Comment yay ponies!! (Score 1) 148
finally : )
but you don't need to start by making shit up!
peoples like you are why science is so sucky. where did you start and how did you end up so close minded?
I see more and more that the commercial side wants to tighten the grip, and intentionally hobble software for all but the highest bidders.
Meanwhile my software budget decreases out of continued disappointment and frustration.
The US can't do that in the US either. Just an FYI.
" Frankly, EU and European countries take privacy a lot more seriously,"
Care to back that up? I mean when you can take time away from being on public video, told what you can and can not say, carrying papers,
IT would be more correct to say it treats privacy different;which makes sense because what it considered ''privacy' is different. For example, what you do in public can be considered 'private' in some countries.
Of course it's such a patch work in the EU, it's almost nonsense to say to use the EU as a generally statement concerning privacy.
there is no war on drugs
there is a "war on alcohol" (pointless) or a "war on lsd" (pointless) or a "war on meth" (NOT pointless)
you need to evaluate each drug individually, because for some drugs, that are highly addictive and inebriating, pushing back against the availability of the drug has a real effect in terms of saving lots of lives
there are two classes of drug users, for any drug: the committed idiot, and the casual idiot
the committed idiot, just as you say, represents a permanent underclass of drug addled zombie. no law will stop their self-destruction. whether every drug is completely free, or completely draconianly locked down, they will still destory their lives, no matter what you do. that's just their psychological fate. and so they don't matter in the policy analysis
but the CASUAl idiot, the average teenager who thinks they are immune and immortal, that there are no limitations on their will power: in a free and unfettered environment, these are lives you are burdening with decades of quality of life destroying, freedom destroying addiction (when it comes to only the worst drugs: cocaine, heroine, meth). but given enough time, and difficulty in accessing the worst substances, the casual teenage idiot will mature and realize on their own the threat coke/ meth/ heroin has on their quality of life and freedom
that is what the war on drugs is for. not the permanent unalterable underclass of drug zombies, but the much larger user base of casual idiots who, with CERTAIN substances (meth/ heorin/ coke) will be turned into drug zombies
you have to evaluate the substances individually. alcohol, marijuana: the war on drugs is stupid
heroin, coke: the war on drugs makes a genuine net positive. yes, the war on drugs has plenty of negative effects. for alcohol/ marijuana, those negative effects argue for legalization. but for some substances, life destruction is so viral through easy addiction, that the war, even with all the negativ effects considered, still has a net positive effect
I'm trying to figure out which part of this story is the scariest.
... that someone has suggested setting off an underground nuke to close an oil well?
... finding out that the Soviets did this all the time?
... finding out that the USSR was so careless they had six "petrocalamities" worth trying this trick on?
... finding out that there's an actual word for an oil accident of this size?
that if you legalized everything, every single problem you just cited above would be worse?
the best you can do is push back against the growth of the drug addled zombie underclass, and push back against the growth of the mafia, forever. NOT pushing back against these things simply means they grow and proliferate even more, to the destruction of far more rights and freedoms and destroyed lives than the war on drugs itself. you can't ever completely destroy the drug use, but that never was the point: the point is to simply minimize their stink
why can't you see that? why can't you appreciate the damage done by a large underclass of drug zombies and a fattened mafia from their existence? why doesn't your mind perceive of and understand the threat to individual freedom from those things?
here, learn your history:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM
here's the problem: teenagers are idiots. they think of themselves as immortal and immune, they don't perceive of the limitations of their willpower when faced, for example, with crippling addiction to something like coke/ heroin/ meth. and so, in an environment of easy access, a heck of a lot of them will try these things, and wind up with a life long crippling addiction
prevent them from accessing to these drugs though, and they mature to the point where they perceive on their own these substances have towards their quality of life and their freedom. of course you won't save everyone, some committed idiots are just hellbent on personal destruction. but a much larger class of casual idiots needs to be given the chance to escape the hell of addiction
i really wish you could understand and appreciate exactly what heroin, coke, and meth do to someone's lives and their minds and their freedom. of course the war on drugs has negative effects. i recognize and acknowledge every single negative you cite. now i wish you would acknowledge what free and unfettered access to heroin/ coke/ meth will cost in wasted lives, and see that it is far worse than the war on drugs
I understand your point, but the middle-mouse-click does exactly that - open in background tab.
"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight
