Though I agree with you about the "safer drugs" argument, Ross' site was the worst possible thing that could happen to the supporters of safe, anonymous marketplaces- The evidence that he was willing to use brutal mob-style violence to support his business has yet to be disputed by anyone in a credible way.
His mistake was shitty opsec - he should not have allowed any third parties into a position where they could extort him. However, after the fact, if you're facing someone threatening to imprison and destroy the lives of many vendors and patients, then what is the lesser evil? The extortionist choose to attempt to endanger people. You can't use the state. What other ethical choice is there?
I'm not saying this is the case for Ross, but it's a possibility, at least for one of the contracts. Using violence to protect innocents is not something bad. It's just unfortunate he created the situation in the first place - instead of an extortionist, he may have confided in a LEO, thus hurting his users. (Which is apparently what happened.)
Anyways, the big lesson is that when your startup has major security requirements, go slow and don't break things. There's no real reason he shouldn't be retired now, enjoying his life while enhancing others. Just technical incompetence.
Sorta. But one difference is that Silk Road wasn't out robbing or murdering anyone. So there's no justification in extorting it or informing on it. Where for a gang, an informant might be trying to overall save lives.
Another difference is scale. The extortionist that was after Ross was threatening to leak data on hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Do gangs usually find themselves in such situations?
If a gang is just selling drugs, not otherwise robbing or killing or hurting others, then I'm not very troubled by them killing extortionists, no. I just doubt that scenario makes up a notable portion of gang violence.
I'd be curious to know if there is really an "Agorism 101" type website that says it's preferable for a business owner to use murder as part of their business dealings, as opposed to relying on a central authority to enforce laws.
It's clearly less efficient for all involved, so it's obviously not "preferable". The problem is that all the usual avenues of justice are unavailable.
Basically the argument of the deleted argument was that it's OK to murder people as part of your business dealings if you are operating outside of a traditional legal structure.
Given that he was creating jurisdiction from scratch, it makes sense to compare him to other such entities. USG, for example, will often murder people (overt wars and covert actions) for them simply not wanting to do business.
