91–100 of 187 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the Opium Wars which managed to reduce the greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts within a few decades. This too sounds familiar... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-22/deadly-ch...
They’ll just switch to carfentanil if fentanyl is stopped. The spice must flow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this comment getting downvoted?
Probably because of that part well, most of them would otherwise be addicted to something else anyway.
Non-injection administration dominates illicit opioid use* overall[1], but injection causes most overdoses[2]. Illicit use and overdoses are two related but separate aspects of the opioid crisis, so I think it's fair to say that many illicit users would be addicted to something else anyway, but the same cannot necessarily be said for injection users.
*I say illicit opioid use instead of opioid addiction or abuse because this study includes users who might not be addicted or might be using it for medical purposes
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2967505/ [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11964108
I hate to be That Guy Who Argues With Everything, but I will. I'm a big fan of Huxley and Brave New World, but he wasn't particularly visionary with Soma. Drug use goes back as far as humankind does because people have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people. If you're looking for a drug that helps with the anxieties of everyday life, alcohol would have my vote. It's been used for tho…
Caffeine, not alcohol, is by far the most socially acceptable drug of choice. Alcohol's definitely #2 though.
(Nicotine is similar, I imagine, though I've never actually used it)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read both books one after the other a while ago to compare them. I think there are aspects of both that are becoming reality (or have been reality for some time), but can absolutely say that Huxley was closer to predicting the future (at least in the West). The rise of mass media (hollywood, netflix), pornography, the pill (and other forms of contraception), large expendable incomes, smart phones, pharmaceuticals -…
On the other hand consider all the ways in which our society is fundamentally unlike BNW. The big one: we are not bred in test tubes and raised in massive government-run factories with our destinies determined by a letter from alpha to epsilon. Families have not been abolished, nor has pair bonding. Our lives are not engineered by an all-powerful global government, not even by an all-powerful national government. May…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry but this is not a narrative rooted in reality. People don’t not want kids. Lots of people want kids at the right time. Others want it but find they would be unable to provide for their children due to a generation and a half of wage stagnation, along with women not wanting to have to change their profession to “full time childcare”. Giving people access to childcare is documented to work. There isn’t some magic…
> People don’t not want kids. I'm not sure which Gen Z's you've spoken to recently, but the next generations certainly want kids much less than previous generations. And this trend will only continue. We have seen family sizes continually drop, until now the average is about 2. That will soon drop below 1 where most people do not have children. Give it 30-40 years max.
If you only care about population decline, you have an easy to undrestand tool for solving this problem, that doesn't involve trying to establish cultural hedgemony to try and convince everyone that they have to have at least 2 kids each.
The scariest thing in this article to me was buried at the end describing how many of these drugs can be found in the water supply (albeit in mostly trace amounts). Whether you want them or not, it seems like everyone is going to get these medications in trace amounts and who knows what they will do to our bodies over time. Is there anything that I as an average person can do to remove as many of these chemicals as I…
https://nowtoronto.com/what-chemicals-do-brita-type-filters-...
Huxley and Orwell saw two dystopian futures in different ways: one, totalitarian and ever watchful government. The other, a society robbed of cognitive and personal agency via societal pressure and medication. When I was young, I thought Orwell's future was the most dangerous an imminent. Then later Huxley, especially once things like "apps" were created. Now I see they both work together to erode liberty. Your cultu…
Huxley wrote a letter to Orwell, claiming that his own prediction of the future would be more likely than the recipient's. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world....
> I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Valium (and benzodiazepines in general) aren't prescribed as much these days because of their addictive potential. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/25/6882878... What were the prescription rates in the 60s?
I'm genuinely surprised. Maybe it's just for psych ailments (e.g. anxiety) that use has declined. > the biggest rise in prescriptions during this time period was for back pain and other types of chronic pain. Now I'm doubly surprised. Some benzos have muscle relaxant properties but I've never heard of them prescribed for pain. (I've never experienced benzo withdrawal but I've heard it claimed to be as bad as opiate w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He kinda missed the mark on predicting greater ability to suppress information though.
Did he miss the mark? Ask the average person on the street why congress are having impeachment proceedings against the president. most will either regurgitate some fox news conspiracy theory or say something about Russia. while the actual reason is he attempted to extort a personal quid pro quo from the Ukrainian government in exchange for releasing foreign aid funds they were due. Sounds to me like he predicted peop…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He kinda missed the mark on predicting greater ability to suppress information though.
Did he miss the mark? Ask the average person on the street why congress are having impeachment proceedings against the president. most will either regurgitate some fox news conspiracy theory or say something about Russia. while the actual reason is he attempted to extort a personal quid pro quo from the Ukrainian government in exchange for releasing foreign aid funds they were due. Sounds to me like he predicted peop…