Ross Ulbricht started the Silk Road with the intention of quite literally undermining the power and authority of the U.S. government. His stated mission was to completely bypass the United States’ drug laws, create a marketplace the government couldn’t touch, and basically make it so impossible for the U.S. to prosecute the War on Drugs or enforce limitations on what people can put in their bodies that they would just have to surrender and give up.

And the thing about governments, right? Especially very powerful ones. They really don’t like it when you try to undermine their authority—not only break the law, but try to make them look stupid. Governments don’t like to look weak—and for practical reasons. If the authority of the government gets questioned long enough, its legitimacy weakens…