41–50 of 259 posts
I'm reminded of that line from Chinatown. "Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?" Is there really no point of diminishing returns, where you can tell yourself you've made enough money?
I love how the article switches between OxyContin and opioids throughout the article, particularly when talking about deaths. It's a clever way to include drugs like heroin, fentanyl, etc in the numbers to inflate them and make the story more gripping. Of course it's silly to hold OxyContin's manufacturer responsible for all opioid deaths.
Do you have ties to Purdue or the pharama industries? You seem super defensive about this/not open to discussion and your submission history seems to be pharma related.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question! I don't know and I assume others don't as well. But we need a scapegoat right? Purdue will suffice.
In the article they note that epidemic opioid addiction was correlated with OxyContin prescription volume in a region. This article isn't about Purdue, it's about the Sackler's that influence Purdue, MundiPhrama, and a number of other global pharmaceutical companies to increase their wealth while also "braiding their name" into high society.
So why are we so quick to claim causation when there is only correlation?
I know, because it sells newspapers!
I'm reminded of that line from Chinatown. "Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?" Is there really no point of diminishing returns, where you can tell yourself you've made enough money?
If you can’t usefully spend arbitrarily large amounts of money, it’s a creativity problem. Sure, if your only interests are eating and watching TV then a billion dollars isn’t going to do much for you. The easy way to productively spend $X billion is to invest it in space/physics/medical research or development. If you need to blow a few hundred billion, you could launch an asteroid mining venture with a reasonable c…
In your example, it seems like you are saying "there is more happiness in mining asteroids than in being able to live very comfortably, indefinitely, without having to work to support yourself".
Except for a very narrow portion of humanity, this seems implausible. Would mining asteroids really bring fulfillment to a person who has experienced ennui when climbing a mountain, scuba diving the barrier reef, yachting the Mediterranean, or designing their own home?
Failure of imagination, sure, but I think you're going to be disappointed if you think that a billion is going to be deeply fulfilling relative to 20 million.
I love how the article switches between OxyContin and opioids throughout the article, particularly when talking about deaths. It's a clever way to include drugs like heroin, fentanyl, etc in the numbers to inflate them and make the story more gripping. Of course it's silly to hold OxyContin's manufacturer responsible for all opioid deaths.
What do you mean by switching? All of the drugs you listed are opioids. It's not clever, it's a fact.
Very good write-up from Esquire, I'm thoroughly impressed with the article. That said, my visceral emotional response is strongly negative especially when reading the following paragraph: >In May, a dozen lawmakers in Congress, inspired by the L.A. Times investigation, sent a bipartisan letter to the World Health Organization warning that Sackler-owned companies were preparing to flood foreign countries with legal na…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A lot of people, who, as a result, got addicted to Oxy, at some point ended up switching to heroin because it's cheaper. Counter-point: no, they largely did not. There is a huge population using prescription opiates and a tiny tiny population using heroin. Check out https://grokinfullness.blogspot.com/2017/09/debunking-standa... for a lot more detail. > There is no convincing evidence that prior prescription opioid…
> > In 2015, 85 million people used prescription opioids legally, and there were ~200 million legal prescriptions. In a country of 350 million people this right here is all the evidence you need: it's obvious that US opioid prescribing is abusive.
You know why? Codeine is available OTC. However I don't know many people that went from codeine to heroin.
Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…
Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…
A couple years ago I went to the ER to get a dislocated shoulder fixed, and they sent me home with percocet, even though I told them repeatedly that the pain wasn't too bad any more and I didn't want it.