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The Poison We Pick

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Re: The Poison We Pick

#31

Post by graphitezepp »

thomzi12 wrote: post #24
dmreedy wrote: post #23

I've been talking with my brother a lot about this recently, especially as a function of the overall decrease of 'meaning' in the world. I think it goes back even further, to the advent of postmodernism in the throes of World War I. They were the first lost generation, but I don't think they were the last. The death of modernism and the accompanying assault on the bastions of objective meaning (as discussed in the ar…

Um, people have been “rabidly” consuming fiction since the Greeks created theater?

The appeal of fiction has never changed and been around. Availability and the volume people consume has changed drastically.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#32

Post by tclancy »

mmjaa wrote: post #15
dictum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely skeptical of most drug use, recreational or medical (over time, any habit can start to lose its initial magic, and you start to perform it out of boredom. Then again, I'm greatly bored of e.g. coffee enthusiasts, so maybe it's something about overesteemed obsessions in general) but I'm not sure about the "enemies". Could you name them? This seems less like a cabal plotting and more like systemic/cultura…

Just some examples, to kick off your thinking about this subject: North Korea runs one of the largest methamphetamine production industries in the world, and has spread the drug throughout the Asian region, including Australia, as a means of debasing its enemies. This has had a real and lasting effect on the economy of many of its perceived enemies. Israel runs the most sophisticated border infiltration units in the…

This is either misguided or misleading: it appears (upon a superficial web search) that Israelis are at the heart of MDMA production, but they are mobsters, not government employees: https://www.haaretz.com/1.4723857

Re: The Poison We Pick

#33

Post by maxerickson »

dmreedy wrote: post #23

I've been talking with my brother a lot about this recently, especially as a function of the overall decrease of 'meaning' in the world. I think it goes back even further, to the advent of postmodernism in the throes of World War I. They were the first lost generation, but I don't think they were the last. The death of modernism and the accompanying assault on the bastions of objective meaning (as discussed in the ar…

What if it is simpler than a quest for meaning?

What if our pandering to rugged individualism has simply lead us to create a society where institutions, instead of providing a level playing field, reward those that have already won and punish those that have not?

Buy a million dollar house? Write off the cost of financing it. Get injured and not be able to work for a year? Huh, not sure someone with that kind of resume gap is the kind of person that we want to hire.

Then we wring our hands about why a frustrating, alienating society frustrates and alienates people.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#34

Post by cstavish »

tclancy wrote: post #29
dmreedy wrote: post #23

I've been talking with my brother a lot about this recently, especially as a function of the overall decrease of 'meaning' in the world. I think it goes back even further, to the advent of postmodernism in the throes of World War I. They were the first lost generation, but I don't think they were the last. The death of modernism and the accompanying assault on the bastions of objective meaning (as discussed in the ar…

>A fictional world is readily graspable I've been reading "Sapiens" and one of the recurring themes is the idea humanity's success is built on the ability to create useful fictions to bind large groups to a goal or cause. I think we are struggling with that in the first world as we give up religion without a clear replacement fiction that reassures people someone will be there if they get sick and when they die. In a…

Sapiens?

Re: The Poison We Pick

#35

Post by meri_dian »

There is sadness in every corner of the world, but that only overlaps with opiate availability in certain places.

In America, like every nation, there is sadness. However in America, unlike many other nations, we have widespread opiate availability.

This combinations leads to opiate deaths on the scale we see. It's not complex.

What is the answer? China knows the evils of opiate addiction, perhaps in the future, after enough of our own society is ravaged by it we will adopt the Chinese attitude towards opiates and look back at the naive past as our future selves tend to do.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#36

Post by pwaivers »

> "And so we wait to see what amount of death will be tolerable in America as the price of retaining prohibition. Is it 100,000 deaths a year? More? At what point does a medical emergency actually provoke a government response that takes mass death seriously? Imagine a terror attack that killed over 40,000 people. Imagine a new virus that threatened to kill 52,000 Americans this year. Wouldn’t any government make it the top priority before any other?"

This is a very good point and really puts it into perspective. Overall this is an excellent essay. I also really like how he addresses the physical affects of opioids, rather than just saying it gets you "high".

Re: The Poison We Pick

#38

Post by [deleted] »

noahc wrote: post #20
mmjaa wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some examples, to kick off your thinking about this subject: North Korea runs one of the largest methamphetamine production industries in the world, and has spread the drug throughout the Asian region, including Australia, as a means of debasing its enemies. This has had a real and lasting effect on the economy of many of its perceived enemies. Israel runs the most sophisticated border infiltration units in the…

When you say these countries are doing it, who inside these countries? What organizations or political groups are doing this?

[deleted]

Re: The Poison We Pick

#39

Post by dictum »

maxerickson wrote: post #33
dmreedy wrote: post #23

I've been talking with my brother a lot about this recently, especially as a function of the overall decrease of 'meaning' in the world. I think it goes back even further, to the advent of postmodernism in the throes of World War I. They were the first lost generation, but I don't think they were the last. The death of modernism and the accompanying assault on the bastions of objective meaning (as discussed in the ar…

What if it is simpler than a quest for meaning? What if our pandering to rugged individualism has simply lead us to create a society where institutions, instead of providing a level playing field, reward those that have already won and punish those that have not? Buy a million dollar house? Write off the cost of financing it. Get injured and not be able to work for a year? Huh, not sure someone with that kind of resu…

> Get injured and not be able to work for a year? Huh, not sure someone with that kind of resume gap is the kind of person that we want to hire.

This is often voiced in HN as "a bad hire is a liability", which I mentally translate to "my life has gone so smoothly, I've lost the ability to imagine a life history unlike my own".

Re: The Poison We Pick

#40

Post by m_fayer »

dmreedy wrote: post #17
jacobush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a good development?

The loss of a source of meaning in life is a dangerous thing, especially if it isn't replaced by something else. That way lies nihilism, and, if the thesis of the article is to be believed, opiod addiction.

Nihilism is a high-brow thing for high-brow people. You're right that it is a dangerous thing, but I think before nihilism, for most it leads to depression, anxiety, anomie, and then all sorts of destructive self-medication.
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