Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

pipeline.corante.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#41

Post by teddyh »

dllthomas wrote: post #22
Igglyboo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's what I'm saying, "unless humans want it to" still qualifies as natural. Humans are natural and a part of nature and so anything they create is as well. If a beehive or beaver dam is considered natural then so is the empire state building, all three were created by animals native to this planet.

Sure, you can redefine the word in a way that makes it meaningless. Or you can use it the way the rest of the world does - where "natural" means "not the result of human intervention". By that definition, it's obvious why a beehive and beaver dam are "natural" and the Empire State Building is not. There is a degree to which this focus is arbitrary, but given that we are humans, it's sometimes a worthwhile focus to ha…

Zhuangzi had something to say about this:

“'What do you mean,' pursued the earl, 'by the Heavenly, and by the Human?' Ruo replied, 'Oxen and horses have four feet - that is what I call their Heavenly (constitution). When horses' heads are haltered, and the noses of oxen are pierced, that is what I call (the doing of) Man. Hence it is said, "Do not by the Human (doing) extinguish the Heavenly (constitution); do not for your (Human) purpose extinguish the appointment (of Heaven); do not bury your (proper) fame in (such) a pursuit of it; carefully guard (the Way) and do not lose it: this is what I call reverting to your True (Nature)."'”

— Zhuangzi, chapter 17 (“The Floods of Autumn”)

http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn#n42150

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#43

Post by mason240 »

dllthomas wrote: post #22
Igglyboo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's what I'm saying, "unless humans want it to" still qualifies as natural. Humans are natural and a part of nature and so anything they create is as well. If a beehive or beaver dam is considered natural then so is the empire state building, all three were created by animals native to this planet.

Sure, you can redefine the word in a way that makes it meaningless. Or you can use it the way the rest of the world does - where "natural" means "not the result of human intervention". By that definition, it's obvious why a beehive and beaver dam are "natural" and the Empire State Building is not. There is a degree to which this focus is arbitrary, but given that we are humans, it's sometimes a worthwhile focus to ha…

That's the point, it is a meaningless term.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#44

Post by throwaway_yy2Di »

[off topic] Wow, his last post created some bizarre drama on Reddit:

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/09/12/thiola_retro...

His criticism of a biotech CEO provoked a Reddit thread with two thousand comments, and the CEO showing up to write responses. And controversially the whole thing was removed by moderators, and Dr. Lowe briefly banned from the site.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#45

Post by 80ProofPudding »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37
80ProofPudding wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. "Organic" is pretty widely abused, too - want to drink some crude oil? It's organic...

Crude oil is [primarily] organic if your context is [petro]chemistry. It's not an organic foodstuff however. Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things. Why is it that you don't wish people to know where their food has come from and how it has been produced. What is the problem with that for you? If you don't care that your children's food is saturated with growth hormones, fungicide…

I think you're casting me as a proxy in a larger argument.

You're also being pretty insulting about it.

Life's too short. I've no time for people like that.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#46

Post by geographomics »

wtallis wrote: post #38
linker3000 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, that was a genuine question so why the downvote? I'm not a scientist and really can't understand why no-one wouldn't have done a controlled test or comparison in laboratory conditions.

Laboratory tests are expensive and time consuming and in this case completely unnecessary. Why would anyone do such an experiment?

Although the original paper only described the biochemical analysis they performed, it seems that cultivating the plants in the lab was planned for their future work, with the intent of figuring out the biosynthetic pathway by radiolabelling possible precursors.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#47

Post by Houshalter »

Igglyboo wrote: post #11
sp332 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are natural. But this arrangement of the atoms does not occur unless humans want it to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol

Yes that's what I'm saying, "unless humans want it to" still qualifies as natural. Humans are natural and a part of nature and so anything they create is as well. If a beehive or beaver dam is considered natural then so is the empire state building, all three were created by animals native to this planet.

You have redefined a word to be entirely useless and then get upset when other people don't subscribe to your new definition of the word.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#49

Post by dllthomas »

mason240 wrote: post #43
dllthomas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can redefine the word in a way that makes it meaningless. Or you can use it the way the rest of the world does - where "natural" means "not the result of human intervention". By that definition, it's obvious why a beehive and beaver dam are "natural" and the Empire State Building is not. There is a degree to which this focus is arbitrary, but given that we are humans, it's sometimes a worthwhile focus to ha…

That's the point, it is a meaningless term.

No. The way most people use the term it has a meaning. It's the redefinition that is meaningless, and should thus be rejected as useless. That doesn't mean that people always reason correctly about it, but that should be confronted directly not by playing semantic games.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#50

Post by dbbolton »

>The farmers apparently take the drug themselves, at pretty high dosages, saying that it allows them to work without getting tiree.

That's insane. Tramadol is among the worst painkillers to use recreationally, which is why it's often the next line of analgesic therapy after NSAIDs and before hydrocodone.

It is a comparatively weak mu-opioid agonist, so the dose a person would have to take to get a prototypical opioid high, likely quadruple a normal prescribed dose at minimum, is pushing the margin of safety.

I am not advocating drug use here, but if you're dead set on getting high, please use something else- namely something with a higher mu-affinity that would require a lower dose, and ideally something that's not combined with acetaminophen or other NSAIDs.

Post reply on HN