Joshuah Bearman on The Rise and Fall of Silk Road
Released on 05/29/2015
It is, in a way, a techno noir, right?
Because it's this crime story with all these twists
and turns, all these unreliable narrators
in this unusual setting, online.
I'm Josh Bearman and I wrote a two part series
about the Silk Road and it's this story about this
illegal clandestine drug bazaar.
Well, it was interesting, Ross Ulbricht who started the site
was a scientist because he got interested in libertarian
economics and wanted to sort of program this experiment.
In a sense, Silk Road was a disruption idea
because Ross used Tor, a protocol that allows you to
basically visit and run a site anonymously,
it was sort of like a hidden Amazon.
It wasn't really hidden, anybody could use it,
but the government couldn't track who was using it
or find it, so you could buy heroin or cocaine
and all the vendors, you could see like
the transaction ratings, like it actually was
a very efficient system, it worked very well.
And I was very sympathetic to Ross when I was writing
and think about what he started, you know,
the promise of youth and the big idea,
like you could see it being very exciting.
You know, it sort of curdled into something else
and also became about ego.
If it wasn't for the murder stuff, I think a lot of people
would be very sympathetic.
It sounds great until you want to put the revolution
into practice, and then all of a sudden, you know,
you're like my idea is so good, I have to kill you, right?
Well, this is kind of a crazy story to report.
This is not my usual type of thing,
ongoing criminal investigation, 'cause that's hard, right?
Nobody's supposed to talk to you
and doesn't want to talk to you.
It took a long time to establish trust in the way
that I wanted to tell the story, which was
as this big narrative about identity
and how moral transformations happen that you can see
over time of all the characters.
It just had more, it was a true crime story,
but also this really human story.
John Cena & Awkwafina Answer The Web's Most Searched Questions
This Craftsman Designs & Builds 100% Wooden Puzzle Boxes
Hayden Christensen Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions
'Critical Role' Cast Answer The Most Googled Vox Machina Questions
TXT Answer The Web's Most Searched Questions
We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island
Historian Breaks Down Napoleon's Battle Tactics
Dream Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions
Valkyrae Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions
How This Woman Creates God of War’s Sound Effects