Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging • Hacker News Board

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#731

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:32 AM UTC

HAL3000 wrote: post #468

brightlancer wrote: post #186

Rubbish. Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that they'll be arrested for the mere _use_ of a substance. (Marijuana has very low risk and rates of addiction, physical or psychological.) If "hard" drugs are legalized, then they will likely be treated the same as alcohol and pot and tobacco: highly regulated, so…

In 1970 and 1971, in New York City, more adolescents died of heroin-related incidents than any other cause. Watch what you wish for. Hard drugs are not pot or alcohol; anyone who has used all of them at least a few times will tell you that. As someone who had heroin addicts in the family, and as someone who did a lot of alcohol, pot, ecstasy, cocaine, amphetamine, etc., in his 20s, I'm strongly against legalizing har…

Thank you to share this personal story. What are your thoughts on trying to reduce harm? You sound like someone who will have valuable opinions about this important matter.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#732

Post by pkdpic » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:37 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #720

HWR_14 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

Shame works very well. I so hate it when people use "gay" to invoke some sort of a culture war side-choosing spell. The original comment is about feeling shame not being shamed. If you believe being gay is wrong the yes you should feel shame, if you don't then the question is not relevant for you. The original commenter is more right than any of us can conceive. So many societal problems would be solved if people had…

I like the distinction between being shamed and feeling shamed. And although as a home owner in a northern california downtown area I couldn't agree more that shame feels absent in a lot of the behavior plaguing our communities in a multitude of capacities, Im reminded of the rumors I hear about how dysfunctional shame-grounded societies like Japan are for those who don't fit into normalized parameters.

Anyway its making me wonder, has the US ever been strongly rooted in shame as a non-homogeneous nation? If so when and why did we stop? Growing up in the bay area I feel like I might have a pretty warped view...

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#733

Post by thowieru2342343 » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:40 AM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

[flagged]

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#734

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:41 AM UTC

brightlancer wrote: post #154

minsc_and_boo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with legal sales, there are still black markets for drugs, as is evident with marijuana: https://apnews.com/article/business-california-los-angeles-m...

The same thing is true for tobacco - while it is legally to sell and consume (by super-adults, 21+) in every US state, they've taxed it so highly that there is a fantastic black market. And Eric Garner is a great example of how the government with murder you on the _suspicion_ that you aren't paying your taxes. Garner commonly sold individual cigarettes ("loosies") which were usually untaxed; it does not appear he wa…

I don't think cigarette taxes have been keeping up with inflation. They are like $12 for a pack now in Seattle, they were $10 a pack 7 years ago. So oddly enough, given the recent bout of inflation, they are actually affordable again.

In Sydney, they are $37AU a pack, or about $24 USD.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#735

Post by saulpw » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:43 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #720

HWR_14 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

Shame works very well. I so hate it when people use "gay" to invoke some sort of a culture war side-choosing spell. The original comment is about feeling shame not being shamed. If you believe being gay is wrong the yes you should feel shame, if you don't then the question is not relevant for you. The original commenter is more right than any of us can conceive. So many societal problems would be solved if people had…

That's the thing about shame, it's NOT your own standards, it's society's (your parents') standards that have been inculcated into you since before you were born. I remember a post by a guy on reddit who was waiting for his g/f in a gas station and tried on some sunglasses on the rack before he realized they were women's sunglasses. and he felt such an immense shock of shame that he almost threw them on the floor. He realized how ridiculous this was (hence the post) but it doesn't matter, that shame runs really deep and takes a long time and a huge personal effort to truly overcome. This is why people have had such a hard time coming to terms with being gay, and that leaks out in all kinds of terrible ways.

If society only used shame for truly reprehensible, amoral, antisocial behavior, then sure, the original commenter is making a great point. But shame has been weaponized. Look around you. People are being shamed for being poor, fat, disabled, lazy, oversexed, undersexed, voting wrong, not voting, you name it. So some of us live in a state of constant shame for innocuous behavior and others of us cope by becoming shameless. Even here, you're trying to cast shame upon the shameless, with "refusing to feel shame is embracing evil".

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#736

Post by babyshake » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:52 AM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #713

K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

> I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in.

This is a strawman argument. I think what we're talking about is shame for having a reckless disregard for others. The way I think of it is we are increasingly living in a world where people are viewing other humans as "NPCs".

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#737

Post by nonethewiser » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:53 AM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #713

K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

> It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you.

> I don't need more people being shamed for being gay

Well he never said anything about being gay. Perhaps you’re reading some other concerns into his comment.

Imagine two worlds where there is no murder. The first has no murder because no one feels inclined to murder. The second has no murder because there are very strong rules which stop people who feel inclined to do it. Can there possibly be any case made to choose the 2nd over the 1st?

Japan is a good example of this principle. Things are a lot more orderly despite a lot weaker enforcement mechanisms.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#738

Post by ezekiel68 » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:55 AM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

I actually agree with you -- from the standpoint of socially influencing others who are not already addicts.

There is no true addict on the planet however (of any substance or behavior) who will hit "rock bottom", as they say, and moderate their addictive behavior due to shame. So I feel that some of the blowback you are receiving here is related to the notion (true or not) that public shame applied to addiction for the purpose of influencing non-addicts is equvalent to "giving up" on addicts themselves (and therefore not worth that cost).

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#739

Post by imgabe » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:55 AM UTC

GeoAtreides wrote: post #200

tlogan wrote: post #121

I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll s…

I used to strongly support people getting fat. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in the US has made me think differently. Most people who get fat eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll say the nu…

> Most people who get fat eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment.

This is where your analogy falls apart.

Most fat people are able to live like normal adults. They do not get fired from their jobs and lose their homes because they're camped out on the street eating McDonald's all day.

Many of them do willingly get help or treatment. There is a multi-billion dollar industry of helping people lose weight.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#740

Post by rayiner » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 4:56 AM UTC

oldpmfan wrote: post #674

rayiner wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re giving examples of where the German social norms allow things that are taboo under US social norms. That’s not what shame is about. Shame is a feeling that societies use to enforce social norms and taboos—whatever those norms happen to be. America is a very individualistic society—people can violate social norms and they don’t feel shame, because they say “who cares what other people think?” My impression of G…

I was born and raised in Germany and I give a f*ck what other people think (I care ZERO percent). But to be honest I also left Germany (because I'm fortunate enough to do that) because society is blind in sense of taxes, social insurance etc especially if you are an entrepreneur. Rich or wealthy people in Germany are considered to be thieves or inherits of something/somebody. Believe it or not but many Germans feel a…

> Believe it or not but many Germans feel ashamed when being wealthy (or they do not speak about their wealth ever, keep it a secret).

Sounds like (1) Germany does enforce social norms through shame; and (2) you do care what people think enough to move to a society where people don’t shame you for trying to get rich.