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We don’t have to get lost in philosophical questions of human worth here. We’re talking about addicts, not stay-at-home moms or other non-tax payers. Maybe pat

• jstarfish 3y ago
  > Maybe pathological addicts are also productive in some ways that we don’t appreciate? Noble savages? Loosely, addiction can be useful-- the thrill seekers among us are our pioneers. Everest wasn't Hillary's first climb, it was his tallest. Think about the implications of that though. Pioneers die...a lot. As a group the addict class are probably meant to be sacrificial. Pathological addiction subverts that. It's a problem in that they risk their lives for no real benefit to anyone.
  • avgcorrection 3y ago
    Drug addicts are victims of a very civilizational pathology, so more like the opposite of savages. I was more getting at whatever good they might do (?) in their own very informal societies—societies that most people either shy away from or are oblivious to, so it’s very difficult for most people to know whatever pro-social activities they do.
  • Dweller1622 3y ago
    > Loosely, addiction can be useful-- the thrill seekers[...] This seems like a strange conception of addiction, unless we aren't seriously comparing mountain climbing with heroin. If we are then I wonder what utility the classification of addiction is actually supposed to provide to us.
    • anon373839 3y ago
      If an argument is conceivable, there is always at least one HNer who will feel compelled to make it.