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Someone in my family died from fentanyl at 26. I knew him since he was a little kid. We don't know if they were aware of the presence of that substance, but the

Someone in my family died from fentanyl at 26. I knew him since he was a little kid. We don't know if they were aware of the presence of that substance, but they certainly were in a higher risk situation. They had a decent life and a loving, if imperfect, family. They just happened to fall into a rougher crowd in middle school and, despite more than a decade of support and help and money, never really broke out of it. One of my last conversations with this individual: they were excited to go to some convention in Minneapolis that was all about mushrooms and psychedelics. What struck me was how excited they were, how into that community they were. I couldn't relate. I thought to myself, isn't there anything in your life more exciting than this? Rewind 12 years, and I also have a memory of his fascination with tagging buildings on YouTube. The art of it aside, I was so struck by his ignorance to the fact that you're damaging someone else's personal property without their consent. To deepen the mystery: I grew up in an unstable household, suffered emotional abuse and physical abuse on one occasion. I remember sleeping at a friend's house for a week and begging them not to call the police. When I look at this deceased person's life, whatever grievances they had, it really pales in comparison to my experience. And yet I never touched drugs. It makes me think some choices are not our own - and if it is predestined in some way at birth, well then yes, more compassion is necessary. Whatever your personal views, it is objectively true that a vaccine would prevent some people from dying, so it's likely a good on balance. I'm sorry for those impacted by this.

jcutrell 4y ago
I appreciate you sharing your experience, but keep in mind two things: 1. It's unclear what your family member was going through. Your own experience is much more salient to you, but battles are more and more invisible to external viewers, so it makes sense that you would characterize your experience as more difficult. It can be true that you had a horrible experience, and so did this person. There's a reason the "walk to school uphill both ways" meme exists. 2. Your sample size here is very small. Even if it is true that your experience was worse (we can't know for sure), your actions in that circumstance shouldn't be generalized to people-in-general, and the same applies for your family member. > It makes me think some choices are not our own - and if it is predestined in some way at birth, well then yes, more compassion is necessary. I'd encourage you to challenge whether predestination / loss of control is the qualifier for compassion. How can we know, for certain, why people make the choices they do? If you were predestined or not, we don't currently have a way to know. Would people deserve compassion if everything they go through is a direct and pure result of their choices and nothing else?
ngai_aku 4y ago
> they were excited to go to some convention in Minneapolis that was all about mushrooms and psychedelics. What struck me was how excited they were, how into that community they were. I couldn't relate. I thought to myself, isn't there anything in your life more exciting than this? Are you always this judgmental of others’ interests? Do you have these feelings towards someone excited about e.g. a new video game or a programming conference?
- mrcwinn 4y ago
  Actually, no. Had he been drawn to a programming conference, I wouldn’t have been able to draw a line between the dangers he’d been near and those interests. But when you see someone in a situation, and see them drawn to the wrong things for the wrong reasons, yes of course it triggers at least concern. I wish a lot I had been wrong.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    I don't think it's fair to conflate mushrooms and psychedelics with Fentanyl.
    - jcutrell 4y ago
      On the one hand, you're absolutely correct. On the other hand, there is some overlap in classification here: experience-altering substances. OP's intuition is, "this person's entire mental interest pool is consumed by some form of escapism." There's some fallacy in this equating, but the heuristic isn't way off.
  - jcutrell 4y ago
    Also a note of caution... You could easily fall prey to confirmation bias on this one. Their interest in shrooms or psychedelics isn't necessarily a straight line to fentanyl. Plenty of people have one without the other. I have a lot of interest in psychedelics (haven't tried it myself). How would you know if my interest is "for the wrong reasons"? And, what level of judgment clarity is required to know if the reasons are wrong, right, or neither?

jcutrell 4y ago

I appreciate you sharing your experience, but keep in mind two things: 1. It's unclear what your family member was going through. Your own experience is much more salient to you, but battles are more and more invisible to external viewers, so it makes sense that you would characterize your experience as more difficult. It can be true that you had a horrible experience, and so did this person. There's a reason the "walk to school uphill both ways" meme exists. 2. Your sample size here is very small. Even if it is true that your experience was worse (we can't know for sure), your actions in that circumstance shouldn't be generalized to people-in-general, and the same applies for your family member. > It makes me think some choices are not our own - and if it is predestined in some way at birth, well then yes, more compassion is necessary. I'd encourage you to challenge whether predestination / loss of control is the qualifier for compassion. How can we know, for certain, why people make the choices they do? If you were predestined or not, we don't currently have a way to know. Would people deserve compassion if everything they go through is a direct and pure result of their choices and nothing else?

ngai_aku 4y ago

> they were excited to go to some convention in Minneapolis that was all about mushrooms and psychedelics. What struck me was how excited they were, how into that community they were. I couldn't relate. I thought to myself, isn't there anything in your life more exciting than this? Are you always this judgmental of others’ interests? Do you have these feelings towards someone excited about e.g. a new video game or a programming conference?

mrcwinn 4y ago
Actually, no. Had he been drawn to a programming conference, I wouldn’t have been able to draw a line between the dangers he’d been near and those interests. But when you see someone in a situation, and see them drawn to the wrong things for the wrong reasons, yes of course it triggers at least concern. I wish a lot I had been wrong.
- malermeister 4y ago
  I don't think it's fair to conflate mushrooms and psychedelics with Fentanyl.
  - jcutrell 4y ago
    On the one hand, you're absolutely correct. On the other hand, there is some overlap in classification here: experience-altering substances. OP's intuition is, "this person's entire mental interest pool is consumed by some form of escapism." There's some fallacy in this equating, but the heuristic isn't way off.
- jcutrell 4y ago
  Also a note of caution... You could easily fall prey to confirmation bias on this one. Their interest in shrooms or psychedelics isn't necessarily a straight line to fentanyl. Plenty of people have one without the other. I have a lot of interest in psychedelics (haven't tried it myself). How would you know if my interest is "for the wrong reasons"? And, what level of judgment clarity is required to know if the reasons are wrong, right, or neither?