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Two (?) some years ago a review story about Oregon's decriminalization policy was here on HN and I said that I didn't think it was a good idea, and was kind of
by kepler1 3y ago
Two (?) some years ago a review story about Oregon's decriminalization policy was here on HN and I said that I didn't think it was a good idea, and was kind of shouted down by people saying, "this is the only rational choice, to do what works and stop penalizing people which costs a lot and doesn't change their behavior".
Well, you can make stepwise rational choices all the way down into oblivion and watching your cities and states fall apart. It may be kind and more rational, but you've removed disincentives to use drugs and find yourselves in a society where you've attracted and created the conditions for this behavior to continue.
No matter what your policy stance on the potential solutions, it is not good to be having a society where people are using serious drugs without penalty.
Oh well, lesson learned, especially for people who thought they were liberal. Unfortunately at great expense and pain.
- anon291 3y ago> Well, you can make stepwise rational choices all the way down into oblivion and watching your cities and states fall apart. This is a good point. We often see this pathological behavior in training neural networks (HN's latest interest du jour). It's easy to find local minima and think this is the best it's going to get, even if the global minima is in a completely different direction. Given the general danger of a stochastic optimization algorithm which would see us changing the law to increase harm, perhaps stepwise optimization algorithms are not the way one should run a government, yet this seems to be the only accepted political methodology these days. If someone suggests something completely new, even if they have ample evidence or a good causal model, they are often ignored.
- anonzzzies 3y ago> it is not good to be having a society where people are using serious drugs without penalty. Alcohol?
- kepler1 3y agoSerious, and almost inevitably danger / criminal- and life-destroying behavior inducing drugs.
- anonzzzies 3y agoPeople driving over other people daily is not enough? I like alcohol myself but no clue why it always gets a pass. Well I do: they didn’t manage to even make the prohibition work even a little bit. It’s addictive, makes you fat, causes diabetes, screws with hormones, metabolism and sugar levels and costing society a fortune. Center of domestic violence usually, car crashes etc. What’s not serious about it?
- anon291 3y ago> People driving over other people daily is not enough? I like alcohol myself but no clue why it always gets a pass. Well I do: they didn’t manage to even make the prohibition work even a little bit Prohibition worked extremely well. The data is unequivocal: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit.... Hundreds of thousands of lives were saved.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoIf it worked so well, I wonder why it was repealed?
- anon291 3y agoBecause people like drinking?
- nitwit005 3y agoAlcohol is likely the most damaging of all drugs available, as it's so widely used.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]