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America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#101

Post by samstave »

eqdw wrote: post #34
samstave wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every cop should be required to were a gopro on their chest. Anyone who has any encounter with a cop should have protected rights to access and review that video as material evidence in their case.

With a battery life of <2 hours, they're gonna need a different camera /s

Larger external battery on belt. Have a jack in the squad car they connect to wheneversitting in the car. Have an alarm that goes off and logs all times the charger is not connected.

Run it off beaglebone or rasberri the whole device and system is less than $500.

Steam that shit to the cloud. Want me to price that for you?

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#102

Post by agapos »

gnaritas wrote: post #17
drawkbox wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Victimless is hard to define. By victimless I think you mean non-violent really. Even if there is a victim, if there was no violence, putting the perpetrator into a jail/prison will create more violence. Also repeat offenses of non-violent crimes might be needed but most can be solved economically. For instance take someone who does some financial crime, why lock them up and have the public on the hook for 30k per ye…

No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality that try and tell you it's wrong to do things that only involve consenting adults. Non-violent is another category, but I agree with you on that category, prison should be for the violent.

Drugs? Victimless? You may want to ask the Mexicans about that. The way I see, drug usage as an act itself may be victimless (though highly unlikely), but the way it reaches it's costumers is sure as hell isn't.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#103

Post by MartinCron »

brc wrote: post #73
gnaritas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Complaints down 88%, use of force down 60% Which really just shows how much better cops behave when they know they're being watched and justifies complaints about their corruption.

It would also be a drop in spurious complaints which have no merit. If there is recorded evidence, and the potential complainant knows that exists, then they are less likely to make things up. Many of the people who deal with police on a frequent basis are skilled liars. They know how to stymie investigations by tying the officers up in paperwork. Having video evidence would prevent spurious complaints.

It would also be a drop in spurious complaints which have no merit.

That's great too! Win-win!

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#104

Post by gamblor956 »

btilly wrote: post #89

Microeconomics 101. Better enforcement leads to higher prices leads to a more profitable black market profits leads to more criminal behavior. BTW when people say "foo 101" they usually mean "it is basic". But this time that really was the course where I learned this. (Black markets are an elementary application of supply/demand curves.)

Better enforcement leads to higher prices because costs of trafficking increase substantially. The higher prices are necessary to maintain profit margins, so they don't lead to a more profitable black market. Rather, as history has actually shown us, it leads to worse profit margins, followed by mergers and "acquisitions" between cartels. In LA and other Southwestern cities, increase enforcement has even prompted drug gangs to shift to less enforced income streams, such as prostitution.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#105

Post by stbarnes »

Yaa101 wrote: post #69
DerpDerpDerp wrote: post #2

And maybe we could do something about our policing problem at the same time... What, with using national (military) spying apparatus to go after drug dealers, police seizing assets from private citizens who they often don't accuse of a crime, the rampant militarization of domestic police forces... Well, it's nice to dream.

It's a dream to think that law was enacted to put an end to those kinds of troubles. Law is made by the representatives to keep the problems in tact for various reasons by various people in the chain. Politicians do not want to solve all problems and find out that since they solved the problems, they are not needed anymore. The military and arms industrial complex certainly do not want to solve the problems, if they…

So politicians are in a conspiracy to not stop problems? Sounds unlikely to me, I think it's more like:

* Many politicians, like most people, are idiots. Partly because many voters are also idiots.

* Politicians don't have strong incentives to stop problems. (But they don't have strong incentives to preserve problems, either. They're only incentivized to be popular.)

* Principal-agent problems. Even if a politician comes up with a brilliant solution, the people lower in the chain won't execute it well, because they often don't have strong incentives to.

Anyway, there was a conspiracy to preserve problems, any particular politician could start solving problems. This would likely place him above his peers. Then his peers might backstab him, but they also might join him, since he'll have increased popularity. Essentially, we have a sort of iterated n-player prisoner's dilemma; or rather, at each step we choose m people (non-randomly) to together participate in an m-player prisoner's dilemma. It might be interesting to try to model this mathematically.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#106

Post by Yaa101 »

stbarnes wrote: post #105
Yaa101 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dream to think that law was enacted to put an end to those kinds of troubles. Law is made by the representatives to keep the problems in tact for various reasons by various people in the chain. Politicians do not want to solve all problems and find out that since they solved the problems, they are not needed anymore. The military and arms industrial complex certainly do not want to solve the problems, if they…

So politicians are in a conspiracy to not stop problems? Sounds unlikely to me, I think it's more like: * Many politicians, like most people, are idiots. Partly because many voters are also idiots. * Politicians don't have strong incentives to stop problems. (But they don't have strong incentives to preserve problems, either. They're only incentivized to be popular.) * Principal-agent problems. Even if a politician c…

What makes you think there is a conspiracy? It's about oportunity.

I wasn't bitching about those people, just explaining how things work on this planet.

You know, like a manual.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#107

Post by stbarnes »

k0mplex wrote: post #77

We don't have a black-market problem, we have a demand problem: if people didn't demand drugs, there wouldn't be a market at all.

You seem to be implying that we should focus on reducing demand. That could be true, but "X implies Y" does not necessarily imply that the best way of eliminating Y is to eliminate X. For instance, "We don't have a murder problem, we have a "people exist" problem."

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#108

Post by btilly »

gamblor956 wrote: post #104
btilly wrote: post #89

Microeconomics 101. Better enforcement leads to higher prices leads to a more profitable black market profits leads to more criminal behavior. BTW when people say "foo 101" they usually mean "it is basic". But this time that really was the course where I learned this. (Black markets are an elementary application of supply/demand curves.)

Better enforcement leads to higher prices because costs of trafficking increase substantially. The higher prices are necessary to maintain profit margins, so they don't lead to a more profitable black market. Rather, as history has actually shown us, it leads to worse profit margins, followed by mergers and "acquisitions" between cartels. In LA and other Southwestern cities, increase enforcement has even prompted dru…

Not quite. Better enforcement leads to reduced supply. Reduced supply shifts you to a higher price on the demand curve.

Typically for a black market that will wind up being a higher profit margin, and the margin is required to tempt people to run the risks of enforcement. The better the enforcement, the higher the risk, and the better the profit margin that is needed to get people to do it.

The consolidation that you are referring to happens because there are substantial economies of scale to be had for importing and distributing illegal commodities. Particularly once you add into the picture the fact that criminal organizations do their own anti-competitive enforcement...

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#109

Post by speeder »

gamblor956 wrote: post #100
girvo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a tough job? You bet. Are they unfairly vilified? Not a chance: police should be held to a higher moral standard than the general public, as they're the ones enforcing it. The best part of them wearing a GoPro is that everyone wins: civilians get to feel much safer, and police get to show that they're not as bad as they're made out to be. The issue arises when the cops have that introduced, and accusations of e…

The proportion of bad cops to good cops is probably about the same as the proportion of pervert sexist programmers who like to sexually harass their female coworkers to non-perverted programmers. If your only exposure to either profession is what you see online, you'll have a dim view of both professions. It's true that there is a large number of bad cops--but that's simply because there are a lot cops. Most cops hol…

The problem is a bad cop can cause much more damage...

Bad programmers don't have weapons and authority to kidnap people legally.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#110

Post by nine_k »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #99
nine_k wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you have to use heroin regularly for months to become physiologically addicted. The time is shorter than for alcohol but not instantaneous. What catches people is a psychological addiction: heroin high just feels incredibly good (disclaimer: I did not try it so I translate other peoples' opinions). But the same can be said about alcohol, sugar, games like the infamous 2048, and great many other things. Of c…

> Actually, you have to use heroin regularly for months to become physiologically addicted. I don't think I'm remiss in saying that most who start using heroin do in fact get to that point, am I? > These substances are appropriately packed, abundantly labeled with warnings — but their use is not banned. Comparing sulphuric acid to heroin is a huge stretch for me. Sure, injecting sulphuric acid into your arm is defini…

Though I don't have any stats ready on how many heroin users end up as addicts that actually hurt their health, and how many recover later, you don't seem to have it either. Before we have some kind of numbers, I don't think discussing this can lead anywhere constructive.

I'm pretty sure that most users of nicotine (as smoked tobacco or in electronic cigarettes) get physiologically addicted pretty quickly, and in a pretty hard way. Though this is inconvenient to them, it usually does not bother people around, because nicotine is not a behavior-altering substance (unlike alcohol or cocaine). AFAIK, heroin is not a behavior-altering substance either. It's the lack of a dose what dangerously alters the behavior of a heroine addict (or an alcohol addict).

Since heroin is outlawed, users have far lower thresholds to pass to act unlawfully in other regards, since they feel like criminals already. A heavy nicotine addict may suffer immensely without a fix, but usually stays a lawful citizen despite it.

Take insulin: it's also intended to be used as a drug, and improper use can quickly kill you. Thats why it's a prescription-only substance, but a completely lawful one. Quite a few over-the-counter drugs can kill you, or at least severely cripple you, if used improperly. Do you think outlawing them is a good idea? (Hell, 3/4 pound of table salt, if ingested quickly, would kill you. I hope you exercise reason when adding salt to your food.)

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