivileged then working for them would be immoral. At the very least you are going to have to lie to get the job (which is immoral) since they are not going to hire you if you don't care about their goals and all you care about is the pay.

*** Mod's note: Merged with an earlier topic - sn *** A new experiment has been done in which "The trajectories of the photons within the experiment - forbidden in a sense by the laws of physics - have been laid bare." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13626587 What is a reasonable interpretation of these results?

In the case of Zuckerberg (or any other lie that involves billions of dollars) is it really better to maintain one's self respect than lose out on the opportunity? Isn't it worth the cognitive dissonance and distaste of lying in order to gain a billion dollars? I think I'm beginning to see why lying is wrong. I think my problem is something to do with me having an abstract idea of ethics in my head that is separate from how I act in real life, ie not putting into practise my ideas. But I'm still not completely clear on this.

I agree that material values chosen must be accordance with the facts of reality. I'm not sure I agree that cheating to gain such values once chosen is against the facts of reality. The liar is acknowledging all facts of reality himself, but occasionally presents certain facts as otherwise to other people. An example would be Mark Zuckerberg. The man is clearly a productive genius who has created billions of dollars of value for himself and his customers. However he is also a liar. If it wasn't for a few well chosen and well timed untruths, he would have forgone billions of dollars as other people beat him to setting up Facebook.

Something is a value if it objectively furthers one's life as man qua man.

I agree. However I am not defending the principle that it is in everyone's self-interest to cheat strangers. I am arguing that it is in MY self interest to cheat strangers.