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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

#181

Post by nullc »

aesclepius wrote: post #160
tigershark wrote: post #152

If you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.

I would kindly ask you to review how most opiate addicts in this current wave are created. Unfortunately, opiate medication is really the only 'easy' solution we have for many patients who have chronic, debilitating pain. I speak of patients suffering from malignancies, chronic back pain, post-traumatic injuries like motor vehicle collisions or workplace-related injuries. While there are novel attempts at cognitive b…

From your description of tolerance buildup it sounds like you are describing a drug which is functionally ineffective for chronic pain (eventually tolerance will overtake the maximum does you can safely administer) except where the patient wont live long enough for the tolerance.

It sounds like a drug family that would be mostly useful for non-chronic pain, where the patient can be weaned off before the dosages become high.

Yet its usage is the opposite?

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

#182

Post by danans »

Torai wrote: post #144
danans wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that the lobbying is a huge problem, but exposing/stopping that is a sociopolitical approach to the problem, not a scientific/technological approach. I am skeptical that the latter can do much for this problem, but I'm curious if others have ideas on that front.

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

#183

Post by pivotal »

fav_collector wrote: post #63
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.

It's organized well for finding information but it lacks the "human" element in a social community. You're just anonymous person #4214 who's interested in cars or football. In the good old days with forums, people were recognizable with avatars and signatures. People chatted about everything, not just the topic at hand, so the personality of each person had a large spectrum. The communities were small enough where pe…

This is an interesting thought. The nicest communities on reddit I've encountered tended to be small or to have a small "core" group that all knew each other and were highly visible in the community. /r/running for example, when I regularly read it, had daily threads where the main people chatted about all sorts of things. It felt very homey, reminded me of when I read obscure usenet groups as a kid.

I wonder if there's space for forums with purposefully limited membership where people could get to know each other on that more intimate level. I know you could always set up your own private forum for your friends, but maybe as a service.

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

#184

Post by otalp »

smokeyj wrote: post #75
lsmarigo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Honest question. Why do you care what people post online? The great thing about reddit is that you get to choose which communities you subscribe to. Your mentality is the equivalent of "I can't go to bed. Someone on the internet is wrong". I think your basic premise is wrong - that "racism and xenophobia" are on the rise. You can't measure the number of people who aren't racist because you don't hear them. And before…

>As a "minority" I just don't care what someone on the internet posts. It doesn't have power over me.

Yeah but you have a President and his son, aides, etc. who use the subreddit and similar places on the internet to get their information from. The President himself has retweeted stuff a few hours after it became popular on 4chan, T_D, etc. and has posted completely fake stormfront/4chan/coontown infographics about black crime that he still essentially stands by.

The information sources of many of the most powerful people in the world comes from these sites, so they certainly have an impact.

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

#185

Post by koverda »

pcnix wrote: post #30
zeep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/politics is similar to /r/the_donald but it is the exact opposite (it could have been called /r/the_hillary)

/r/politics does not outright run itself as a safe space for a particular group though, unlike /r/the_donald. Any criticism on /r/the_donald gets you a ban, whereas any criticism on /r/politics just gets you downvotes, which are entirely consistent with how the sub should be run.

it's not just /r/the_donald that has that no criticism rule. I recently noticed that r/latestagecapitalism has that same rule. The number of subreddits where dissenting opinions are not allowed appears to be growing.

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

#186

Post by KekDemaga »

komali2 wrote: post #92
KekDemaga wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that being forth right is a better approach. While they won't often ban on politics they do enforce a timeout when your comment gets down voted having a similar effect.

That's how the website works, that's not anything particular about the /r/politics mods.

Its actually a feature you can turn on and off as a moderator.

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

#187

Post by taylorswift_ »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #12
quchen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s /r/the_donald, and how did it »then happen«?

It's a safe dwelling for a mix of sycophant bots, Trump supporters/red-pillers, trolls, and possibly Russians (depending on who you ask). Warning: once you see it, you can't un-see it.

huh? what do you think most of reddit is? it's the same thing you're describing just bent on whatever flavor the subreddit is...

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

#188

Post by taylorswift_ »

vinhboy wrote: post #35
quchen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s /r/the_donald, and how did it »then happen«?

A bunch of really hateful, and racist people came to reddit because of /r/the_donald. Unfortunately they did not keep to their subreddit. You can see influences of their hateful ideology in other subreddits. They also game the reddit voting system so their stories and comments are constantly being featured in /r/all -- so much so reddit had to take action. Their purpose is to troll, and they are damn good at it.

ive never seen more hate and racism than that towards trump supporters from the insane "progressive" left...

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

#189

Post by unabridged »

jerrylives wrote: post #133
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…

>You can only fight ideas with better ideas. Kicking them out and silencing them, says to them you can't compete. Lol okay dude hop onto stormfront and engage in some civic discourse, offer some arguments, see how that goes.

Racism is a lot older than a message board. Many of your ancestors were racist. But at some point they were won over, either by rational discourse or evolution.

Tribalism is our natural state, we gravitate toward those who act & look similar and away from the different. It takes thought and discussion to fight against this instinct. With kids growing up just being told racism is bad, many don't go though the intellectual work of actually proving it to themselves.

Seeing these arguments in public is important. It may help convince someone living in a racist bubble why its wrong. But I doubt seeing some racist joke or tirade will actually convert a nonracist person to racism. On the other hand a deleted post does absolutely nothing.

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

#190

Post by alikoneko »

WaxProlix wrote: post #161
alikoneko wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is /r/t_d different from /r/theredpill or any of the other racist/sexist/terrible subs? I haven't really seen any overflow in a lot of the not-default subs, but it could also be the subs I visit. I mostly stick to subs for games I play, programming, and a couple BP support subs. For me, the crucial change of how I curate my subs happened when 2x became a default. I hated the sudden influx of bad posts, mansplaini…

t_d is different because they actively organize to interact with other subs, whereas TRP, mensrights, etc mostly operate in their own worlds. T_D is sort of like /pol/ in that they see themselves as propagandists and influencers more than just participants in a movement.

That makes more sense, less like the hate subs, and more like SRS. I guess I'm less exposed to it than the average Redditor.
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