The effect on local businesses has been very positive in my area (southern Oregon). I'm not sure about the government. Honestly I don't think they would allocate the money in the best way. We have a state employee retirement program that is in the red billions of dollars, I suspect that is where the money will go to first.
The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
121–130 of 274 posts
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#122I would express the same sentiment about illegal immigrants. This is to all the people who support Donald Trump's rhetoric about deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants. These people fled the drug gangs and violence that our war on drugs helped create (think fleeing ISIS) and came to work jobs no one else would take and make a better life for their family. Yes technically they broke a law. If you're going to…
Another benefit of immigration (legal and illegal) you didn't mention is that they cover the population shrinkage from being heavily populated in the boomer age range. That's actually good for the economy. In some places that's a crisis.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#123Earlier 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…
>The ad hominem fallacy is simply a guideline to evaluate the logical consistency of an argument.
Precisely. So an argument is not logically consistent if it's just attacking the messenger instead of the content. Here's a hint: if your argument in any way relies on discounting the messenger, it's pretty weak and you should not make it.
How many times have you been swayed by someone that says, "Well I would disregard this study because it's been done by a liberal."
If you find that you don't have the time to evaluate an argument based on its merits, don't evaluate it at all. Otherwise your 'gut reaction', which is all an ad hominem is, is just dead weight on the discussion.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fair immigration policy for US citizens would take into account the effects of immigration on them and also take their concerns into account --with rigorous studies, not just cherry picked ones (higher income immigrants, for example, contribute more to the economy than unskilled immigrants, irrespective of country) That said, to be fair to all potential immigrants, we should grant all of them equal potential access…
Fair? You mean, maximum benefit to Americans. We're supposed to believe all people have inalienable rights to life, liberty etc. I'm willing to allow folks suffering abroad to find a haven here. That sounds fair to me.
Whether or not people have that right outside the US doesn't mean it's our problem to enforce that right. Those people have their own countries, with their own governments organized for their benefit.
As an immigrant, this is one of those things that still perplexes me about Americans despite my having grown up here. Nobody in Bangladesh thinks they should care as much about people in Africa as they do about their own neighbors. I see that attitude in the US, but it seems to mostly be an excuse not to really care about anybody except at the most diffuse level.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
All these are examples of claims that are misleading because they're misleading, not because of who is making the claim. You can of course read the claims made by the article with a more critical eye, but identifying the author doesn't automagically lift the responsibility of coming up with a refutation.
> All these are examples of claims that are misleading because they're misleading, not because of who is making the claim. I think you've got it the other way around. Claims like that would not exist in the first place if someone wasn't either ignorant or purposefully trying to mislead you. > identifying the author doesn't automagically lift the responsibility of coming up with a refutation. I never said it does. But…
>you know what kind of facts are they may be omitting, or know where to look for opposing opinions.
No, that's being lazy. If you follow that guideline you would only scrutinize things which fit into your preconceived notion of what the biases of the author would be. You should scrutinize everything rigorously. Just because someone is voting for Hillary doesn't give them free reign to say any negative thing they want about renewable energy since they "aren't biased that way".
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument is basically "everybody's doing it, everybody is breaking a law somewhere" and that it's OK for people to break one law because other people are breaking a different law. I think a more sensible approach than saying "lawbreaking is OK" is for the parties on Capitol Hill to forge a compromise that involves (1) easier legal immigration (2) better funding and more enforcement of existing immigration laws (…
Sometimes a law is detrimental to human good. In such cases we should break it.
No, the companies involved have clout to lobby to change it.
Instead of breaking it in the dark, apply sunlight and expose the problem, then fix it.
This used to be how the US operated, how both majorities (women) and minorities got the right to vote, and more.
Apparently certain countries have no such problems, with near full employment. For instance, South Korea, and it's a pretty rich country. So it is not impossible to do legally.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#127Earlier 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…
>it's expedient to use available information
It's intellectually lazy and it's why blind peer review is a thing.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#128> The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents. No kidding - let me just quote Kofi Annan's excellent essay on the subject (published a couple of months before the UN failed to course correct at UNGASS 2016): "Nowhere is this divorce between rhetoric and reality more evident than in the formulation of global drug policies, w…
Your quote nails my sentiment on the matter of drug legalisation. The conversation shown here within HN is fascinating, from an outliers perspective. The benefits and effects of the legalisation of Marijuana I would assume, have been well documented by now though the quantity of these reports, I would assume to be small in number. Surely it's a benefit if the number of these reports and articles were increased. Surel…
Canberran here - not to detract from your point, but possession of cannabis plants here isn't legal, it's merely "decriminalised", which in this case means for small quantities that are for personal use, police have the power to issue a "Simple Cannabis Offence Notice" which can be discharged by payment of a fine similar to a traffic ticket. The plants will still be confiscated.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
you failed to read the one paragraph conclusion. both pro and cons arguments were wrong. absolutely nothing relevant has changed. crime didnt go up nor down. neither did taxes. etc. nada. also, ted is only relevant to rich pot heads ;)
Actually, though the article's summary claimed to find no noticeable change, the section on taxes says: One area where legal marijuana has reaped unexpectedly large benefits is state tax revenue.
Which means more money to invest in the country fixing issues, hopefully, instead of being wasted on mansions for corrupt politicians or spent recklessly.
For example, issues that cause crime. Wouldn't that be nice? Or at least advancement of science and engineering. Someone gets to fund the space program.
Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair? You mean, maximum benefit to Americans. We're supposed to believe all people have inalienable rights to life, liberty etc. I'm willing to allow folks suffering abroad to find a haven here. That sounds fair to me.
Whether or not people have that right outside the US doesn't mean it's our problem to enforce that right. Those people have their own countries, with their own governments organized for their benefit. As an immigrant, this is one of those things that still perplexes me about Americans despite my having grown up here. Nobody in Bangladesh thinks they should care as much about people in Africa as they do about their ow…
Frequently it seems that caring about immigrants or refugees in the abstract is an oblique way of attacking your fellow citizens.
Additionally, if government officials are supposed to be governing the nation for the benefit of all mankind rather than looking after the interests of the people whom they theoretically represent, we might as well dispense with the pretense of representative government and try to formulate some other basis for state legitimacy.