4 ms·
This guy's whole viewpoint seems to be pinned on "it's not addiction if it's not negatively affecting the rest of your life" (yes, I know this is a major criter
by throwaway0a5e 6y ago
This guy's whole viewpoint seems to be pinned on "it's not addiction if it's not negatively affecting the rest of your life" (yes, I know this is a major criteria for a lot of medical diagnosis, addiction included).
The problem is that what it takes "negatively affect the rest of your life" depends a lot on what role you have in society.
Short of pornography producer, fantasy fiction author, songwriter and other professions where copious drug use fit one's "brand image" or potentially enhance one's work, a tenured college professor gets about about as much leeway from the rest of society as a white collar professional can get. He can be "eccentric" and nobody blinks twice. But for other professions the standards of behavior are different (and generally get more permissive as you go down the economic ladder).
Defining the difference between acceptable use and addiction, and by proxy who's problems are bad enough to be considered problems and therefore in need of solving in a way that is relative to one's place in society is very dangerous. If you're blind in one eye you're still blind in one eye even if it doesn't negatively affect you. Addiction (and a multitude of other conditions) are the same.
- pessimizer 6y agoThis is not about refusing people treatment who want it, this is about not forcing treatment on people who don't.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> a tenured college professor gets about about as much leeway from the rest of society as a white collar professional can get Doesn’t this bolster the argument that the principal damage from this type of drug use is social, not chemical?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago>Doesn’t this bolster the argument that the principal damage from this type of drug use is social, not chemical? Most people would rather not be debilitated than have society be accommodating.
- altcognito 6y agoA better way to say that is that if the tenured professor accidentally takes 5mg more, or has an off day, he doesn't kill somebody while driving a truck, or someone who programs a circuit wrong and causes a dump of chemical into a water supply.
- vmchale 6y ago> This guy's whole viewpoint seems to be pinned on "it's not addiction if it's not negatively affecting the rest of your life" (yes, I know this is a major criteria for a lot of medical diagnosis, addiction included). That's what distinguishes dependency from addiction. I think he's glossing over the fact that some drugs can be addictive, which is a thing on its own, aside from promoting happiness.
- wuxb 6y agoThe time axis is incomplete. It's just 5 years "without problem".