A couple nights ago I came across and read a two-part article in WIRED about the rise and fall of Silk Road and it's founder, Ross Ulbricht. It is a dark and harrowing account of how a mild-mannered engineering student in his late twenties created a one billion dollar a year underground online empire for the sale of illegal drugs, crime, and black market contraband.
But it started innocently enough. Ulbricht's strong libertarian ideals motivated him; it was never really about the money (Ulbricht was pretty frugal, living with roommates in San Francisco), but the movement. Free choice and liberty without interference was everything, and a noble vision--keep people from resorting to risking their lives buying contraband on the street. Silk Road was in many ways the epitome of a frictionless marketplace where people could be free to do as they liked, "as long as it didn't impinge on anyone else's freedom."
Ulbricht made it clear that was not an entirely free-reign cornucopia of anarchy. He wrote the rules, central being to "treat others as you would wish to be treated." But like so many revolutionaries before him, the idealist became an ideologue, and his lack of a moral compass and the blurring lines between the online world and that of reality made rationalizing the need to put murder-hits-for-hire out on competitors easier.
A couple things struck me reading this incredible and disturbing account.
One, his family and friends maintained his innocence. "Ross is such a nice guy," they said, "he wanted to make the world a better place." He was an Eagle Scout, mild mannered and sensitive. "Ross is a hero!" one sympathizer at his trial yelled. Institutions and government were the problem, which is why he was "creating an economic simulation to give people a firsthand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systematic use of force."
Two, the rise and fall was astonishing for how fast it took place and how fast things started to get out of control, the spotlight it shown on the elusive and sinister "dark web", and how much money it generated. But the story was also boringly predictable. Like Che Guevara or other brutal revolutionaries, his youthful ideology divorced from objective morality laid the groundwork for the ends justifying the means. He thought the revolution and overthrow was just around the corner, and that rules and laws didn't apply to him. Now he's in prison serving a life sentence.
Third, money is a powerful force. One of the undercover agents himself was indicted on charges of theft and money laundering, despite having re-committed his life to Christ prior to getting on the case. "How easy it is to forget the solidity and consequences of the real world when you live online."
Finally, I shared a lot of traits with this young man. We're close to the same age. Same kind of background and upbringing, both Penn State grads. Fueled by idealism, taking things to extremes, and a desire to see change in the world. Reading the account was like watching "Into the Wild," about Chris McCandless' life and death in the Alaskan frontier, fueled by the same purist idealism. I cried in the movie in the last scene, when he is starving to death in the bus, emaciated and covered in diarrhea, because I saw in it my own death, a death that could have been mine.
Honestly, some days I think I am a Christian for no other reason than it is an anchor that keeps me from going off the deep end (some of my friends might argue its too late for that, lol) like these young idealists. A kind of beach grass in the dune, the roots of which keep the sand, my life, from eroding away. It's about survival. Of course its more than that too, but when you are susceptible to being swallowed up by your own personal dark web, you learn to hold fast to what keeps you afloat, even if it means being seen as somewhat rigid or somewhat uncompromising. I don't pray or go to church because I'm some Ned Flanders kind of guy--I pray so that, as Christ said, I might not undergo the test (Mt 26:41).
We all have our dark webs of the heart, the places we go to indulge in what we see as a harmless and frictionless libertine marketplace of sin and licentiousness. When one is bereft of a moral compass, ideology can take a dangerous turn. And when you have plumbed the depths of your own sinfulness--despite your loving parents or your nice suburban upbringing or your Eagle Scout badges--in places so dark that there's in perceptible way out, and you know your potential for destruction despite being "such a nice guy" or "wanting to make the world a better place," light and order look pretty good, something worth holding to when you finally are pulled to the surface by a benevolent hand. If only we knew who was fighting for our soul, and how cunningly he tries to slip it from us...well, you would hold on tight too.
But it started innocently enough. Ulbricht's strong libertarian ideals motivated him; it was never really about the money (Ulbricht was pretty frugal, living with roommates in San Francisco), but the movement. Free choice and liberty without interference was everything, and a noble vision--keep people from resorting to risking their lives buying contraband on the street. Silk Road was in many ways the epitome of a frictionless marketplace where people could be free to do as they liked, "as long as it didn't impinge on anyone else's freedom."
Ulbricht made it clear that was not an entirely free-reign cornucopia of anarchy. He wrote the rules, central being to "treat others as you would wish to be treated." But like so many revolutionaries before him, the idealist became an ideologue, and his lack of a moral compass and the blurring lines between the online world and that of reality made rationalizing the need to put murder-hits-for-hire out on competitors easier.
A couple things struck me reading this incredible and disturbing account.
One, his family and friends maintained his innocence. "Ross is such a nice guy," they said, "he wanted to make the world a better place." He was an Eagle Scout, mild mannered and sensitive. "Ross is a hero!" one sympathizer at his trial yelled. Institutions and government were the problem, which is why he was "creating an economic simulation to give people a firsthand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systematic use of force."
Two, the rise and fall was astonishing for how fast it took place and how fast things started to get out of control, the spotlight it shown on the elusive and sinister "dark web", and how much money it generated. But the story was also boringly predictable. Like Che Guevara or other brutal revolutionaries, his youthful ideology divorced from objective morality laid the groundwork for the ends justifying the means. He thought the revolution and overthrow was just around the corner, and that rules and laws didn't apply to him. Now he's in prison serving a life sentence.
Third, money is a powerful force. One of the undercover agents himself was indicted on charges of theft and money laundering, despite having re-committed his life to Christ prior to getting on the case. "How easy it is to forget the solidity and consequences of the real world when you live online."
Finally, I shared a lot of traits with this young man. We're close to the same age. Same kind of background and upbringing, both Penn State grads. Fueled by idealism, taking things to extremes, and a desire to see change in the world. Reading the account was like watching "Into the Wild," about Chris McCandless' life and death in the Alaskan frontier, fueled by the same purist idealism. I cried in the movie in the last scene, when he is starving to death in the bus, emaciated and covered in diarrhea, because I saw in it my own death, a death that could have been mine.
Honestly, some days I think I am a Christian for no other reason than it is an anchor that keeps me from going off the deep end (some of my friends might argue its too late for that, lol) like these young idealists. A kind of beach grass in the dune, the roots of which keep the sand, my life, from eroding away. It's about survival. Of course its more than that too, but when you are susceptible to being swallowed up by your own personal dark web, you learn to hold fast to what keeps you afloat, even if it means being seen as somewhat rigid or somewhat uncompromising. I don't pray or go to church because I'm some Ned Flanders kind of guy--I pray so that, as Christ said, I might not undergo the test (Mt 26:41).
We all have our dark webs of the heart, the places we go to indulge in what we see as a harmless and frictionless libertine marketplace of sin and licentiousness. When one is bereft of a moral compass, ideology can take a dangerous turn. And when you have plumbed the depths of your own sinfulness--despite your loving parents or your nice suburban upbringing or your Eagle Scout badges--in places so dark that there's in perceptible way out, and you know your potential for destruction despite being "such a nice guy" or "wanting to make the world a better place," light and order look pretty good, something worth holding to when you finally are pulled to the surface by a benevolent hand. If only we knew who was fighting for our soul, and how cunningly he tries to slip it from us...well, you would hold on tight too.
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