3 ms·

That's a bit like saying that fentanyl is nothing new because opium addiction dates to antiquity.

• pessimizer 4y ago
  If you're going to do this, you have to explain what characteristics of fentanyl are new, and why that makes the history of opium (and heroin) addiction not the most relevant experiences to apply to the fentanyl scandal. That will be a very difficult thing to do. You can't just handwave at the new thing and say it completely changes the game. That's not argument, that's a car commercial.
  • klyrs 4y ago
    The difference is in intensity and quantity. Fentanyl vs opium: breathing in a bit of dust from handling a bag of pills is potentially lethal, and mass manufacturing has put tons of it into the market -- compared to opium which took dedicated farming and harvesting practices and was relatively limited in supply, and overdosing was at least very expensive. ML vs photoshop: results that once took experts many hours of work are now available to anybody with a momentary whim; likewise new voice-cloning scams which would have taken professional impersonators hours of contact with their bait-person has been reduced to a quick phone call.