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

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

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 161 posts

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

#141

Post by spikels »

stbarnes wrote: post #107
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."

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

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

#142

Post by thesimpsons1022 »

benched wrote: post #135
thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an argument against alcohol, not for other drugs. And personally I think society would be better off without it.

Well, sure, if you're pulling assertions out of thin air that agree with your narrow-minded views, and declaring them fact.

1. when did i pull an assertion out of thin air? I stated my opinion, I didn't "assert" anything. 2. why am I narrow-minded for disagreeing with you? that seems pretty "narrow-minded" to "assert" that. 3. I never said we should outlaw alcohol but I don't think anyone would disagree that society would be a lot better if alcohol didn't exist.

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

#143

Post by thesimpsons1022 »

pstuart wrote: post #91
jcalvinowens wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alcohol is responsible for 10s of thousands of deaths in the U.S. alone. Nope: _Abuse_ of Alcohol is responsible for 10s of thousands of deaths in the U.S. alone. You don't have to abuse cigarettes: you just use them, and they kill you.

The _abuse_ of anything is bad. Alcohol is still a societal danger. If you really want to protect people you should make it illegal. But I bet you like a drink now and then, so you're willing to let other people die so you can get a buzz on. Edit: can't reply to your reply so I'm appending here: Your non reply confirms my guess. Because you like your drug of choice you are ok with it being legal, but other people can…

crazy libertarians always find their way into every discussion. try not to get so worked up bud.

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

#144

Post by spikels »

nikatwork wrote: post #131
stbarnes wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Inertia. It seems fairly established that privatized prisons pour lobbying money into political pockets to push for arbitrarily harsher sentencing. You can't just reverse this or you are painted as "soft on crime". Even when the actual social impact of these policies are tremendously negative and only benefit a small number of private investors. I thought The Wire's "Hamsterdam" episode was a great parable on what wo…

I think the influence of the private prison operator while real is overstated. It makes a good story but they have less that 4% of US prisoners.

Much more influential are the prison guard and police unions and organizations. In California alone they oversee more prisoners than all the private prison operators combined and they are very active in strengthening sentencing[1].

But as stated by others the main problem is the politics. There are real problems and politicians can score points with naive voters by "doing something". On the other hand reducing sentences is a very risk position for politician to take.

Blame the politicians and voters as it is their responsibility to set the rules of the game. All the other parties are simply acting in their self-interest.

[1] http://www.policymic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-h...

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

#145

Post by nikatwork »

spikels wrote: post #144
nikatwork wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inertia. It seems fairly established that privatized prisons pour lobbying money into political pockets to push for arbitrarily harsher sentencing. You can't just reverse this or you are painted as "soft on crime". Even when the actual social impact of these policies are tremendously negative and only benefit a small number of private investors. I thought The Wire's "Hamsterdam" episode was a great parable on what wo…

I think the influence of the private prison operator while real is overstated. It makes a good story but they have less that 4% of US prisoners. Much more influential are the prison guard and police unions and organizations. In California alone they oversee more prisoners than all the private prison operators combined and they are very active in strengthening sentencing[1]. But as stated by others the main problem is…

This report argues that private prisoner percentages are much higher if you include all forms of state detention[1], eg "more than half of Louisiana’s 40,000 inmates are housed in prisons run by sheriffs or private companies as part of a broader financial incentive scheme."

I don't think it's as easy as blaming the voters. The political system seems caught in a negative feedback loop, greased by lobbyist money and with no clear offramp.

[1] http://www.propublica.org/article/by-the-numbers-the-u.s.s-g...

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

#146

Post by nikatwork »

hansjorg wrote: post #138
gnaritas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. An almost fair point... if and only if we get there, I'm not yet convinced we will, however drug use is not drug abuse. To call it a health issue it'd first have to affect your health negatively. If it does, that can be seen by the doctor and noted…

> I reject the notion that you can be your own victim. If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself. Forget the state for a moment and try to scale it down. In a village where everybody knows and depends on each other, what would you do if an outsider came along and tricked one of your fellow villagers out of all their means?…

There are countless problems with your analogy, however I will focus on one. Smoking pot recreationally cannot be equated with a trickster fooling someone out of all their money.

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

#147

Post by Yaa101 »

saraid216 wrote: post #140
daenz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very black and white view of the world. I agree with many of your points though, that many problems are more profitable unsolved. However, many laws indeed have a basis in some (possibly twisted) form of morality (preventative or punitive).

No, GP's comment is a black-and-black view, as it allows for no possibility for improvement.

Nope, a realistic view, and there is a posibility for improvement when it is oportune.

Don't fool yourself with romanticizing history, history is very dark and grim.

And of course you should try to make a lighter and fairer future, but people are people and nature/evolution isn't fair at all.

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

#148

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gnaritas wrote: post #113
jiggy2011 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an age of mass communication and easy global travel I could see it scaling up far beyond a rich guy marrying 5 women. It wouldn't be surprising to see certain superstars building harems counted by the hundred.

Nothing wrong with that as long as the women agree.

Where on Earth have we ever seen large-scale polygamy with all the women entirely agreed?

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

#149

Post by AnthonyMouse »

LeapingLennie wrote: post #123
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That argument only works if taxation provides a net benefit to society. How about this one then: At any given level of government spending and borrowing, tax evasion requires higher taxes to be imposed on those not engaged in tax evasion.

That is making the assumption that government spending is constant irrespective of tax revenue. If tax rates and public debt remain constant then tax avoidance will lead government spending to fall. This may mean fewer immoral actions conducted by the government such as wars or arresting people for victimless crimes. In this way, tax evasion can be not only harmless but a moral imperative.

Do you not see where this is going? You could make exactly the same argument in favor of stealing government property.

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

#150

Post by AnthonyMouse »

arg01 wrote: post #127
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd assume you do agree that excessive speeding constitutes a crime as a it raises the chances of inflicting injury on others. That is a poor assumption. The government is incompetent (and corrupt) to choose what course of action best manages risk. The better answer is to make people (and their insurance carriers) liable for the damage they actually cause. If you drive too fast and kill someone, you should be liabl…

How do we estimate a fair market price on what the average person is willing to be paid to be hit? Let's not forget to price in what people would accept for you taking away a loved one through reckless behaviour. I'd hazard in a lot of cases the cost they would settle for given a choice would be your blood. Maybe a fair market value considering this fact is your time in jail.

Society is obviously willing to accept a certain level of loss of life as the cost of faster transportation, otherwise we wouldn't have motor vehicles whatsoever.

You can't actually give someone your life. Killing the perpetrator doesn't bring back the victim, it's just revenge. And revenge is never justice.

What benefits the victim more? Setting the perpetrator on fire, or making the perpetrator [carry insurance sufficient to] pay the victim the most accurate estimate we can make of the monetary value of the damage caused? I know people hate assigning dollar figures to human life, but in the absence of some technology capable of resurrecting the deceased, how else do you propose to compensate the victim's loved ones?

Post reply on HN