5 ms·

> Can't folks decide that the price is too high? If you look at drug addicts as a group, the answer is often a direct and emphatic “no, they can’t” - the drug

by fardo 3y ago

> Can't folks decide that the price is too high? If you look at drug addicts as a group, the answer is often a direct and emphatic “no, they can’t” - the drug alters the way they perform that price calculus such that many of them will spend their last dollar, go deeply in debt, and do terrible things to continually chase a high. Drug policy has had many failures in the US, but there does seem to be a correct nugget of recognition that “some drugs seem to be fundamentally destructive to those that get addicted, and to the broader society that has to deal with the consequences of those who are addicted”. Gambling in many people seems to have the same effect on altering price calculus in a way similar to addictive drugs, which at leasts motivates a reasonable discussion whether benefits of allowing it exceed the harms it causes those individuals and society.

cf1241290841 3y ago
>If you look at drug addicts as a group, What makes you think you arent just looking at the extremly visible dysfunction subgroup? How many cocaine consuming banksters do you know and what does that say about the completeness of your perspective? I think there is a good argument to be made that you are over generalizing from a stereotype.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  So, you agree there is a subgroup of people that stop being rational agents in the presence of drugs?
  - cf1241290841 3y ago
    I think there are subgroups of people that get caught up in certain routines they then have a hard time exiting. Drugs increase that risk but even here different people are vulnerable to different things. A good friend of mine told me with a straight face that his doctor explained to him that his BMI is in the "you are eating yourself to death" region. He told me this over refilling his glass of coca cola. At the same time the bankster i know is still in the process of winning both capitalism and hedonism. I think it is likely more about how you manage your own weaknesses. One of them wont do this till he needs judicial/medical intervention. edit: Never tried cocaine or heroin btw and had a rather easy time loosing weight. But i am very confident about the outcome of those two people. One has given up while the other knows he cant trust himself with this stuff, has planed and is acting accordingly and is able to grind through very unpleasant stuff.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > What makes you think you arent just looking at the extremly visible dysfunction subgroup? What makes you think that is the case? Is there any statistical evidence to suggest that (for example) opioid additics are easily separable into one group that will consistently keep it "under control" and another group that is doomed? There's also the time dimension--some of the people ruined today may have sure seemed like they had everything under control earlier in their lives, but the unstable equilibrium couldn't last forever. While there might be hordes of people you would never expect who abuse serious drugs in unerringly competent secrecy throughout their lives... but at that point it starts to seem a little fallacious: All true Scotsmen are undetectable and you know they exist because they haven't been detected.
  - cf1241290841 3y ago
    >What makes you think that is the case? The fact that the incompleteness is easily shown. Whether you look at the overall number of people who have used a certain drug vs the number of people who ruined their life with it, or at individual cases that didnt develop that way. I also wouldnt go as far as your reframing of "certain drugs have certain results" to "certain people have no problem with certain drugs". Given the high impact of a users socioeconomic background for how he develops i think you can look at the way people use a drug / perform addictive behavior and find pattern for the people most and least negatively effected. Its not that different from finding the group of people that get morbidly obese through overeating or get into debt for gambling. You can often tell them by their planed behavior and lack of self reflection and self control in that behavior. You know certain stuff is addictive and messes with your self control. If this fact sneaks up on you or you planed to solve that with overconfidence in your self control you are pretty likely pretty screwed. And the people with the most problems here are those that keep going and accelerating despite knowing they have no more breaks. Its also not something that should take you long to realize looking at how you stick to your planed consumption and your ability to react to that. Think days for some people. With the next group at risk those that fall asleep at the wheel. And so on. While i wouldnt risk it with cocaine and the likes, i think arguing that its impossible ignores a bunch of very successful people. You could argue that this just means those are the people who manage to stop on their own after it escalates and then stay away from it, but this ignores the people who somehow have a tendency for not accelerating routines they cant recover from too far. If i had to guess those might the the people who trust themselves the least, i am pretty sure you are unlikely to land in such an arrangement by luck. We can of course argue about the difficulty of balancing on this spectrum for certain drugs, but pretending this is a matter of "there could be" and not the history of actual individuals sounds a lot like a self fulfilling prophecy. Especially since it glosses over the people who stopped their usage for other reasons then having lost control (health, happiness ...) Individuals, their predisposition to certain drugs and addictions, their risk profile and their behavior are just very different.

by fardo 3y ago

cf1241290841 3y ago

>If you look at drug addicts as a group, What makes you think you arent just looking at the extremly visible dysfunction subgroup? How many cocaine consuming banksters do you know and what does that say about the completeness of your perspective? I think there is a good argument to be made that you are over generalizing from a stereotype.

xboxnolifes 3y ago
So, you agree there is a subgroup of people that stop being rational agents in the presence of drugs?
- cf1241290841 3y ago
  I think there are subgroups of people that get caught up in certain routines they then have a hard time exiting. Drugs increase that risk but even here different people are vulnerable to different things. A good friend of mine told me with a straight face that his doctor explained to him that his BMI is in the "you are eating yourself to death" region. He told me this over refilling his glass of coca cola. At the same time the bankster i know is still in the process of winning both capitalism and hedonism. I think it is likely more about how you manage your own weaknesses. One of them wont do this till he needs judicial/medical intervention. edit: Never tried cocaine or heroin btw and had a rather easy time loosing weight. But i am very confident about the outcome of those two people. One has given up while the other knows he cant trust himself with this stuff, has planed and is acting accordingly and is able to grind through very unpleasant stuff.
Terr_ 3y ago
> What makes you think you arent just looking at the extremly visible dysfunction subgroup? What makes you think that is the case? Is there any statistical evidence to suggest that (for example) opioid additics are easily separable into one group that will consistently keep it "under control" and another group that is doomed? There's also the time dimension--some of the people ruined today may have sure seemed like they had everything under control earlier in their lives, but the unstable equilibrium couldn't last forever. While there might be hordes of people you would never expect who abuse serious drugs in unerringly competent secrecy throughout their lives... but at that point it starts to seem a little fallacious: All true Scotsmen are undetectable and you know they exist because they haven't been detected.
- cf1241290841 3y ago
  >What makes you think that is the case? The fact that the incompleteness is easily shown. Whether you look at the overall number of people who have used a certain drug vs the number of people who ruined their life with it, or at individual cases that didnt develop that way. I also wouldnt go as far as your reframing of "certain drugs have certain results" to "certain people have no problem with certain drugs". Given the high impact of a users socioeconomic background for how he develops i think you can look at the way people use a drug / perform addictive behavior and find pattern for the people most and least negatively effected. Its not that different from finding the group of people that get morbidly obese through overeating or get into debt for gambling. You can often tell them by their planed behavior and lack of self reflection and self control in that behavior. You know certain stuff is addictive and messes with your self control. If this fact sneaks up on you or you planed to solve that with overconfidence in your self control you are pretty likely pretty screwed. And the people with the most problems here are those that keep going and accelerating despite knowing they have no more breaks. Its also not something that should take you long to realize looking at how you stick to your planed consumption and your ability to react to that. Think days for some people. With the next group at risk those that fall asleep at the wheel. And so on. While i wouldnt risk it with cocaine and the likes, i think arguing that its impossible ignores a bunch of very successful people. You could argue that this just means those are the people who manage to stop on their own after it escalates and then stay away from it, but this ignores the people who somehow have a tendency for not accelerating routines they cant recover from too far. If i had to guess those might the the people who trust themselves the least, i am pretty sure you are unlikely to land in such an arrangement by luck. We can of course argue about the difficulty of balancing on this spectrum for certain drugs, but pretending this is a matter of "there could be" and not the history of actual individuals sounds a lot like a self fulfilling prophecy. Especially since it glosses over the people who stopped their usage for other reasons then having lost control (health, happiness ...) Individuals, their predisposition to certain drugs and addictions, their risk profile and their behavior are just very different.