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How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

theguardian.com

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Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#141

Post by Mz »

lsmarigo wrote: post #24
icpmacdo wrote: post #2

I think Reddit is interestingly a net social positive. For all the bad things that come out of it you can often see users helping others in a pretty significant way.

Reddit has some fantastic and fascinating communities and really interesting cult-like ones (/r/nofap) However I'd like to point out the admin policy towards hate groups and speech on reddit is in my opinion incredibly dangerous and damaging to our society. They will take action against subreddits like FPH (fat people hate) because of "real life" actions, meawhile there are thousands of highly upvoted calls to violen…

I created a Reddit account a few years ago. My initial attempts to engage Reddit went really badly and I walked away for a long time. I resumed using Reddit a few months ago and I am very selective in how I am interacting with it.

I have health problems. Every single health "support group" (email list or forum) I have ever participated in has been a shit show. A recent attempt to post to a health Reddit reminded me of that. So, I started my own health related Reddit.

I participate very little. I am trying to figure out how to create things that I want to have for myself, basically.

I realize this is hard. I have been thrown out of a few different forums over the years and have simply walked away from others because of bullshit. But I am trying to find a path forward and not just throw in the towel and let the assholes have the internet because it is the path of least resistance. It may be the path of least resistance, but it impoverishes my life and I suspect it impoverishes the lives of a lot of other people as well.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#142

Post by fapjacks »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #58
Dirlewanger wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://reddit.com/r/kratom

Be Fucking Warned https://www.reddit.com/r/quittingkratom/

Yes, some people seem to go overboard no matter what the chemical. There are some sad stories in there of people that can't control themselves. Sort of highly, highly addictive personalities. There are some similar stories for people quitting caffeine, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#143

Post by komali2 »

nissimk wrote: post #140
komali2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>anti-democratic activities of shill accounts Can you clarify why the actions of shill accounts are inherently anti-democratic? I don't really see the connection between the concept of Democracy and paid posters on a social media website.

Propaganda. It's a highly effective tool for manipulating public opinion by API. What do you think all of this talk about hacking the election is about? It wasn't just publishing private emails.

Fair point. I buy that when its a campaign or government entity buying bots (please god someone pass better anti-lobbying laws), but how do we content (legally) with Russian bots flooding these forums?

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#144

Post by Torai »

danans wrote: post #84
gooseus wrote: post #62

What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Billions of dollars of private research being poured into self-driving cars by our greatest minds and millions of dollars in lobbying against gun laws all in the name of preventing unnecessary human deaths... yet according to Ben Bernanke (and his references), opioid ove…

While I agree that a lot more funds for treatment are needed to fight the opioid epidemic, it is really a fundamentally different problem that road fatalities. The only thing they really have in common are the fatalities. The opioid crisis seems like a symptom of our social problems (hopelessness in the rust belt, unscrupulous over-prescribing of pain meds) that has fatal consequences. Short of a drug that provided a…

> I'm interested in what ideas others might have though.

I'm not from the US, but I think there is enough people already, all pointing out in the same direction:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/opioid-lobbying-...

Over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions at the state and federal level. That’s more than eight times what the gun lobby and more than 200 times what those advocating for stricter prescribing rules spent over the same time period. The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#145

Post by fapjacks »

loeg wrote: post #51
fapjacks wrote: post #17

Kratom saves lives.

It's amusing that they describe kratom replacement of opiates as days sober, though. Or maybe I'm misreading it -- maybe he used kratom to wean off opiates, and then stopped using kratom as well. My experience of kratom did not feel like being sober (and in fact felt a lot like opiates).

Where did you purchase your kratom? If you bought it from a head shop or another shady vendor selling very expensive products, you were probably taking more than kratom.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#146

Post by clamprecht »

discodave wrote: post #64
clamprecht wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically justified the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. You have to take the bad with the good, because we don't all agree on what's good.

First amendment only applies to what the government can do. Private companies like Reddit, Facebook and Google have no responsibility to let you speak on their platform. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a…

You're absolutely right, I didn't mean to imply that Reddit is in any way bound by the First Amendment. I meant to say that with free speech, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#147

Post by irrational »

vkou wrote: post #117
pat_space wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you and think the hubbub around r/the_donald is amusing. In my opinion, r/the_donald is a "beautiful" example of mob trolling. If a subreddit doesn't interest you, just unfollow it. If you are browsing /r/all, you're probably procrastinating anyways!

> I agree with you and think the hubbub around r/the_donald is amusing. In my opinion, r/the_donald is a "beautiful" example of mob trolling. If a subreddit doesn't interest you, just unfollow it. The problem with having something r/the_donald on reddit is that its posters don't stay in r/the_donald. They go out to other reddits, and post hateful shit. It's like having a shared space for clubs, that also includes a l…

Which subreddits are you talking about? I frequent r/boardgames, r/javascript, r/webdev, etc. and I can't remember every seeing overflow from r/the_donald or the like. Maybe you are going to the wrong subreddits?

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#148

Post by Consultant32452 »

ucarion wrote: post #86
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violent, hateful, disgusting speech has no place in civil discourse but it's irreplaceable in public discourse. That's kinda the problem. As a species, our entire communications spectrum can't be forced into either bucket. It has to exist in both. The kind of things I wouldn't tolerate at all around my family I'm fine tolerating around my friends. And the kind of things I wouldn't tolerate from a friend I'm fine tole…

The commenter you replied to may have a point. Just because vile speech has a place in public discourse, doesn't mean it is good to present that speech in a very public way. Reddit is among the most widely-used websites in the world -- 7th, by Alexa's rankings. Reddit lives up to its motto of being the front page of the internet. Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing s…

>Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society.

CNN and Infowars have the same number of subscribers on Youtube. Now, I'm no fan of CNN, but Infowars is a unique kind of gross in my opinion. To the extent that subscribing to a youtube channel connotes social value, apparently the world has decided that Infowars is approximately equal in value to CNN.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#149

Post by hhmc »

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

> This is the road to censorship

I think it's dangerous to conflate government sanctioned censorship with moderation on a privately owned website.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#150

Post by lsmarigo »

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

Then why is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre illegal? With your reasoning you should just be able to 'fight that idea with saying "No there is NOT a fire" but it's too late, the damage is done.
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