Talk:Ross Ulbricht

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

"The secret mentor of Silk Road's mastermind" The Daily Dot, January 2015. Puts the planning for Silk Road as early as '09.
"“We are up to something big”: Silk Road discovers Bitcoin" Salon, May 2015. Brief explanation of how Bitcoin was good for SR (anyone know an article with a similarly succinct explanation of Tor?)
"“I have secrets”: Ross Ulbricht’s private journal shows Silk Road’s birth Ars Technica, January 2015
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested

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Transhumanist views[edit]

Transhumanist affiliations expressed in the film Deep Web Deku-shrub (talk) 23:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Deku-shrub I just watched most of this, and I have not heard the word "Transhumanist" used. Please direct me to the relevant part of the film. Thanks. zzz (talk) 02:17, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

At 1 hour 24 minutes:

RU: You any more questions before we wrap it up?

Interviewer: Yeah, future outlook, what are you going to do over the next 5 years, one sentence?

RU: I'm into a few things so one sentence isn't enough dammit! But I'm pretty sure I want to start a family in the next 5 years.

Interviewer: Nice, okay

RU: And make more friends and close people I love. I want to focus on being connected to people

Interviewer: And 20 years?

RU: 20 years? I want to have had a substantial positive impact on the future of humanity by that time

Interviewer: You think you're going to live forever?

RU: I think it's a possibility

Interviewer: <laughs>

RU: I honestly do! I think I might live forever in some form by that time, technology's changing so fast

Interviewer: Where can I go from there? Sweet

Deku-shrub (talk) 11:42, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This and the ensuing discussion is completely irrelevant. 2600:8802:5913:1700:E813:8D98:4EC7:5FB9 (talk) 09:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I wouldn't call that an -ism. Transhumanism "aims to transform the human condition by developing and creating widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities." (WP). The only "physical capacity" he's alluding to there is the capacity to not die. Maybe "in some form" kind of justifies it. zzz (talk) 12:20, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say he follows transhumanism, simply that he appears to be a transhumanist Deku-shrub (talk) 13:02, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's pretty clearly synthesis. Expressing ideas that are also asserted by the transhumanist subculture is not claiming membership of said subculture, nor are there third-party RSes describing him as a member of said subculture - David Gerard (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Expressing ideas that are also asserted by the transhumanist subculture is not claiming membership of said subculture". You assume the definition of a transhumanist is someone who identifies with the transhumanist subculture. I dispute that definition. Deku-shrub (talk) 18:04, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, to me that doesn't make him a "transhumanist". So we're back to opinion and synthesis. Do you have anything positive that backs the application of this specific label? - David Gerard (talk) 17:20, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My definition of a transhumanist is someone who hold cores transhumanist beliefs with regards to longevity through technology. By that bar he's qualified himself. Deku-shrub (talk) 18:20, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just because he believes or has hopes he might live forever doesn't make him a transhumanist, I very much doubt this discussion will lead anywhere unless additional information surfaces. Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 18:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hoping to live indefinitely through technology is what defines a transhumanist Deku-shrub (talk) 19:51, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLPCAT notes: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." This isn't the case for "transhumanist".

If we can't find the word in RSes, we'll need something citable. e.g. Did he notably associate with transhumanism? Transhumanist forums, etc? - David Gerard (talk) 19:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Again, that's not the definition of transhumanist I'm going by. You do not have to be involved in transhumanist organisations and events to be a transhumanist. I'm driven by the Deep Web (film) interview of which I posted the relevant transcript. Consider it like Deism, you don't have to go to church to be a deist Deku-shrub (talk) 20:33, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That analogy actually goes against your argument, given that WP:BLPCAT specifically says "Categories regarding religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." The essence of BLPCAT is that we really need solid sourcing to put someone in a category, and that quality of sourcing really doesn't seem to exist for labeling Ulbricht a "transhumanist" - David Gerard (talk) 23:56, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Significance of Pacific Time[edit]

An interesting sentence in this article reads "a drug agency investigator infiltrated the site and became an admin, thereby gaining inside information about the site operations, and finding Ulbricht's chats use to be Pacific time, narrowing down his likely location," but its source failed verification. I read through the source and couldn't find reference to this either, but an interview with an Homeland Security Investigations agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan and court transcripts from January 13, 2015 seem to support this (though I can't verify the authenticity of or find from another source).

Page 298
Q. Then in the chat window here, local time, 20:23:05, what does that refer to?
A. That refers to whenever Dread Pirate Roberts would be online, it would show what the local time is for him, and as I understand it, that would be what time was on their computer.
Q. And what time zone was that reflected in?
A. That would be Pacific Standard -- Pacific Time.
Q. Did you set that to Pacific Standard Time, or is that the way it automatically appeared?
A. That is the way it automatically appeared every time you login.
Q. When you chatted with people in other time zones, what time zones did it appear in?
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: Why don't you rephrase that.
MR. TURNER
Q. Would you talk to other staff members through chat?
A. I would.
Q. How would their time zones appear?
A. So when I would talk to samesamebutdifferent, I knew he was in Australia. He would tell me he was in Australia. It would reflect a time zone in Australia. And the same thing with inigo, through the course of the investigation we believed that he might have been East Coast, and it was actually showing an East Coast time zone.
Page 299
Q. Throughout the time when you chatted with DPR through the system, what time zone was shown when you chatted with him or for his local time entry? A. Every time I chatted with him it would show Pacific Time Zone.

A16X (talk) 21:03, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Widely regarded as controversial"[edit]

A recent addition starts with: Ulbricht's sentence has been widely regarded as controversial. The source for the claim of widespread controversy seems to be the Free Ross web site in the next paragraph, which is hardly a reliable source on the question. The quote from Gary Johnson is not in the reference, which merely quotes Johnson's spokesperson saying Johnson "would look favorably on pardoning Ross Ulbricht." The source for the quote is, again, the Free Ross web site: I find it nowhere else except somebody's medium blog post.

I've removed these paragraphs. There may indeed be disagreement about Ulbricht's sentence. But the assertion that this is notable or widespread was not supported. -- M.boli (talk) 19:31, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies. In hindsight, yes, my edits were badly sourced. Although I personally disagree with his sentence, the edits simply were not fit for a Wikipedia article. Legendaryuser (talk) 06:02, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]