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How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
- icpmacdo 9y agoI think Reddit is interestingly a net social positive. For all the bad things that come out of it you can often see users helping others in a pretty significant way.
- selectodude 9y agoNo different than anything involving humans. I think people hate Reddit or twitter because raw humanity is mostly good but sometimes awful.
- wutbrodo 9y agoI dislike Twitter because the medium is so crappy,and has crappy effects on discourse. By contrast every summary dismissal I've heard of reddit revolves around overgeneralizing from portions of raw humanity, as you say.
- harlanji 9y agoMost of my major life breakthroughs have been supported by communities on Reddit. Career, health, hobbies, you name it. Lots of irrational hate on there, but the irrational love is why I keep going back.
- et-al 9y agoReddit does pretty well as a conversational medium, but not for a medium to retain information. Unlike a traditional forum with long-running threads that get bumped to the top, many subreddits suffer from newcomers asking the same questions every other week (there's only two stickied threads, and people usually don't bother with the wiki). In addition, the notion of karma encourages unwanted behavior like recycling content. The ease of use of Reddit can't be emphasized enough, though. Before, you'd need to find a host for your forum, then set up phpbb. And users would need to sign up for a bunch of different forums. Now, one can set up a new subreddit in seconds, and users can join without going through a new account flow each time.
- ue_ 9y agoPerhaps it's also worth talking about imageboards. Imageboards also suffer from newcomers asking the same questions, though this is mitigated by third party archive sites and encouragement to use them, to the point in which a common reply to a newbie question will be "search the archive". There are only about 15 pages of threads (with about 10 threads on each page) active at a time, which is significantly less than on a subreddit. You cannot reply to deleted threads, but individual threads can reach around 350 replies if they're baity/good. Imageboards have no notion of karma, except social. You usually (save for boards with in-thread IDs) can be an expert on one topic in a thread, then ask a newbie question later on, letting you also play devil's advocate. This is because you can be anonymous. But if you want to attach your name to your posts, you can do so securely using a code which nobody can replicate unless they also know the password to generate it that you know (a tripcode). People who use tripcodes are frequently derided (such as by being called "tripfags"). Imageboards are relatively easy to use. You post a thread using a form at the top of each board page, and reply to a thread using the same form at the top of the thread page, which is accessed by clicking "Reply" displayed next to an individual thread on the board pages. Imageboards usually host multiple boards. 4chan for example has a board for most topics people are interested in, from anime, technology and toys to papercraft, transportation and the paranormal. Within these boards, it is common to have "general" threads in which they act like miniature boards, threads created for just one topic, however they are not moderated, as they are set up by regualar users, so they can go off-topic. For example, /g/ (the Tech board) has a frequent general thread called "/tpg/ - Thinkpad general" in which people can talk about IBM Thinkpad laptops. Multiple people can create topical threads with the same subject line. Other imageboards let you create your own board, the most prominent example of which is 8chan; by creating a board you become its moderator and administrator, subject to the global rules of the website, of course. Imageboards, like Reddit, have a feedback loop in which commenting in a thread will bump it to the top of the board, so people viewing the first page of the board will see that thread. Unpopular threads tend to fall in ranking until they are eventually bumped off the board by a new thread. To avoid participating in the feedback loop, you can "sage" a thread, which is to post in it, but not bump it to the top. But most importantly I will reiterate - imageboards are anonymous, there are no accounts, and there is no barrier to participation except maybe feeling bad because you haven't lurked enough. I'm not the first to talk about the virtues of imageboards over traditional forum stoftware (phpBB, Reddit, etc.): https://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/shiichan https://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/shiichan And this is of course ignoring that you can use an imageboard to host a personal blog, by only allowing a pre-defined administrator tripcode to post, and to set new replies to not bump threads. It's a real shame the flourish of earlier imageboards died, as they were often home to quality discussion.
- komali2 9y agoI dislike Twitter because I don't fucking get it. I feel like everybody here in the Bay Area "gets it" but me. They're all telling eachother their twitter handles, posting announcements on twitter, asking questions and actually getting answers there, wtf, I don't understand! I probably should have taken the time to engage with it in the beginning so I could know the basics of how it works, how to speak to followers, etc. Now I'm somehow just an old techno-phobic fart at 26.
- j2bax 9y agoI'm right with you. I have no regrets about not getting in on it though. I have enough time sucking scrolling addictions.
- Pxtl 9y agoEvery anonymous, troll-heavy forum will eventually chase out the moderates and only the most vile people will remain. Saying that it's just humanity is unfair to the people who used to like a forum and then left it behind when it was no longer worth fighting for. Various subreddits are slowly being taken over by racist agitators who know how this works.
- pat_space 9y agoI don't think of Reddit as a single entity, but as a platform for communities(subreddits). The differences between subreddit communities are vast, ranging from 100% toxic to 100% positive.
- BoratObama 9y agoMy view of reddit has changed similarly. I think of it as something similar to vBulletin or bbPress with r/all or r/popular as a flagship gateway to subreddits. And recently I purged all my subreddits and started from scratch to build a better reddit experience geared towards self improvement and a more wholesome experience. No more toxic communities. I look for niche communities with civil discourse and common interests.
- pat_space 9y agoGood call - I've done the same myself. As someone who grew up heavily invested in niche forums, I've found subreddits becoming their replacement in my adult life.
- fav_collector 9y agoHow do you find these less popular subreddits?
- irrational 9y agoI don't know if you are interested in board games, but I have found r/boardgames to be incredibly wholesome and nice. It's just a pleasant place to visit.
- bri3d 9y agoI started thinking of Reddit that way, but once you start thinking about it that way, it's a pretty crappy software solution. A platform for diverse communities with a single SSO solution and frictionless cross-community posting combined with limited moderation features, poor ban capabilities, and easy discovery? That's not a good software recipe for a community to become empowered or build their own space at all.
- vinhboy 9y agoI used to think so. I enjoyed Reddit a lot, despite people complaining about it. Then /r/the_donald happened. Now I tread carefully because you never know what kind of propaganda is being spread around. People say stick to the subreddit. But I think that's silly. If the core of Reddit is rotten, then the subreddit themselves will be affected. It has happened to places I visit like /r/environment. There is a constant barrage of non-environmentally friendly comments. Not enough to change the overall makeup of the subreddit, but enough to make you wonder who is on the other side of the screen voting or down voting on stories. Then there are places like /r/technology, which is almost intolerable to me at times. People say I am paranoid, but like with anything, if you know a place well and visit it for years, you can sense when things change. And yes my opinion is subjective, but this is a subjective topic.
- rifung 9y agoWhat bad things have come out of it?
- bredren 9y agoThis isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but the sheer number of people and crawlable public content it is an ever-growing training dataset for AI. This has potential to be dangerous.
- komali2 9y agoIf you are going to make that point, you must concede the equal potential for it to be the opposite of dangerous (vergy very good :P )
- stevekemp 9y agoBoston bomber(s) witch-hunt, springs to mind. Not to mention the whole jailbait expose.
- lsmarigo 9y agoReddit has some fantastic and fascinating communities and really interesting cult-like ones (/r/nofap) However I'd like to point out the admin policy towards hate groups and speech on reddit is in my opinion incredibly dangerous and damaging to our society. They will take action against subreddits like FPH (fat people hate) because of "real life" actions, meawhile there are thousands of highly upvoted calls to violence daily. Is this just a reflection of our society? Probably but I'm always interested to see which sites allow what. Here's what Jack Dorsey had to say about it regarding twitters ban on hate speech "Abuse is not part of civil discourse. It shuts down conversation and prevents us from understanding each other. Freedom of expression means little if we allow voices to be silenced because of fear of harassment if they speak up" As a minority I've stopped using reddit and know many others like me, the ones that stay stick around to drop in "As a [insert minority group]...it's totally OK that this racist meme is highly upvoted with racist comments - because its a joke ha ha" posts The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as another poster argued. Is it fair to say it's their responsibility to police society when they just run the platform? Probably not, but I do know there's a big problem here and it's causing immense damage daily, racism and xenophobia are on the rise.
- eagletusk 9y agoI concur r/nofap is an amazing sub-reddit where random people are genuinely offering encouragement to each other. It's great.
- Simon321 9y agoWell said.
- DanielBMarkham 9y agoViolent, hateful, disgusting speech has no place in civil discourse but it's irreplaceable in public discourse. That's kinda the problem. As a species, our entire communications spectrum can't be forced into either bucket. It has to exist in both. The kind of things I wouldn't tolerate at all around my family I'm fine tolerating around my friends. And the kind of things I wouldn't tolerate from a friend I'm fine tolerating as part of the public discourse. In fact, the last thing we want to do is use either minority or majority power to silence what folks consider "intolerable" speech. That way lies dragons. It's a difficult if not impossible spot for social networks to be in.
- clamprecht 9y agoYou basically justified the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. You have to take the bad with the good, because we don't all agree on what's good.
- discodave 9y agoFirst amendment only applies to what the government can do. Private companies like Reddit, Facebook and Google have no responsibility to let you speak on their platform. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment The key word is "congress" which can be broadly interpreted to mean the government, but not private corporations or individuals.
- Ajedi32 9y agoFree Speech != The First Amendment The First Amendment is just a law which prevents the US government from restricting Free Speech. Free Speech itself is a principle which can be applied anywhere.
- clamprecht 9y agoYou're absolutely right, I didn't mean to imply that Reddit is in any way bound by the First Amendment. I meant to say that with free speech, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoI agree in general, but some communications platforms (like Reddit, and like Facebook...and probably like HN) can be more or less accomodating of "echo chambers" that validate and magnify extremist viewpoints. On the other hand, similar effects can nourish minority cultures and communities...it's a hard problem. I agree that free speech is a good thing, and I think that "You have to take the bad with the good, because we don't agree on what's good" is a broadly useful philosophy. But systems which take in both bad and good, and strengthen the bad more than the good, are themselves bad.
- fav_collector 9y agoIt's organized well for finding information but it lacks the "human" element in a social community. You're just anonymous person #4214 who's interested in cars or football. In the good old days with forums, people were recognizable with avatars and signatures. People chatted about everything, not just the topic at hand, so the personality of each person had a large spectrum. The communities were small enough where people formed an identity and reputation. Many times they even connected their real life identity in "post your picture" threads. Reddit has effectively killed many forums without replacing that human community aspect and it's kind of sad.
- pivotal 9y agoThis is an interesting thought. The nicest communities on reddit I've encountered tended to be small or to have a small "core" group that all knew each other and were highly visible in the community. /r/running for example, when I regularly read it, had daily threads where the main people chatted about all sorts of things. It felt very homey, reminded me of when I read obscure usenet groups as a kid. I wonder if there's space for forums with purposefully limited membership where people could get to know each other on that more intimate level. I know you could always set up your own private forum for your friends, but maybe as a service.
- fiatjaf 9y agohttps://spectrum.chat/ https://spectrum.chat/ ?
- MrBuddyCasino 9y agoSlightly off-topic, but here are some spectacular photos taken in Appalachia: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdxvx8/two-days-in-appalachia-0000687-v22n7 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdxvx8/two-days-in-appala... You'll never forget Tammy.
- OscarTheGrinch 9y agor/stopdrinking is also a very supportive community.
- corndoge 9y agoThere are tons more of these forums and Reddit is probably the least trafficked out of all those I know about.
- tantalor 9y agoElaborate.
- virtuexru 9y agoThe fact that fentanyl (which is 100x more powerful than morphine) is so readily available/mixed with common drugs across the United States is excruciatingly horrifying.
- fapjacks 9y agoKratom saves lives.
- gooseus 9y agoIf that's true, then perhaps you should put some links to good resource explaining what it is and where to get it? Also maybe something indicating why and how it saves lives, any studies on people who kicked opiates using kratom and can attest to it's life-saving properties? I know people who use kratom and they have good things to say, but I've known people who say the same thing about x, y, and z supplement/nootropic whatever.
- Dirlewanger 9y agohttps://reddit.com/r/kratom https://reddit.com/r/kratom
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoBe Fucking Warned https://www.reddit.com/r/quittingkratom/ https://www.reddit.com/r/quittingkratom/
- fapjacks 9y agoYes, some people seem to go overboard no matter what the chemical. There are some sad stories in there of people that can't control themselves. Sort of highly, highly addictive personalities. There are some similar stories for people quitting caffeine, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoThat doesn't really fit with my experience. I was a heavy user of alcohol, cigarettes, and occasionally even tried cocaine. Quitting all of those had extremely minimal effects on me physically or mentally. Getting off Kratom resulted in something like a flu that lasted 2-3 weeks. And I wasn't taking an especially high dose, and I had only been using for 3 months.
- gooseus 9y agoWhat I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Billions of dollars of private research being poured into self-driving cars by our greatest minds and millions of dollars in lobbying against gun laws all in the name of preventing unnecessary human deaths... yet according to Ben Bernanke (and his references), opioid overdose killed more people in 2015 than automobile accidents and firearms related crimes combined [1]. I'm curious whether the disproportionate concern has more to do with the perception of drug addicts as weak and deserving of their fate or because they're not a group that can be profited from politically or commercially or is overdosing just not as easy to solve as gun crime or automobile deaths? Personally, I find all those excuses to be sad and bullshit so I'm hoping it's something else entirely. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/es_20170626_whengrowthisnotenough.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/es_2017...
- mobiletelephone 9y agoAutonomous cars have benefits beyond being safer, which would explain why the investment outweighs the deaths/year
- aaronbrethorst 9y agoA couple notes: 1. The opioid crisis is getting a lot of airtime in the media outlets that I read. 3. The opioid crisis is one of the biggest reasons why the Senate's Trumpcare bill is now dead, and was also a major topic of discussion in the weeks leading up to its unexpected loss this week. In short, its drastic cuts to Medicaid would have decimated opioid treatment in some of the states hit hardest, and Senator Capito of West Virginia, at least, would have voted against it because the $40-odd billion dollars that Mitch McConnell would've specifically allocated to opioid treatment would have been a 'drop in the bucket.' Here's some earlier discussion of this point: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/capito-says-opiod-treatment-carveout-not-enough-sway-vote-obamacare-repeal http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/capito-says-opiod-treatment-... So, all said, maybe find some new sources of news and discussion? edit: here's a new wire article from the AP that just crossed my RSS reader: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/democrats-trump-action-opioid-crisis http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/democrats-trump-action-opi...
- mherdeg 9y agoNot covered in this Guardian article: the somewhat scarier /r/opiaterollcall (recently banned) and /r/cripplingalcoholism (not scary, just a discussion forum). I have been consuming reddit via the https://www.reddit.com/r/all/gilded/ https://www.reddit.com/r/all/gilded/ feed and it is just WILD what kind of weird and worrying stuff is going on.
- JTon 9y agoWhat took place in /r/opiaterollcall and why was it banned? EDIT: Looks like it was a place to connect opiate buyers and sellers
- awkwarddaturtle 9y agoOne of the bigger subreddits for many years is /r/trees which "promotes" marijuana and they haven't banned that sub even though marijuana is illegal in most states and most countries. Reddit has really gone downhill ever since they turned into a nanny forum where they arbitrary enforce rules.
- tnecniv 9y agoI remembered when I joined, /r/marijuana was a default subreddit...
- SquareWheel 9y agoDrug culture and drug markets are two completely different ball games. Banning the latter is hardly inconsistent behavior.
- mherdeg 9y agoWhen I stumbled across it a month ago by following a user's comment history, it looked like a very sparsely populated forum with monthly posts in each US state offering information about "friends" in each state or region. To my recollection, each post contained replies listing a username and perhaps a region of the state where they were available, and each post had upvotes or downvotes as well as some replies saying how "friendly" each listed username was. All other conversation other than "friends" and ratings seemed to be swiftly deleted and users were encouraged to move to reddit private messages. At the time reading the content naively I thought it was people looking to use heroin together more safely, but now I'm thinking it was probably people looking for heroin dealers. Here's a screenshot of the subreddit rules (from Google cache): http://i.imgur.com/2PKOr7B.png http://i.imgur.com/2PKOr7B.png I don't think I took a good screenshot of the forum's contents before it was banned. I think it was active for several years.
- unabridged 9y ago>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as another poster argued. This is the road to censorship, burning books, and confiscating servers. Some people are fine with censorship, because they imagine people who think like them as the censors. You can only fight ideas with better ideas. Kicking them out and silencing them, says to them you can't compete. You can't offer them an argument as to why they should tolerate foreigners, other races, etc. It seems obvious to you now, but the ideals of tolerance and equality took years and years of discourse to dominate public consciousness.
- pyre 9y ago> You can only fight ideas with better ideas. The problem with this is that human beings will reject ideas that don't agree with what they want to hear, like the populations of coal towns in Appalachia that want to blame "Liberals" for their lot in life because they've hitched their wagon to the (dying) coal industry and don't want to change. It's like the Simpsons Principal Skinner meme. "Could I be wrong about something? No! It's definitely everyone else that is wrong!" Also, ideas don't woo people in and of themselves. Why do you think that charismatic leaders can swap entire populations to follow horrible ideologies that offer simple and easy solutions to their problems by throwing other people under the bus to pave the way to a better future for a select few?
- unabridged 9y agoEmpty charismatic leaders only work when there is no good alternative offered. People are rational, they rejected Clinton because her policy was a continuation of Obama's 8 years. And in those 8 years the quality of life in Appalachia has not improved. Coal to them is a dream, its the last time people in their family and towns had money to spend and were happy. Telling them their glory days ruined the planet is not a way to convince them of anything. The problem with Appalachia is that nothing short of basic income will save them. No rational investor is going to build any new manufacturing there. And even if they extract natural resources, it will be done with 1/1000th of the workforce and the value will flow right to the pockets of a large corporation with shareholders far, far away. So in effect almost every major politician is lying to them (and they know it) so they are willing to try anything.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tigershark 9y agoIf you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.
- dionidium 9y agoIf you really understood addiction, you'd understand that this is like saying that you don't want to treat someone with cancer, since they seemingly insist on recurring time and time again even after chemo and radiation, continuing to have cancer until their death. But, of course, you're not thinking of addition as a medical issue. You're treating it like a moral failure.
- tigershark 9y agoI have never heard about anyone that healed spontaneously from cancer just because of the will power to stand the pain. I heard about lots of people that managed to overcome the withdrawal pains and stopped being addicted. Your comparison is completely inaccurate.
- sethjgore 9y agoYour a troll
- TheLilHipster 9y agoI usually wouldn't post this sort of stuff, as it is a pretty taboo opinion that just gets buried. But If I don't get any discourse, I can't learn anything or have my opinion changed, anyway here we go... > If you really understood addiction. I hear this dismissive retort a lot in the addict community. It's nonsense. If you can't empirically analyze, measure and explain "what its like", or defend your view-point rationally - then you've lost. The attitude of "You just don't get it man! you need to be an addict to understand what its truly like" is complete and utter self-victimization bullshit. > But, of course, you're not thinking of addiction as a medical issue. You're treating it like a moral failure. I treat is as both. I guess it depends on your virtues and morals, but in my eyes; logic and rationality comes first. Responsibility lies in the human being behind the labels. Within the journey of addiction, there are many moral struggles and choices that you'll need to make (avoiding taking action on a difficult choice, is still a choice). Sure, physical addiction is fucked and withdrawals are fucked. But the second you commit an evil deed to feed your addiction, I lose all sympathy. I'd rather spend my time helping those that deserve it, than those that need it - I guess that's the crux of my perspective. Maybe its a little harsh as there are (assumption) a lot of quiet, functioning addicts that just meld into society. I don't have enough information to form a legitimate opinion on that specific subset. My distaste for addicts are purely those that have run the gauntlet and have traded in their morals, decency and humanity in ugly ways to satiate their vice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg
- rhcom2 9y ago/r/darknetmarkets was a really interesting place after the Alphabay shutdown too. A lot of opioid addicts very scared about their supply and withdrawal symptoms.
- unionjack22 9y agoI can't recall a similar degree of concern and push for treatment during the crack/cocaine epidemic in the 80-90's and the meth epidemic of the 00's. What is it about the opioid/heroin epidemic that differentiates it from those prior?
- cprayingmantis 9y agoIt's because opioids are legal. Anyone can obtain them with very little effort and they don't have to worry about being 'caught'. The only way to get meth or crack was to engage in an illegal transaction. Now you don't have to be a criminal to be an addict and I think that scares people (Although nothing has really changed other than society's view of it).
- _acme 9y agoIt's no longer 'very little effort' to get a doctor to write for an opioid.
- slfnflctd 9y agoEvery single one of these threads or news articles blathers on and on about how all these clueless/evil doctors are hand-in-hand with Big Bad Pharma just tossing opiate prescriptions at everyone who walks in the door. At this point it's ridiculous, because the few outfits who did anything like this stopped or were shut down years ago. The pendulum has swung in the other direction-- doctors have been inundated with the 'crisis' message and are terrified to prescribe any strong pain or anxiety meds to anyone. It was once routine for me and others I know to be prescribed hydrocodone for conditions like painful seized muscles, root canals or severe strep throat. We were apparently all in the ~80%+ who used it as intended and stopped. It worked great! No one I know has received an opiate for those conditions in a very long time. They all tell you just take ibuprofen now, which is completely insufficient. So what to people do instead? They drink or turn to illegal drugs. Functionally banning drugs does nothing to fight addiction, and in some cases can make it worse. Sorry to rant, but I have both seen and experienced the hell of untreated pain due to skittish doctors. The cowardice and misinformation resulting in such direct harm really angers me.
- Animats 9y ago“Around my area, I believe a lot of people use [opioids] out of boredom. There’s no jobs, no way to have fun besides video games and riding four-wheelers and motorcycles. There’s nowhere to go except a run-down mall over in another county.” Sizable numbers of people get into opiates out of boredom? I thought this was driven by people with chronic pain.
- jonknee 9y agoA lot of people with chronic pain are also bored (can't work).
- DanBC 9y agoAbout 8% to 12% of people prescribed opioids long term will become addicted to them. The US prescribes far more opioids than any other developed nation. These two combine and there are a bunch of people without addiction, but with spare pills. Those pills have a market value, and so they get sold. Or relatives of the patient find the pills and take them.
- Grangar 9y agoThen there's also the issue of getting addicted to prescribed pills.
- cwsx 9y agoA lot of people get into DRUGS out of boredom. When drugs can be used to change how you feel people often will to escape negative feelings. Replace boredom with depression, anxiety, pain, it's all similar. It's all about escapism.
- ryfm 9y agoi stopped smoking thanks to r/stopsmoking. 500 days and going strong.
- NotSteve 9y agoI quit coke thanks to /r/stopspeeding (and some other things in real life). 71 days sober
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- socrates1998 9y agoI wonder if marijuana legalization is inversely correlate with this issue? As in, the areas that have legalized marijuana have seen a drop in opiates?
- averagewall 9y agoIn the HN-popular utopian future where automation has made most people unemployed and living on UBI, we're supposed to be able to pursue our dreams without the pressure to feed ourselves. But in reality, many people don't have dreams or the motivation to pursue them and end up as drug addicts/alcoholics/gangsters which is just easier. I used to laugh at the idea that people need jobs to feel fulfilled. I thought those must be quite helpless people who can't even make their own hobbies. But from personal experience, I found that dreams are for young people and people with demanding jobs. They're a grass-is-greener fantasy when they're out of reach but deteriorate into boring unrewarding work when you actually do them. Working for a company is especially fulfilling because you more productive than you can be on your own. You feel more useful. You feel important and needed. So I think the idea of widespread happy unemployment isn't going to work. It might still happen but I think it'll be a tragedy, not a paradise unless we can find something else that takes the place of work.
- spectrum1234 9y agoExactly!
- Bakary 9y agoI don't understand why there aren't more people aware of this potential tragedy. There are few substitutes for the feeling of being socially useful.
- sangnoir 9y ago> But in reality, many people don't have dreams or the motivation to pursue them and end up as drug addicts/alcoholics/gangsters You seem to be suggesting that one can't simultaneously have a job and dreams and be an alcoholic/drug addict/gangster. This is sloppy logic Edit: Your perspective also explains why society hasn't addressed alcoholism and drug addiction for so long: to you, the alcoholics and addicts are an entirely separate group from upright, hardworking, motivated, dream-pursuing "normal" people.
- hectorr 9y agoFulfillment is a hard thing to quantify. Maybe unemployed people feel bad because they aren't doing anything, or maybe they feel bad because there is nothing for an unemployed person to do when everyone is working. Maybe they feel bad because other people make them feel bad for being unemployed, through their pity or indifference or even well meaning attempts to help. You are completely right that it sucks to not have a job, but its possible that's a reflection of how social life is structured and not some biological Protestant work ethic. Right now "I work at X company" is shorthand for "I am a a productive member of society". That certainly benefits companies and certain types of people. But it's not the only imaginable value system. And I suspect that people who feel valuable are a lot less likely to find solace in bottle of pills.
- nickeleres 9y agoI just scoured that sub for 30 minutes and all I saw was people bragging out their pills, showing off their heorin, and fantasizing about using Fentanyl....
- VonGuard 9y agoI am almost ashamed to admit I have read these forums for years as a sort of exercise in voyeuristic schadenfreude. I just love reading about drug culture, watching drug movies, etc. Just like I love gangster movies. I can't explain it. A few things I have learned: /r/glassine is probably the most interesting. They rate heroin bags in the Pittsburg area. It's supposed to be for everywhere, but it's mostly Pennsylvania /r/opiates is a place where addicts confide in each other and practice harm reduction. They do not source. They tell hilarious, sad, amazing stories. Lots of personal confessions and "whole life of an addict" style narratives. Overall, a good community for addicts to find a safe space, instead of a place that hounds them for not being in recovery. /r/stims is where the meth heads hang out. Occasionally you get these great "I'm on meth and here's everything in my mind right now" text barfs, but mostly I feel like this is an empty sub /r/researchchemicals is where people discuss Shulgin chemicals and beyond. /r/drugnerds is amazing. Papers. Lots of them. /r/drugporn is where people post photos of their drugs, and then a week later the picture is taken down because Missoula Police saw it and arrested them through the GPS sig in the photo. /r/noids is where people discuss synthetic cannabinoids, which are horrible. Never use these. The rabbit hole goes very, very deep. Check /r/DarkNetMarkets/
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- provemewrong 9y agoMe too. Besides what you mentioned, I'm particularly fond of /r/mdma, /r/psychonaut and /r/rationalpsychonaut (for discussions about psychedelics sans spirituality and religion). Also /r/nootropics. And /r/drugs in general. Don't forget /r/trees, which is of course the gateway subreddit, but it's rather boring in comparison.
- Grangar 9y ago/r/cocaine is another pretty decent one. Mostly people posting pics of lines but there's the occasional announcement of quitting where people get really supportive
- naiveattack 9y agoTED: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_y...
- RealityNow 9y agoWhat is the solution to this opioid epidemic? As an outsider not well-versed in this topic, my guess is that the root cause here is hopelessness, struggle, and boredom caused by poverty and unemployment. The solution then would be to employ people and give them a sense of purpose, or at least get them out of poverty. I'm a huge proponent of a universal basic income (UBI), though I'm not sure that a UBI would fix this problem. Thus it seems as if some sort of government jobs program may be necessary. Giving people meaningful well-paying jobs in science and technology would do wonders in getting people off these ridiculous addictions.
- zer0tonin 9y ago> The solution then would be to employ people and give them a sense of purpose, or at least get them out of poverty. The jobs are gone. Now it's time to stop marginalizing and treating jobless people like parasites. This would help more.
- abrkn 9y agoIn other news, Hansa Market, a Dark Web Marketplace, Bans the Sale of Fentanyl[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/business/dealbook/hansa-market-a-dark-web-marketplace-bans-the-sale-of-fentanyl.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/business/dealbook/hansa-m...
- member221 9y agoMy husband is 80 years and has been suffering from PD for the past 15 years. Lately he started hallucinating and I didn't know how to handle the situation. He cannot sleep and tried to find and catch the imaginary people who he thinks are real. he was taken Entacapone with Levodopa, Carbidopa, and Pramipexole and started physical therapy to strengthen muscles. nothing was really working to help his condition.I took him off the Siferol (with the doctor’s knowledge) and started him on parkinson’s herbal formula i ordered from Health Herbal Clinic, his symptoms totally declined over a 5 weeks use of the Parkinsons disease natural herbal formula.i read reviews from other previous patients who used the herbal formula, my husband is now active, he can now go about daily exercise!! his symptoms so much reduced that now I hardly notice them.Visit there website www. healthherbalclinic. net or email Info@ healthherbalclinic. net
- member221 9y agoMy husband is 80 years and has been suffering from PD for the past 15 years. Lately he started hallucinating and I didn't know how to handle the situation. He cannot sleep and tried to find and catch the imaginary people who he thinks are real. he was taken Entacapone with Levodopa, Carbidopa, and Pramipexole and started physical therapy to strengthen muscles. nothing was really working to help his condition.I took him off the Siferol (with the doctor’s knowledge) and started him on parkinson’s herbal formula i ordered from Health Herbal Clinic, his symptoms totally declined over a 5 weeks use of the Parkinsons disease natural herbal formula.i read reviews from other previous patients who used the herbal formula, my husband is now active, he can now go about daily exercise!! his symptoms so much reduced that now I hardly notice them.Visit there website www. healthherbalclinic. net or email Info@ healthherbalclinic. net
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