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Shedding light on the dark web

economist.com

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Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#161

Post by duaneb »

logfromblammo wrote: post #123
at-fates-hands wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is just marijuana. I would hasten to say this. I totally support a lot of the legalization for medicinal purposes but there's still way too much of this happening: Driving while high on marijuana causing spike in fatal accidents - http://www.today.com/health/driving-while-high-marijuana-cau... Police: Driver Was High Before Crash That Killed Massachusetts State Trooper - http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/D…

One must be cautious to avoid the "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" fallacy. Furthermore, take care to notice "newsworthiness bias", which is when disproportionate media interest in an issue makes it seem more prevalent. Also, "if it bleeds, it leads" has been a journalistic aphorism for a long time. Watch out for articles in the next few months about injuries caused by "Pokemon Go" specifically, rather than something mor…

If there is a link between increased driving fatalities and legalized marijuana, it will be statistically significant and visible. I don't see much point in comparing total fatalities with other drugs--the harm is often under different mechanisms in different contexts.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#162

Post by hasenj »

brokenmachine wrote: post #159
hasenj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just kids rebelling. It has all to do with communities breaking down and social relations deteriorating. Teenagers in say, Japan, wouldn't so much rebel by using drugs. There are tons of less dangerous ways for teenagers to rebel. If kids in your community are rebelling by using dangerous drugs, you have a much more deeper problem.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you implying that teenagers in Japan don't do drugs, or just that they don't rebel by using drugs? Because teenagers in Japan most certainly do do drugs, both legal and illegal, dangerous or not. It's interesting that you use the phrase "dangerous drugs", I assume you meant to write "illegal drugs". I would argue that making any drug illegal immediately makes it 1000x more dangero…

I'm under the impression that something like heroin is dangerous while marijuana is not.

> Because teenagers in Japan most certainly do do drugs, both legal and illegal, dangerous or not.

I'd bet you a lot of money that the problem there is much much smaller than in the US. They have their own problems though. No society is without problems.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#163

Post by kelvin0 »

bduerst wrote: post #81
kelvin0 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate greed. In plain sight: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/as... http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st... http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/03/12/c... http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken

How is that proof of conspiracy? Civil asset forfeiture laws could fall subject to the same "status quo" problem as drug laws. Even then there are states who are taking steps to change them (e.g. CA SB 443 revote in Aug 2016), which could also be said about marijuana decriminalization.

I did not speak of conspiracy, simply that the current 'system' is quite lucrative for many groups and thus their self interest is not to change a broken process.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#164

Post by brokenmachine »

pzone wrote: post #84
idlewords wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a public health perspective, Prohibition was a success. The main reason it failed as policy is chemistry. You can make ethanol from anything—even a cactus, as Mexico has taught us.

But the whole point is that an objective function where you measure success only in terms of infant mortality, number of addicts etc. is absurd. Prohibition ruins people's lives, when they are sent to jail, marked as felons and excluded from the job market. We spend billions and billions of dollars enforcing these laws. And believe it or not, many people just enjoy drinking, and do it without any negative consequence…

That is a great point. I have no idea how anyone could be so brainwashed as to not agree. How many ruined lives is one less arbitrarily illegal drug user worth?

I think that the kind of people who would agree with prohibition at any cost are followers who won't think for themselves, have no knowledge or interest in history or hopes for a better future, and would have happily extolled the virtues of drug legalization if that had happened to be the policy at the time.

These people seem to attribute no value to civil liberties at all.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#165

Post by brokenmachine »

Archio wrote: post #79
Torgo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time I read anything about legalizing all drugs I am struck by how that opinion would change if they tried to function with a heroin addiction.

Why have you never tried heroin? I am struck by how often the response to that question is not "because it is illegal".

I have never tried heroin because at the time when I learned about it, I looked at some information and came to the conclusion that it would not be a good decision to make given the physical addictiveness of the drug. To be honest, I attributed almost zero weight to the fact that it was illegal.

Remember, opiates are legal now, with a prescription.

I wonder, hypothetically if there was a drug where the effects were as pleasurable as I assume heroin must be, but with no physical addiction or nasty side effects, would people still be against it?

What if, in the future, your cellphone could emit a frequency that generates pleasure in your brain, but as soon as you turn it off, you are back to normal. Would that be made illegal?

Could it be simply a moral objection to unearned pleasure that people are really against?

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#166

Post by __xjb__ »

sremani wrote: post #3

Darknet markets are like Hydra with 10 heads, when Silk Road is taken down, more players entered and when one other dark-market owners closed shop and jumped with vendors bit-coins, new ones with multi-escrow showed up. Again, with each take down people are improvising and making the system a bit more resilient.

What an excellent example of Nicholas Naseem Taleb's concept of antifragility.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#167

Post by andrei_says_ »

hasenj wrote: post #139
andrei_says_ wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you point out the straw-man argument? Does making it more difficult to get drugs prevent people suffering addiction from getting them? This is precisely one of the presumptions I was addressing. Also, one of the reasons people fall into addiction is that they feel "on their own".

The strawman being: > people who take drugs would not do so if drugs are unavailable They can still do them, just, away from me (and my children, family, neighbours, community, etc) to a big risk to themselves. They alone should bear that risk. They should be looked down upon to deter other people from trying. Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a l…

Unfortunately, that "away from me" part just doesn't work. Expensive schools in expensive neighborhoods where one would buy a house to avoid the "drug problem" have a serious drug problem. (Anecdotal evidence from someone who grew up in such an environment -- it may be hard to do such research without incriminating rich people).

Alcohol prohibition never worked. Drug prohibition didn't either -- at least beyond its goal of mass-criminalizing and incarcerating people of color and low income.

Trying to prevent drug use via prohibition is very much like preventing pregnancy via abstinence and prohibition of contraceptives.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#168

Post by andrei_says_ »

Tiksi wrote: post #141
hasenj wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strawman being: > people who take drugs would not do so if drugs are unavailable They can still do them, just, away from me (and my children, family, neighbours, community, etc) to a big risk to themselves. They alone should bear that risk. They should be looked down upon to deter other people from trying. Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a l…

> Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a lot of them. Sure, it deters one chunk of people, but at the same time encourages a large amount of, arguably more risk prone (think teenagers rebelling) , people due to the allure of forbidden fruit. The people you manage to discourage are likely the people that wouldn't have had issues with drugs in the firs…

Addiction is less a symptom of rebellion and more of a symptom of despair, boredom, lack of options, loneliness, depression etc.

Not easy problems to fix.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#169

Post by andrei_says_ »

Tiksi wrote: post #141
hasenj wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strawman being: > people who take drugs would not do so if drugs are unavailable They can still do them, just, away from me (and my children, family, neighbours, community, etc) to a big risk to themselves. They alone should bear that risk. They should be looked down upon to deter other people from trying. Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a l…

> Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a lot of them. Sure, it deters one chunk of people, but at the same time encourages a large amount of, arguably more risk prone (think teenagers rebelling) , people due to the allure of forbidden fruit. The people you manage to discourage are likely the people that wouldn't have had issues with drugs in the firs…

Addiction is less a symptom of rebellion and more of a symptom of despair, boredom, lack of options, loneliness, depression etc.

Not easy problems to fix.

Re: Shedding light on the dark web

#170

Post by brokenmachine »

Torgo wrote: post #67
colatkinson wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, advocates of universal legalization want to increase spending on rehabilitation, etc., so addicts would actually be able to seek and receive treatment instead of hiding their problems.

I am in favor of decriminalization of consumption, not of legalization.

Decriminalization of consumption is better than the current situation, but I am in favor of legalization and regulation.

It seems kind of hypocritical to me to say it's acceptable (or at least not illegal) for people to consume drugs, but not protect them by giving them any ability to know what it is they're actually taking, because they would still have to buy drugs of unknown strength from shady characters, manufactured in dodgy underground labs from ingredients of unknown origin.

Maybe decriminalization of consumption, as well as government testing labs that can identify unknown substances for people? That opens up it's own can of worms, of course.

It's a difficult conundrum, but our current system is the worst possible option. Almost anything would be an improvement.

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