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Shedding light on the dark web

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Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#131

Post by bduerst »

logfromblammo wrote: post #130
bduerst wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol is the fourth largest cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. each year. Given that it's chemically addicting and steeped in cultural history, I'm all for the Pandora's box approach of scratching it off as a loss and leaving it. We don't need more dangerous, chemically-addictive substances mass introduced to the public. At some point the priority of an individual's freedom to abuse substances and harm their s…

I wonder how alcohol ranks as a cause of preventable pregnancies. Does that count as an offset against its death rate? If you toss alcohol, you will need to substitute some other mode of social interaction with fewer or less dangerous chemicals that will get folks out of the house and meeting new people. There are many, many people out there today who never would have existed if at least one of their ancestors had ne…

Sounds like a good use case for AR apps like Pokemon Go. I just heard testimony this morning from an 18 year old who made five new friends this weekend at a local park because they were all out hunting.

Bars used to be a primary social scene, but that's changed drastically in the last decade and doesn't mean they need to preserved.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#132

Post by leesalminen »

bwanab wrote: post #101
acctid4325 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what extend it is society's job to protect people from themselves? So let's assume that we legalize 'drugs' for everyone: can I now buy pot and meth and acid and heroine and what not complete with shooting accessories from 7-Eleven? Are we seriously proposing that people in masses would be able to responsibly consume these newly available substances. If there is doubt, maybe we add, similar to obtaining a drivers…

At least in Colorado, you can only by pot from licensed shops where they card you when you go in and card you again when you purchase. This is a far cry from 7-Eleven. Colorado has seen pot smoking go down for kids which is counterintuitive, right? Not really. I've got kids in high school and they tell me that pot is easy to get (I don't live in Colorado). In Colorado, the illegal trade has dried up, thus making it h…

I'm not entirely sure that pot is difficult for high schoolers in Colorado to obtain. The kids behind my apartment complex are there daily :).

The huge increase in commercial cultivation operations make it much easier for illicit operations to grow more than they could before without getting caught.

To be clear, I am for legalization. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. A lot of the economic changes will smooth out over time, but it's up to us to find solutions for the new wave of social issues.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#133

Post by random_upvoter »

delazeur wrote: post #59
skylark wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep police, lawyers, and prisons funded via laws against selling drugs. Have you considered that these laws are still in place simply because it's the status quo? Politicians voting on laws and drafting new ones must ultimately answer to their constituents. While the vast majority of things fly under the radar, "pro-drug" support is enough of a charge…

It's not a smoky room conspiracy. A quick google search turned up many articles about private prison companies funding lobbying[1], and I expect you will find similar results if you search for police union donations. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...

Likewise, a quick google search will show you that the pro-marijuana lobby is a thing. In the upcoming California Legalization ballot the side in favor is outfunding the opposition 45 to 1. The pot industry is already a billion dollar business. So if legalization becomes a fact, will you allow me to conclude that marijuana is legal just because of the lobbying powers of Big Marijuana?

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#134

Post by powertower »

skylark wrote: post #53
mistermann wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really a shitty experience for everyone involved. However, it creates many thousands of very well paid jobs for police, lawyers, prison employees, etc. - you know, the people that create the laws. Long ago I might have considered that there might be some justification for these laws (or anywhere there's rules really), but nowadays when you wonder why "the way something is" is, it's easier to just assume someon…

I find it hard to believe that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep police, lawyers, and prisons funded via laws against selling drugs. Have you considered that these laws are still in place simply because it's the status quo? Politicians voting on laws and drafting new ones must ultimately answer to their constituents. While the vast majority of things fly under the radar, "pro-drug" support is enough of a charge…

> I find it hard to believe that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep police, lawyers, and prisons funded via laws against selling drugs.

The individual cells of an organism don't conspire to keep the organism alive and functioning - they simply do their individual job and the system maintains itself organically.

There is no conspiracy, there is just a system that has an interest in staying alive, a system which is composed of millions of people, with trillions of dollars moving through it.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#135

Post by [deleted] »

benologist wrote: post #70
delazeur wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a smoky room conspiracy. A quick google search turned up many articles about private prison companies funding lobbying[1], and I expect you will find similar results if you search for police union donations. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...

It's not a conspiracy that people in support of X lobby for more X. That's what lobbying is for. That article you link claims the two biggest offenders have spent $35 million between 1989 and 2015. Google spent $10m in 6 months last year - http://www.wired.com/2015/07/google-facebook-amazon-lobbying... . You can't infer much other than it's not free to promote your ideas to your government.

[deleted]

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#136

Post by rhizome »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #29
rhizome wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a public health perspective, Prohibition was a success. I don't know about that, didn't lead poisoning go way up?

And methanol poisoning. Not to mention other nasty things that were intentionally added to industrial alcohol to poison anyone who tried to drink it [1] - now, it would be interesting to try and get a sense for how many drunk drivers were kept off the roads during Prohibition, but I doubt most would consider it an unalloyed success, even then. 1: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5975605/alcohol-prohibition-pois...

I was trying to make a joke about bullets, but bad drinks were definitely a problem,too!

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#137

Post by delazeur »

random_upvoter wrote: post #133
delazeur wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a smoky room conspiracy. A quick google search turned up many articles about private prison companies funding lobbying[1], and I expect you will find similar results if you search for police union donations. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...

Likewise, a quick google search will show you that the pro-marijuana lobby is a thing. In the upcoming California Legalization ballot the side in favor is outfunding the opposition 45 to 1. The pot industry is already a billion dollar business. So if legalization becomes a fact, will you allow me to conclude that marijuana is legal just because of the lobbying powers of Big Marijuana?

> marijuana is legal just because of the lobbying powers of Big Marijuana

I am not making that claim about criminalization, and I would not make that claim about legalization. However: yes, if and when legalization happens I will likely be making cynical comments about marijuana lobbying.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#138

Post by andrei_says_ »

hasenj wrote: post #124
andrei_says_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at this short overview of research on addiction and the futility of the drug war. http://youtu.be/wJUXLqNHCaI The Drug War approach is built on a few axioms: - people who take drugs would not do so if drugs are unavailable - making something illegal prevents it from happening - people who take drugs are somehow less moral or weaker or "bad" and deserve to be persecuted All of these have been disproven. Ad…

I think you're straw-manning here. The intent is certainly to make it more difficult, specially in the open. The premise is, if you want to do drugs, you're on your own. There's so much risk. You'll be dealing with bad people. You have do it in secret. etc.

Would you point out the straw-man argument?

Does making it more difficult to get drugs prevent people suffering addiction from getting them?

This is precisely one of the presumptions I was addressing.

Also, one of the reasons people fall into addiction is that they feel "on their own".

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#139

Post by hasenj »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #138
hasenj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're straw-manning here. The intent is certainly to make it more difficult, specially in the open. The premise is, if you want to do drugs, you're on your own. There's so much risk. You'll be dealing with bad people. You have do it in secret. etc.

Would you point out the straw-man argument? Does making it more difficult to get drugs prevent people suffering addiction from getting them? This is precisely one of the presumptions I was addressing. Also, one of the reasons people fall into addiction is that they feel "on their own".

The strawman being:

> people who take drugs would not do so if drugs are unavailable

They can still do them, just, away from me (and my children, family, neighbours, community, etc) to a big risk to themselves. They alone should bear that risk. They should be looked down upon to deter other people from trying.

Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a lot of them.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#140

Post by Tiksi »

hasenj wrote: post #121
mistermann wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really a shitty experience for everyone involved. However, it creates many thousands of very well paid jobs for police, lawyers, prison employees, etc. - you know, the people that create the laws. Long ago I might have considered that there might be some justification for these laws (or anywhere there's rules really), but nowadays when you wonder why "the way something is" is, it's easier to just assume someon…

It's way more plausible to assume that the average person (the average family person, not the average hippy) doesn't like to live in a neighbourhood where his children see prostitutes and drug users day in and day out.

I doubt there's more than a handful of neighborhoods where you wouldn't see drug users day in and day out, likely prostitutes (sorry, "escorts") too, but you wouldn't be able to tell that just by looking at them.
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