61–70 of 274 posts
tldr; "The data so far provide little support for the strong claims about legalization made by either opponents or supporters."
Except that putting people in jail and fining them is cruel and we shouldnt do it without a really fucking good reason.
Know your source: Cato is an advocate for libertarianism, at least as envisioned by its funders, founded in part by Charles Koch, and still heavily funded and controlled by him (and I think by his brother). I don't mean that in a partisan way; you might love them, hate them, or not care one way or the other, but it's always useful to know who is talking.
Libertarianism, as envisioned by the Koch brothers, is AMAZING when you're rich. You simply remove all government functions that protect the poor from the wealthy, and re-create feudal Europe. What's not to love???
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Libertarianism, as envisioned by the Koch brothers, is AMAZING when you're rich. You simply remove all government functions that protect the poor from the wealthy, and re-create feudal Europe. What's not to love???
are you commenting only on the source (or rather the source's financial backers) or did you actually find some fault with the article?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings. And as a healthy skeptic, knowing the direction to look for potential bias _does_ help orient my skepticism and find potential ulterior motives within the infinite space of "all ulterior motives". I certainly was asking myself "I wonder who was backing this" while reading it. (Don't take me the wrong way, I absolutely agree with you with respect to not filte…
> Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings Not at all; this is the "ad hominem" logical fallacy. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ) The claims being made are objectively true or false entirely independently of any personal attributes of the person making them. In other words, who is saying something is entirely irrelevant to the merit of what they are saying.
For example:
- Only criminals smoke weed in the US. (true by definition, federal law doesn't allow it)
- Looking at prison population, black people commit more crimes than any other race in the US. (true, missing context of who gets to go to prison, and race ratios in population)
- Obama introduced the best patient protection and affordable care act in the history of the US. (true, but also the only one)
- In the US there are more people who brush their teeth who have cavities than those who have never brushed. (true, because only tiny fraction never brushed their teeth)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings Not at all; this is the "ad hominem" logical fallacy. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ) The claims being made are objectively true or false entirely independently of any personal attributes of the person making them. In other words, who is saying something is entirely irrelevant to the merit of what they are saying.
The ad hominem fallacy is simply a guideline to evaluate the logical consistency of an argument. It's not a magic spell you can use to discount a premise. Indeed, blind use of "fallacies" is just an appeal to ancient Greek authority! For non-expert HN commenters, we have to use authority, preexisting bias, and past actions of the speaker to give us more information without fully delving into the article. Unless you'r…
Also known as the fallacy fallacy:
Someone was telling me recently that all the cheap heroin influx into the country from Mexico was the result of drug cartels losing market to marijuana and needing to come up with a cheap competitor substitute. Not sure if that was accurate or not but sort of sounds intuitive in an economic sense. I'm still surprised how marijuana posts are so frequently pushed in HN. My take is that the effect is negative, I've seen…
As far as recreational use, fundamentally, should it be the responsibility of the government to tell you what you can and can't ingest?
I don't think it is. I think sin taxes are stupid too. But I do understand drug usage is a concern and suboptimal for a lot of people. I don't smoke nor have I ever tried it, except for one cigar.
I'm asthmatic and I didn't like people smoking cigarettes in public places because smoking sections back in the day weren't contained. Now - smoking is generally considered uncool and it's hard to do in most public places. I've been to smoke free cities which is their right and I think that's how it should be.
Whatever side you're on - the evidence doesn't back up all the claims to keep it criminal.
Know your source: Cato is an advocate for libertarianism, at least as envisioned by its funders, founded in part by Charles Koch, and still heavily funded and controlled by him (and I think by his brother). I don't mean that in a partisan way; you might love them, hate them, or not care one way or the other, but it's always useful to know who is talking.
The internet has made it very easy to shield ourselves from the arguments of people with differing views. Disclaimers such as this are just another way for us to filter what we read and further isolate ourselves ideologically. Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit? Conversely, a healthy skepticism is always valuable, regardless of the source.
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> Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit?
But how do we know how much merit it has? I don't believe anyone has the capability to answer that question on their own (unless they already possess the expert knowledge in the field), or the time to verify it.
Therefore, to a great degree we must trust the authors, so it helps to know who is speaking. No author is without bias; it helps to know their biases. Some authors are more honest than others and some more accurate than others. If an author has tried to deceive me before, I won't trust them again. If I've seen an author be diligent about accuracy, I'll trust them more next time.
...
... and so I do want to filter dishonest and inaccurate arguments, for obvious reasons. And for a less obvious reason: I don't have time to read all the exceptionally well-informed, highly accurate, honest, brilliant arguments out there; I resent someone wasting my time with their bullsh*t.
This is really interesting in light of the current political discussions: "Until 1913 marijuana was legal throughout the United States under both state and federal law. Beginning with California in 1913 and Utah in 1914, however, states began outlawing marijuana, and by 1930, 30 states had adopted marijuana prohibition. Those state-level prohibitions stemmed largely from anti-immigrant sentiment and in particular rac…
J. Edgar Hoover worked hard to demonize it and to make it a federal crime in the '30s with the aid of such laughable propaganda as Reefer Madness. It helped him justify the growth in power and scope of the FBI. (I hope it's not yet a crime to publicly say that the federal government or any of its agencies would use propaganda to promote their agenda....)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a rather pedantic interpretation. To give one counterexample. Claims can have merit in terms of how the long term events that follow. I have certain ideas of what will follow from e.g. a given proposal; but that's often given many assumptions that went unstated in the original source. By knowing the direction of bias I can postulate what might come from the author's assumptions for those unknowns as well, and…
It's not pedantic, it's the only interpretation. Who says something does not alter its logical validity.
People lie and distort facts for their own personal gain all the time.
See for example, the scientists paid by the cigarette companies that produced data showing that smoking was safe.
Knowing who said something (and knowing who is paying someone to say something) allows you to better calibrate your skepticism to see if what they are saying might be biased by their financial or other interests.
Know your source: Cato is an advocate for libertarianism, at least as envisioned by its funders, founded in part by Charles Koch, and still heavily funded and controlled by him (and I think by his brother). I don't mean that in a partisan way; you might love them, hate them, or not care one way or the other, but it's always useful to know who is talking.
Libertarianism, as envisioned by the Koch brothers, is AMAZING when you're rich. You simply remove all government functions that protect the poor from the wealthy, and re-create feudal Europe. What's not to love???