> it's bizarre to see yourself "progressing humanity" while working on something completely opposite..
I'm very ambivalent about sites like the Silk Road, but I'm sure some people view them as progressing humanity.
If you see it as a platform that enables "evil" activities, like illegal gun purchases, then it might be regressing humanity.
Alternatively you can view Silk-Road-like websites as disrupting existing illegal markets by moving them from the street to the internet. This enables these services to be offered with less violence, more competition, better "regulation" (banning frauds, community checking quality etc.), etc. With the primary market apparently being drugs, it seems likely that these online platforms save more lives than they cost.
Then again, more readily available drugs likely decrease humanities overall productivity. Depending on what "progressing humanity" means to you, that's bad.
It's a complicated subject, but as far as startups go it has some very compelling arguments why it is progressing humanity (even though the counter arguments are surely not without merrit).
I am extremely skeptical that silk road like sites reduce violence to any significant degree. I'm under the impression that most of the violence is further up in the supply chain.
I'd suspect they likely do reduce drug deaths and fraud, though. Their escrow and reputation systems guarantee that the vast majority of drug sales are pure products and at the correct dosage listed.
I don't know about that. I think it's pretty common for people to build up a strong rep and then at the end pull off a big scam before re-registering as someone else.
I'm very ambivalent about sites like the Silk Road, but I'm sure some people view them as progressing humanity.
If you see it as a platform that enables "evil" activities, like illegal gun purchases, then it might be regressing humanity.
Alternatively you can view Silk-Road-like websites as disrupting existing illegal markets by moving them from the street to the internet. This enables these services to be offered with less violence, more competition, better "regulation" (banning frauds, community checking quality etc.), etc. With the primary market apparently being drugs, it seems likely that these online platforms save more lives than they cost.
Then again, more readily available drugs likely decrease humanities overall productivity. Depending on what "progressing humanity" means to you, that's bad.
It's a complicated subject, but as far as startups go it has some very compelling arguments why it is progressing humanity (even though the counter arguments are surely not without merrit).