Originally posted by dadudemon
Maybe I do not understand that real point you're trying to make, there, because it's very obvious that "has nothing to do with science" is very much wrong. What you said above would insult many people involved in that various branches of pharmacology and psychology. 😆We could get into a philosophically layered discussion about this and actually end up going nowhere, if you want to.
Based on your past postings on this topic, I think you are trying to say that the lines drawn would be arbitrary and extremely biased. That's still very much wrong as you could still come up to logical, medical conclusions and set a line at a tolerance/damage level. That's how pharmaceuticals are handled. Why should schedule I and II (A, B, and C, in the UK) be any different?
By that scale some pharmaceutical grade drugs would have to be more regulated or even banned.
yes, thus making the scale arbitrary and anthropic. There is no reason to draw a line at any point, other than what appeals to human logic. There is no real, scientific [sic, learn how to use that term please], demarcation where "harm" becomes ok to regulate through the state.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Yes, a measure of how humans interact with each other is going to be...anthropic. But I'd prefer a more apt term: social.Humans are a rather social species.
Measuring how drugs change those social interactions is a good way to measure how drugs change those social interactions. 😆
not even close, no...
anthropic means something that is designed and reflects human cognitive processing. Therefore, saying your demarcations are anthropic means you have invented something based on how you think it should work, not based on any measure or predictive use of science.
how harmful a substance is IS NOT a scientific measure of whether or not that substance should be regulated, that you think harm is a good place to base law is anthropic and subjective. There is no science that supports that conclusion, and in fact, the opinion presented there is something science has almost nothing to say about.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Additionally, we can get philosophical about this and say silly things like, "all science is anthropic."
/facepalm...
dude... i know you like to be contrarian, but look at what you are saying...
Originally posted by dadudemon
Ah. I get where you're coming from, now.This assumes that the government already isn't doing so when it most certainly is.
Dropping the 'line' to all of those items rated as a 20 or below is a huge gigantic leap into liberal drug legislation. You prefer complete freedom when that's not going to happen any time soon.
There are lots of points where I would find your plan contentious. The biggest is the fact you are trying to present it as a "science", which it isn't, at all. In fact, it is an abuse of the term "science", and almost an identical use as was seen throughout the 19/20th century where "scientific" societies were created, and subsequently the science of racism and sexism destroyed countless lives.
otherwise, no, I don't feel we should abandon a broken system for an additionally broken system that now has some twisted semblance of "scientific" [sic] justification.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Edit - As of right now, that "line" is not a line but an almost random dot of tolerance magnitude in society based on various reasons of bias, industry, or even religion. We need something more based in science and way less random. Setting a scientific threshold is much better than the systems* we have in place, now.*legislation
so because things are messed up now I have to accept a system that attempts to use science in a way that restricts personal freedom and, in fact, in no way represents science?
just FYI, suicide is legal in Canada. it is our drug laws that don't reflect our other laws, not the other way around. I don't know about America, but yes, your system has many more restrictions on personal freedom than does ours (except in very symbolic issues, like letting Nazis publish books [sic])
Originally posted by Bardock42
Well, with Obama being a Republican President, nothing much is going to be done in that area I suppose.
Obama's a Democrat. He just does a really, really good Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter impersonation...all the time. You Germans just don't understand. Don't you know that the best way to alleviate a crisis is a combination of placating everyone who caused the crisis and doing absolutely nothing over a long period of time?
All sarcasm aside, you and a lot of people, mainly liberals, have hope. I feel as a person who would be considered a radical rather than a liberal by American standards have a different perspective. The president is sworn to uphold and defend the constitution and the people of the United States. In practice, here's a list of things that that have a higher priority for every president since 1964, considering that the last president who truly had different ones ended up with his cerebellum in his wife's lap-
Things more important to a president than his sworn oath of office-
1. His life.
2. His popularity.
3. His poll numbers.
4. Making friends with everyone, or at least with people who think like him.
5. His personal legacy.
6. Vacation.
7. Living comfortably.
8. Reelection.
9. His ideology and faith.
10. Protecting himself from slander and libel.
11. Sticking to a particular narrative describing reality.
12. Not dealing with common people.
13. Hiring legacies from past administrations regardless of their merit or criminal histories.
This last one is a big part of Obama's problem. Larry Summers? Geithner? Bernanke? He may as well have appointed Dick Cheney defense secretary, James Watt to head the EPA, and James Dobson Surgeon General.
Free markets have a lot of advantages, but certain regulations, some of them not even contrary to capitalist theory, are beneficial, many problems are introduced by government created monopolies, be it through patents or delegation of resources.
As usually a healthy mix seems like the best way to go.
Originally posted by Bardock42exactly, which is why i think some version of social democracy is the best system. The free market especially fails in industries where competition or delivering services is not profitable. If free marketeers had their way in the early part of the 20th century, a majority of the midwest and west would have no roads, phone lines, or power.
Free markets have a lot of advantages, but certain regulations, some of them not even contrary to capitalist theory, are beneficial, many problems are introduced by government created monopolies, be it through patents or delegation of resources.As usually a healthy mix seems like the best way to go.
Originally posted by Bardock42
Free markets have a lot of advantages, but certain regulations, some of them not even contrary to capitalist theory, are beneficial, many problems are introduced by government created monopolies, be it through patents or delegation of resources.As usually a healthy mix seems like the best way to go.
Patents that eventually expire are good for the market, IMO. Government monopolies do suck.
Originally posted by Darth JelloWhich is why I said by as little as possible at the end. There should be "some" regulation. But not much more than safety laws and a few other things. Once they start putting their hands into everything and every wallet it causes more problems than it fixes. The government can't even manage itself a lot of the time.
Which is exactly why every country that stuck by this credo collapsed 12 times faster than the USSR.
I'm not sure how relevant this is to the thread, but I thought this was a really cool graphic representation of how nations have developed over the last 200 years (though not cool enough to warrant a whole new thread)...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/hans-rosling-200-years-changed-the-world
Originally posted by inimalist
yes, thus making the scale arbitrary and anthropic. There is no reason to draw a line at any point, other than what appeals to human logic. There is no real, scientific [sic, learn how to use that term please], demarcation where "harm" becomes ok to regulate through the state.
No, that's not true.
With some drugs, there are thresholds from which the body can make a complete recovery with no signs of permanent damage and you can surpass the barrier that causes permanent damage (obviously you can surpass it, but bare with me). For example: benzodiazepines. Acute abuse of benzodiazepines can result in only acute "reduction" in cognitive abilities. I am not referring to being dumb from a high. I am talking about a short-term period in which a the brain "heals" back to a pre-drug influenced state. The threshold would be different for everyone but, there is a line which can be crossed to where a person will never again be able to reach a certain level or lose potential. It depends on how long they were abusing and what their individual threshold will be.
With some drugs, there are thresholds for which a long-term recovery (greater than 5 years) is required to reach a pre-dosing homeostasis. For instance, abusing anabolic steroids with out proper cycling and off-cycling with counter-measures like clomid, will result in a near-permanent damage to the body's ability to produce certain hormones. Some endocrinologists think that with enough time, this damage can be completely reversed but have very few exceptional cases to support an argument for "100%". For cosmetic purposes, this includes returning the testes to pre-dosing sizes. Some actually cause male-pattern baldness (DHT) and never recover because the large amount of DHT they created/put into their system, whereas, without the drugs, they would have never caused the male-pattern baldness to occur resulting in a permanent change (meaning, they would have never experienced man-pattern baldness had they not taken AASs). Of course, this is more cosmetic. But back to the point, if there is semi-permanent damage that can be caused with certain doses for certain periods of time, there are quite scientific levels that can be set making the notion of it being "anthropic and arbitrary" completely false.
There are also drugs that reduce the life-expectancy due to putting stress on certain organs for the rest of the person's life such as arteriosclerosis. Hardly the "non-science" threshold approach you claim it is. But you could be a pedant and say that "life-expectancy is still an anthropic measure if the life-expectancy is not reduced below a reproduction phase of the organism." But like I said, we could get ridiculous about it and so that there is nothing, even all of science itself, that cannot be reduced to the label of "anthropic" in some way. But I could counter, more specifically, and say that some of these permanent, adverse affects, could very well lower the life-expectancy below the ceiling phase of reproduction OR reduce the ability of that organism to successfully reproduce due to a loss of "mate" tools (such as intelligence, sperm count being lowered so low (or deformed, weak, sperm) that successful fertilization is improbable).
So, as you can see, there are multiple scientific vectors to approach a threshold and not all drugs are the same.
In addition, purely "social" behaviors, like violent outbursts which are deemed by man as bad, can be measured. The measure itself, is not really anthropic (unless you want to get deeper into the philosophy behind this, and that's really needless).
Originally posted by inimalist
not even close, no...
It sounds like you're being contrary just to be contrary. It was tautological. Again, "Measuring how drugs change those social interactions is a good way to measure how drugs change those social interactions." The point is not only intended as humor, it is superficially illogical. The statement misses the "how" for measuring in order for it to be stated as "good". The understood, which makes it not illogical, is the "how" is using the scientific method which includes a peer review...which is why it is only superficially illogical and why it functions as humor more than an "serious business" statement. Also, explaining dry humor is really shitty. 🙁
Originally posted by inimalist
anthropic means something that is designed and reflects human cognitive processing.
Defining it was completely unnecessary. 😬
Originally posted by inimalist
Therefore, saying your demarcations are anthropic means you have invented something based on how you think it should work, not based on any measure or predictive use of science.
And by stating that, you agree with me but say otherwise in other places. This is why your position is illogical and cannot be sustained: it will always lead back to this illogical junction of contradiction. Since the threshold is quite specifically based on very specific predictive measures (science), it is exactly the opposite of what you say it is. That threshold will, quite literally, result in quite a large amount of legalization of drugs and the il-legalization of currently legal drugs, but the change would be a very large positive increase in legalization.
Additionally, "The system is rigorous and transparent, and involves a formal, quantitative assessment of several aspects of harm. It can easily be reapplied as knowledge advances."
Harm can be defined, in the medical sense and then have dependencies such as "addiction". Why addiction? A drug can be very harmful but have very little overall harm if the drug: is not addictive even slightly and offers very little in the form of drug-induced pleasure. How much damage, including death, cannot be the only measure of overall "harm."
Now, why would I set it at the 20% ranking? Do you think it was arbitrary? What REAL reason do you think I set it at 20, for? In your words, why would setting it at the 20% mark be scientifically based and be a predictive limit? In other words, why didn't I choose 40% or even 60% as the acceptable limit (because there are also predictable results from setting thresholds at those levels)?
Originally posted by inimalist
how harmful a substance is IS NOT a scientific measure of whether or not that substance should be regulated, that you think harm is a good place to base law is anthropic and subjective.
facepalm
Completely incorrect.
You do realize that I will never ever agree with something like that, right? This entire discussion is futile if you hold that as true and incontestable.
To be more direct, I hold that laws based on the results of science is probably the best approach. And, please, don't get pedantic at the sake of missing the point. I'm not talking about laws not related to this subject for which you could easily find exceptions: I'm talking about laws that can be directly derived from real scientific work such as poisons in foods, regulating the bandwidth that devices can send and receive, etc.
What you ACTUALLY mean to say is something more like this: "Setting laws based on how much harm drugs can cause to their person and only to their person is anthropic and subjective." Even that is still wrong as it's difficult to find a drug that in no way would affect other people around the individual being influenced by that drug.
Additionally, you are under the impression that something like 250 bpm (for example) is the only type of measure that is included in harm."Harm" is not just the damage (acute, long-term, social, etc) a drug causes. Harm is a very broad category to which several measures contribute.
Originally posted by inimalist
There is no science that supports that conclusion, and in fact, the opinion presented there is something science has almost nothing to say about.
I disagree on fact.
Please tell me where the opinion comes in the in the following situation:
100% of human males will cause a permanent damage to their ability to reproduce with a weekly dosing of 1 gram to Testosterone Decanoate, for 3 years, non-stop. Therefore, a law regulating the maximum allowable individual dosing should be below 1 weekly gram of "Deca" over 3 years.
I do not know what an acceptable level would be, though, and that's the measure that would fall under "argumentum ad populum." 0% would be the least subjective and most objective measure, but you could make an argument that a 0% permanent damage is an unreasonable threshold for therapeutic and recreational drug use (which is exactly what you're doing). Medical science would argue that the maximum life-benefit (the ability to function and maximizing life-expectancy) would be the best level, but that would set all thresholds at 0% for any drugs. Not that I could argue with that. That would mean that almost any drugs could be legal in acute uses because very few drugs cause long-term damage in acute uses for most people (there are exceptions such as someone with heart problems killing themselves with a little bit of meth...which has happened).
Additionally, it's ALL anthropic. I cannot separate out how any of this is not anthropic. Seriously, that's the only point of discussion that I cannot get over: it's always anthropic in some way. From the idea of language on to the symbolic thought required to communicate: it's all anthropic! 🙁 Once a discussion is started on what contains anthropic attributes, it becomes a meaningless discussion because it all is anthropic from many angles. Here's an example for why (forgive me, I have to use physics because that's what I'm most comfortable with): the age of the universe has to be within a certain range because, scientifically, there is a certain age range required to produce the attributes that the universe currently has (the weighted occurrences of elements, mass, etc). But that entire point is anthropic to begin with because the universe could have existed as a singularity for an indefinite period and the application of excluding that from the age of the universe is almost arbitrary and anthropic. We could argue that the "universe" definition comes from a specific definition of all events that occurred after the universe exploded into existence, but then that definition itself is completely anthropic in application. RAWWWWRRRRR! It's all anthropic! *head explodes*
😆
See what I mean?
Originally posted by inimalist
/facepalm...dude... i know you like to be contrarian, but look at what you are saying...
lol
I feel that this entire conversation started because you yourself were wanting to be contrary.
Originally posted by inimalist
There are lots of points where I would find your plan contentious. The biggest is the fact you are trying to present it as a "science", which it isn't, at all. In fact, it is an abuse of the term "science", and almost an identical use as was seen throughout the 19/20th century where "scientific" societies were created, and subsequently the science of racism and sexism destroyed countless lives.
What you just stated is really just a strawman. I COULD argue directly against that and state that it's ridiculous and academically insulting to equate drug laws with the oppression of races and sex because they have the words "justification through science" in common.
Isn't it really just your distaste for regulation in general, the reason you don't consider it science, not because it's not science. I want to make it clear that you definitely hold regulation on what an individual can do to their person as a universal "wrong." Am I correct and is this the actual reason for the discussion? I can understand you being appalled at, "Another person trying to 'create' legislation under the guise of science." But let's make it quite clear that that is definitely not what is occurring.
Finally:
"Three separate facets of physical harm can be identified. First, acute physical harm—ie, the immediate effects (eg, respiratory depression with opioids, acute cardiac crises with cocaine, and fatal poisonings). The acute toxicity of drugs is often measured by assessing the ratio of lethal dose to usual or therapeutic dose....Second, chronic physical harm—ie, the health consequences of repeated use (eg, psychosis with stimulants, possible lung disease with cannabis). Finally, there are specific problems associated with intravenous drug use.
The route of administration is relevant not only to acute toxicity but also to so-called secondary harms. For instance, administration of drugs by the intravenous route can lead to the spread of blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis viruses and HIV, which have huge health implications for the individual and society."
You can call the threshold arbitrary and try to insult it with things like "anthropic" but there is an unavoidable contradiction to your position: there are definitely thresholds for drugs and drug categories that can cause permanent or long-term damage. (That, alone, should be more than enough to end the discussion at any reasonable level. Agreed?) These can be accounted for and mitigated. If you call that health mitigation "arbitrary" and "anthropic", does that mean we should just cancel all of medical science. What is medical science?: the maintenance, prevention, and/or healing of the body.
It boils down to how much is medically sound to tolerate. What is "sound" can be called arbitrary, at times, but not really. What can seem arbitrary is the threshold of tolerance from person to person...but there is a generalized level of "medically sound" guidelines. Some doctors have called this things like "cookie cutter rule" or "one-size fits all".
Originally posted by inimalist
otherwise, no, I don't feel we should abandon a broken system for an additionally broken system that now has some twisted semblance of "scientific" [sic] justification.
Correction: You don't feel we should abandon an arbitrary system for modified system which is based almost completely on science.
It would not gut and completely replace the existing systems in probably every industrialized nation. In fact, it would only redefine where drugs fall in the existing systems: class a (schedule I), class b(schedule II), and so forth. It would also make many drugs "unregulated" completely that are not currently regulated.
Originally posted by inimalist
so because things are messed up now I have to accept a system that attempts to use science in a way that restricts personal freedom and, in fact, in no way represents science?
No, because the system is not even close to being wholly logical or scientific, you should accept a system that is logical and scientific. You can argue that the general level of a score of "20" is not right and, instead, argue for a case-by-case ruling based completely on science. In that aspect, yes, I would agree with you and, in fact, that's where I would really want it to be. I'm hinting on the actual reason for why I would set it at 20, though: remember that question I asked you earlier about why I set it at 20? 😄
Actually, our whole conversation could be ignored/thrown out/or reduced if we focused on that one point: why should drugs be regulated or even at all? Only base your* responses on science...ready...go! 😄
Originally posted by inimalist
just FYI, suicide is legal in Canada. it is our drug laws that don't reflect our other laws, not the other way around. I don't know about America, but yes, your system has many more restrictions on personal freedom than does ours (except in very symbolic issues, like letting Nazis publish books [sic])
The only problem I have with equating drug laws to the "right to kill oneself" is the problem of drugs NOT affecting only the individual. Especially when it comes to drug use, "no man is an island."
*I'm included in that stipulation, as well.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Based on that statement I think Trump is just another demogogue stirring up fear to increase his own popularity... not someone I would want to vote for under any circumstances.
yeah dont be taken in by this other fraud wanna be president Trump. Wish Ron Paul would get elected but that wont happen.we dont put these people into office.