191–196 of 196 posts
Any time I read anything about the illegal drug trade I am struck by how much the industry would change if all drugs were legalized everywhere. So much effort is expended to keep things hidden from law enforcement and other criminals that it adds an incredible amount of friction to the purchasing process for the purchaser and the seller. From the buyer's perspective you now have to go into business with some often un…
Darknet markets are like Hydra with 10 heads, when Silk Road is taken down, more players entered and when one other dark-market owners closed shop and jumped with vendors bit-coins, new ones with multi-escrow showed up. Again, with each take down people are improvising and making the system a bit more resilient.
What an excellent example of Nicholas Naseem Taleb's concept of antifragility.
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It's not so much a conspiracy per-se, as a case where people, who might otherwise support changing the system, don't do so out of self-interest. At the very least, a lot of people are incentivized to remain silent and accept the status quo as is, even if their personal feelings might lead them down a different path.
Would be great if we had a word for this. The word 'conspiracy' tends to derail conversations because as you say, it doesn't quite fit.
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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/...
While money in politics is certainly an issue which should be fixed, I still think it's disingenuous to say that drugs are illegal simply because parties profit from it. Overall I'd argue that the current state of drug laws is the will of the American people and that corporate efforts to lobby politicians actually falls in line with popular opinion. Again, I'm not necessarily supporting this point of view, I'm only t…
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Sure do. It takes a lot of murder and poison to offset a 20% drop in cirrhosis. Read the paper linked below.
Great, and how do you quantify the value of the freedom to live your life the way you want to? Soa decrease in deaths of cirrhosis is beneficial, presumably as it extends lives. Is the extension of life an inherent benefit? If you lived for 10,000 years in abject misery would that be better than dying in 6 months? Clearly, it's conditional. Life is complex, every life is unique, so you can safely assume you aren't go…
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> First off if it were legal how would there be an increase in illegal activity? There probably would be an increase in drug use if that is what you mean. I think the hypothetical here is that illegal activities could rise in search of money to feed drug addiction. This would come in the form of theft, robbery, etc. It's not as if no one ever stole money to buy food.
I don't know about the premise that there would be more people stealing to feed addiction. Is there a significant problem with people stealing now to feed alcohol addiction?