I created 4 reasonably successful companies in my life, and about 12 that fell flat. The first success was in high school. But the first million+ was at age 34. At first I thought the article was a little too academic, but... honestly it fits my life pattern. So... there you have it.
Consider that the vast majority (something like 9/10) of companies fail within 2-3 years. If you're not willing to deal with failures, chances are you'll stop trying long before you get to 12. If you deal with the odds, you keep going as long as you get something out of it
Also, even companies that "fall flat" may be worth it. For my part, a large part of my current salary is down to my experience and contacts from my various startups. And each one of them have been fun for the most part.
Yeah, most people did not. I know, I have been saying this for years... ever since I studied ipv6 in the olden days (the 90's). All but one or two people I ever discussed the "trackability of everything" with was like, "What the hell are you tripping on?"
The point is that everyone is a target. For a mugger, an ex lover, a political opponent, a boss, an employee... everyone is a target. That should (IMO) make everyone at least a little wary.
Then there would be a war on piracy. How would you like it if they kept 20 years of your downloading habits? Do you think that in 20 years time they could find something to incriminate you?
And that's why it's so wrong to keep data for so long, and actually be able to use it.
I have a problem with a war on marijuana, or violating the Constitution during the war on drugs. But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery. (I'd punish simple users with rehab rather than prison.)
You seem to be assuming that a war on drugs must make them illegal. It needn't. Instead the war could do whatever is most effective (per dollar spent) at reducing usage. I support rehab for alcoholics, and measures to reduce drunk driving. I don't support the war on drugs in its current form.
> You seem to be assuming that a war on drugs must make them illegal. It needn't. Instead the war could do whatever is most effective (per dollar spent) at reducing usage.
You mean, it could be legalization, taxation, and using taxes to fund intervention, referral, and treatment programs, and not be opposed to legalization at all?
If so, then its obviously not what people supporting legalization are arguing against when they are arguing againt the War on Drugs.
Yes, that's consistent with my top-most comment in this thread, where I describe a different, gentler and constitutional war on drugs.
I wouldn't stop at using the taxes from the sale of hard drugs to reduce their usage. If spending $X against drug usage lead to $2X in net benefits, I'd support spending $X no matter how much higher it was than those taxes.
A key component would be rehab, in which case it might be tough to make the drug legal. Suppose crack is legal and so there's some parent high on crack all day, providing only the most basic of care for the kids. If it takes keeping crack illegal to legally force that parent into rehab, then I'd want crack to stay illegal, but change the consequence to rehab.
> Suppose crack is legal and so there's some parent high on crack all day, providing only the most basic of care for the kids.
If the "most basic care" is adequately meeting the society's minimums, this obviously doesn't justify criminalization.
If it doesn't, then child neglect can be made illegal (hint: it already is), independently of whether it results from drug abuse.
> If it takes keeping crack illegal to legally force that parent into rehab
Compulsory-as-an-alternative-to-prison rehab obviously requires that something be illegal, but it doesn't require that the illegal thing be the drug of abuse. Rehab as a condition of a suspended sentence could conceptually be tied to any crime for which drug abuse was a contributing factor even if the drug was legal (IIRC, this is sometimes done with alcohol in, e.g., the context of DUI, even though alcohol is legal.)
So, the premise here that making the drug illegal might be essential to make compulsory-as-an-alternative-to-prison rehab an available tool is simply false.
> So, the premise here that making the drug illegal might be essential to make compulsory-as-an-alternative-to-prison rehab an available tool is simply false.
I accept that. I support whatever it takes as a minimum to get the person into rehab, even if the minimum bar for parenting is raised so that crack addiction doesn't reach it. If the majority of crack users could be model citizens while high then my mind could be changed.
>Does making meth and crack legal make less crime (violent or robbery) than if their usage was nil?
That's not one of the available options. I mean, looking back at the article, the spoils of this program are incredibly paltry given the enormity of the data set. Criminalization of drugs and Militarization of enforcement groups is not significantly deterring usage because they are so ineffective even with so many resources and so little respect for the civil rights of users and non-users alike. All these programs have been effective at is raising the bar for drug distribution organizations to a point where militarization and violence is necessary for operation.
>Coffee addictions don't lead to more violent crime or robbery, as far as I know.
Perhaps they would if they were criminalized. There's nothing very violent about marijuana use except the militarized distribution chain and criminal enforcement apparatus. If 7-11 could sell it from behind the counter, I expect that you would see marijuana related violent deaths drop precipitously.
But why would it be criminalized? For that to be justified it needs to be a drain on society in some significant way.
I don't support the current flawed war on drugs, especially forfeiture of property and imprisonment for users. I don't support a war on drugs that are essentially victimless, like on marijuana. I support the ideal war on drugs (one based on evidence to show that it does more good than harm).
>But why would it be criminalized? For that to be justified it needs to be a drain on society in some significant way.
Substance bans do not /at all/ have a track record of being grounded in quantifiable measures of societal harm. That is to say, the current substance restriction policies are more or less completely arbitrary. The arbitrariness of current policies gives a natural experiment opportunity to assess the harm of the criminalization policies themselves by comparing the societal impact of substances such as caffeine, tobacco/nicotine, and alcohol with those of marijuana plus the associated negative impacts of marijuana criminalization. At least in the case of marijuana, the cure seems to be significantly worse than the disease.
>I support the ideal war on drugs (one based on evidence to show that it does more good than harm).
I wrote a more generalized comment[1] on the idea of an "ideal war on drugs". The gist is that I think it's a completely fantastical idea. The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so. Further, I think that it's harmful that such an idea persists, because it allows for the justification of more and more extreme enforcement measures. Arguments like "If we got rid of meth then society would be significantly improved?" are based on a false premise. This is an outcome that clearly cannot be brought about by the war on drugs, yet such reasoning is continually used as a justification for more and more extreme enforcement measures that have increasingly diminishing returns as well as an increasingly negative impact on broader society as a whole.
> At least in the case of marijuana, the cure seems to be significantly worse than the disease.
Agreed, I'm talking about justifying criminalization in an ideal way, not the current way.
> The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so.
The demand comes after the addiction. Remove addiction and the demand is reduced.
> This is an outcome that clearly cannot be brought about by the war on drugs...
That's the current war, not the one based on evidence. What if the evidence showed that a different war could improve society on average and reduce hard drug usage? For example, instead of taking away a user's property and imprisoning them, you give them rehab and (if needed) job skills and actually find them a job, and any other assistance that costs less to provide than the monetary value of the drain on society they'd otherwise be?
>> The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so.
> The demand comes after the addiction. Remove addiction and the demand is reduced.
To me the latter statement reads like: "If you can create a perpetual motion machine then energy would be free"
This is the very problem, using impossible potential ends to justify means.
>> This is an outcome that clearly cannot be brought about by the war on drugs...
> That's the current war, not the one based on evidence. What if the evidence showed that a different war could improve society on average and reduce hard drug usage? For example, instead of taking away a user's property and imprisoning them, you give them rehab and (if needed) job skills and actually find them a job, and any other assistance that costs less to provide than the monetary value of the drain on society they'd otherwise be?
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't see anything that's at all hinted at a remotely workable solution that would have such an effect. You seem to be assuming that we can somehow overcome all of the imperfections of past policies but do not offer a clear, strong novel mechanism by which that can happen. In the meantime our current policies are enormously destructive, and I see that as the more pressing issue. Really, solving addiction and substance abuse is a problem that is not very closely related to criminalization policies, but it's those criminalization policies that are leading to broad 4th Ammendment violations, police militarization, and unnecessary deaths and incarcerations.
[edited to remove the implication that no solution was offered, but rather that a new solution wasn't offered that could reasonably be expected to end addiction and substance abuse in a significant way]
> You seem to be assuming that we can somehow overcome all of the imperfections of past policies but do not offer a clear, strong novel mechanism by which that can happen.
Actually I think what I propose has nil chance of becoming reality in my lifetime and maybe for centuries in the future, if only because the masses wouldn't support it. That doesn't stop me from supporting the best possible solution to hard drug addiction.
I support ending the current war on drugs almost wholesale, because it's so inefficient and even unconstitutional as you note. But I'd concurrently want to see some movement toward the ideal. I definitely don't buy an argument that nothing better can be done now than ending the war on drugs in its current form. I believe there's always room for improvement even within the confines our current misguided society. Maybe I'm an optimistic pessimist?
> I definitely don't buy an argument that nothing better can be done now than ending the war on drugs in its current form.
This isn't really quite what I'm saying, per se. I would rather say that I think that currently people tend to couple the idea of changing the status quo with the introduction of superior policy. I'm skeptical that significantly superior policy can be achieved, so I would prefer that the two problems be decoupled. We shouldn't be letting blood just because it's the only action that we've come up with to respond to an intractable disease. We should stop the blood letting (pursuit of harmful policies), and then work on actual cures to the difficult problems of addiction and substance abuse thereafter. The harmful policies only serve to give the illusion of addressing the problem, and so actually hamper the search for effective policies. And if we maintain the status quo for lack of a superior alternative, then I fear we'll never see the end of it.
Agreed! That's why I say concurrently, decoupled but ideally in parallel.
> The harmful policies only serve to give the illusion of addressing the problem...
Politicians currently have the incentive to give such illusions rather than true solutions. That's another problem, close to the root cause, that I support fixing.
Apples to oranges, since unlike meth and crack users, the vast majority of those who drink alcohol can hold down a job to pay for it, instead of resort to theft or worse.
Prescription opioid drugs like oxycodone kill more people than meth or crack. And there are a lot of people able to hold down a job and pay for cocaine (see also: wall street). What was your point again?
You would intensify the pursuit of criminal prosecution of people who find themselves addicted to prescription painkillers?
An addiction to morphine is really little different than an addiction to heroin, except society has a greater understanding of addiction to morphine as an illness, not a crime. Treating morphine abusers like we treat heroin users would be devastating to society. It would be a ludicrously senseless step backwards. Your perspective on drug use is absolutely insane.
> You would intensify the pursuit of criminal prosecution of people who find themselves addicted to prescription painkillers?
No, rehab for them and all other people addicted to hard drugs. I'd seek criminal prosecution against the pushers who knew or should've known the drugs hurt much more than they help.
Quote: "Rebecca Riley (April 11, 2002 – December 13, 2006), the daughter of Michael and Carolyn Riley and resident of Hull, Massachusetts, was found dead in her home after prolonged exposure to various medications, her lungs filled with fluid. The medical examiner's office determined the girl died from "intoxication due to the combined effects" of prescription drugs. Police reports state she was taking 750 milligrams a day of Depakote, 200 milligrams a day of Seroquel, and .35 milligrams a day of Clonidine. Rebecca had been taking the drugs since the age of two for bipolar disorder and ADHD, diagnosed by psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji of the Tufts-New England Medical Center."
I really can't imagine violence going up if drug prohibition was ended, even if you don't count the violence committed by public officers enforcing drug laws.
I can imagine that, because a crack or meth user can't hold down a decent job. Whether legal or not they'd tend to have to rob to get the money to stay high. And when legal it's likely more people would get addicted.
Portugual decriminalized drug use and saw decreases in drug-related crime, increased addiction program enrollment, decreased youth use of drugs, decreased drug-related deaths, and decreased HIV infection rates.
That's interesting, I'll definitely research further. It's possible these improvements were because they criminalized it in a sub-optimal way, as the US does. That is, it's possible that an optimal war on hard drugs could lead to even bigger net benefits. Imagine if no users needed fear prosecution; that's one aspect of the war I'd wage.
Now you're assuming both that drug abuse would increase if drug prohibition ended and that drugs wouldn't get drastically cheaper. Both are claims you would need to support, and claims I do not believe.
I don't think it would matter how cheap it is. Even at a dollar a hit a jobless person tends to need to steal to get that dollar, in addition to money for food.
I don't think it's a stretch to believe that legal things become more prevalent than illegal things, especially highly addictive things. Believing that requires no more support than disbelieving that.
I don't see how that's defensible. You seem to be talking only about people with zero money, which is few people even among jobless (even homeless) people. Surely the price of the drug, all else being equal, would strongly correlate to the number of crimes committed to obtain the drug.
> I don't think it's a stretch to believe that legal things become more prevalent than illegal things, especially highly addictive things.
I absolute think that's a stretch to believe, at least for things like drugs in large areas like the USA, where physically preventing their existence altogether is (apparently) not feasible.
By the same logic, the price of food should correlate to the number of crimes committed to obtain it. But far more is spent on food than drugs, and most theft is to buy drugs, so something is different.
The difference is that normal people work at jobs to obtain money for food, but serious drug addicts are incapable of working a regular job and so have to steal to support their drug habit (and for their food as well).
So in fact, crime is proportional to how much drugs interfere with ability to hold a job.
There's a huge segment of "serious drug addicts" in our population that show exactly what crack and meth users would be like if their drugs of choice were legalized: it's called Alcoholics Anonymous. Are you equally concerned about being robbed and beaten by an alcoholic? Their drug of choice has been legal for quite some time.
> Surely the price of the drug, all else being equal, would strongly correlate to the number of crimes committed to obtain the drug.
You have a good point there. If I was wrong and crack and meth became dirt cheap and there was no long associated violent crime and robbery, to no longer support a war on it I'd have to see that its legality lead to no significant drain on society in other ways. That would include parenting, job performance, accidents / injuries, etc.
The level of crime (and particularly, the level of violent and organized crime) surrounding alcohol jumped up sharply with prohibition, and dropped back down with the end of prohibition. I don't see why you'd expect that to be any different for any other drug.
> Even at a dollar a hit a jobless person tends to need to steal to get that dollar, in addition to money for food.
If its legal, a person has less social pressure to not to admit use, and therefore there are less social pressures against them admitting their problem and seeking treatment before being compelled to as a consequence of criminal activity.
Further, when becoming involved with a substance as a user makes you a criminal and violator of societies rules, there is less holding you to observe those rules once you have decided to violate them in the first place.
Do you know a lot of meth users? I've known a few who held down jobs. And then there is every person who takes Adderall. Personally, I've taken Adderall for more than a decade, and found it easier to hold down a job with it than before.
Coffee addictions don't lead to more violent crime or robbery, as far as I know.
You don't know at all, because it's never been illegal. However, there is plenty of evidence that making it illegal would indeed lead to robbery and violence.
It's a question of what does more harm than good. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol can still be sober at work. Whereas a crack addict will tend to be high all day, unable to work, thus needing to rob to feed their addiction.
Crack is unusually addictive but many people maintain casual cocaine habits for years on end. Both of these drugs have the same classification, and the same penalties in most of the world.
Crack is also particularly bad for your health outside of just being extremely addictive. If it wasn't a Class A drug people would rapidly end up in treatment for it anyway.
Ultimately there's hardly any actual science involved in the War on Drugs, just as there wasn't during prohibition.
There should be evidence heavily involved in a war on drugs, on a drug by drug basis, for sure. I'd estimate the totality of the drag on society, even parenting, in determining the resources to apply to reduce the usage of that drug.
You're also conflating all levels of alcohol usage with crack addiction. It's possible for many people (though granted, probably nearly genetically impossible for some people) to use either without becoming addicted. And for alcoholics, it's often very hard to hold down a job.
It's a matter of percentages. Perhaps 5% of alcohol users have a significant problem with it, that drags down those around them. I don't know what the percentage is for crack but I bet it's over 90%, high enough that we shouldn't take a chance on the users who aren't addicted to it promoting it to the 90% who would become addicted it.
> I don't know what the percentage is for crack but I bet it's over 90%
According to this spurious page [0], "up to 75% of those who try cocaine will become addicted." Of course, the page also says "an estimated one-in-four Americans between the age of 26 and 34 have used cocaine at least once in their lifetime, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy." Since it looks like around 15% of Americans are between the age of 26 and 34, that would mean that "up to" 11.25% of Americans will become addicted, which seems unlikely. We need some better data.
Yours is a rude form of disagreement, is all. Your comments elsewhere:
> This isn't going to happen because a bunch of people in line at an airport isn't a high-value target.
Can you point to research?
> I mean it would suck, of course, but 'bunch of people get blown up at an airport' isn't nearly as worrying as 'large plane falls/is steered out of the sky and into downtown.'
Proof that it isn't as worrying?
> It doesn't have much value to terrorists because it's not as scary and it won't generate vast numbers of photographs.
How do you know it's not as scary? Have you measured?
I don't need to post research. Logically, if a plane falls out of the sky this also presents a threat to anyone on the ground at the time of impact. If people are blown up at an airport, there's no additional risk for those outside the immediate vicinity. This is a consequence of the fact that planes are mobile while airports are not.
Yes, I'm being rude, because by your own admission you are arguing from a position of ignorance and inaccurate prejudice.
You're making a big assumption: that the war on drugs, even if it cost no money and ruined no lives on its own, in any way lowers the number of people addicted to hard drugs and the amount of violence related to hard drugs. While I don't have any specific data, it seems pretty obvious to me that it only increases both.
I do make the assumption that a war on drugs can lower the number of people addicted to hard drugs, and from there the amount of violence related to it. But that assumption includes the way I would handle it, like forcing users to be in rehab before prison is considered.
That's nonsense. GCracks'a horrible drug, crack addicts are tedious & depressing to be around, but they're not all as dysfunctional as you suggest. The most common crime I've seen among extreme crack addicts is prostitution rather than robbery.
Of course there were. Even today there are alcoholic bums that will mug you for booze money. You don't really think they are all crack or smack fiends, do you? Heroin withdrawal can make you wish you were dead, alcohol withdrawal can make you dead.
More troubling however is community-consuming gang violence. The sort that we see today and the sort that we saw during prohibition.
Safe to assume a very small percentage of alcohol users, which makes the difference here. Safe to assume that during Prohibition the vast majority of alcohol users could have been sober during working hours to pay for it.
The vast majority of cocaine and pot users live outwardly normal lives too. That isn't the point though, is it? Prohibition railroads people who were in control of their habit, it gets in the way of assistance to people who are losing control of their habit, and it further marginalizes and radicalizes people who have already lost control of their habit, and it dramatically radicalizes those who provide for habits.
This myth of "alcohol is not a 'hard drug'" needs to die. Prohibition of alcohol wasn't somehow a different animal than the prohibition of other drugs, you just relate to alcohol more than you relate to cocaine.
Well, there is one difference between alcohol and other 'drugs' (with the possible exception of pot): alcohol has been a mainstay of human culture for a long time. The same can't be said of cocaine, heroine, meth, etc.
No, it's because as a stimulant it has a combination of relatively low addictive properties and is easy to withdraw from when compared to more "hardcore" substances [1]
All of those things, except "stimulant" technically, can be said of pot too. Hell, caffeine is physically addictive (not to even get into the lifestyles you can build around it that lead to less 'medical' forms of addiction...) while pot is not.
You ever caffeine withdrawal? Yeah, during that week-long vacation last year when you stopped going to Starbucks every morning. Most of us have gone through that; it is a bitch and lasts longer than most hangovers.
You ever get pot withdrawal? Yeah, me neither.
Whatever, lets say for the sake of argument that pot and caffeine are on par with each other despite the obvious discrepancies. It is undeniable that pot prohibition is harmful to society; why would caffeine prohibition not be?
I know, that is why I used marijuana as my example.
@whyleyc is asserting that drug "hardness", not drug prohibition, is the cause of the societal harm associated with drugs. I am pointing out that we see similar harm with marijuana, which everyone here accepts as not "hard", but which is prohibited.
It therefore stands to reason that if prohibition can cause harm to society with a "non-hard" drug like marijuana, it would cause harm to society with a "non-hard" drug like caffeine.
Well, if I wanted to argue that point I would just point out that I am pretty sure drunk fathers kept on beating their children during the 1920s.
I mean, that is the sort of shit that spawned the temperance movement, but when prohibition came into effect, did the temperance movement actually see the sort of social change that they anticipated? I doubt that the 1920s were some sort of utopia for battered children and spouses...
My understanding is that overall consumption of alcohol did decline slightly under prohibition, so "drunk fathers kept on beating their children during the 1920s" needs a citation - and, in particular, that they kept doing so at the same rate. The problem with prohibition wasn't that it did no good in any way ever - the problem was that the harm overwhelmingly outweighed the good. Likewise with the current war on drugs.
How about nicotine? Granted, there have probably been people who steal cigarettes are steal other things to buy cigarettes, but I think it's a much smaller problem than with illegal drugs.
If COPS is representative of real life, there are plenty of people willing to rob convenience stores of cigarettes. I have little doubt that this would turn much uglier if nicotine was banned.
I don't have any stats for crack cocaine, but look up the effectiveness of diacetylmorphine maintenance programs in Switzerland and the UK - these are government-run programs in which heroin users are given access to pure, unadulterated heroin so that they can have steady day jobs.
Spoiler: These programs have been proven time and again to be effective in reducing crime.
Crack cocaine is biochemically identical to powder cocaine (the main difference is the means of ingestion, not the chemical compound). And I can assure you that many cocaine users hold very steady, very high-paying jobs (in certain industries more than others).
If the percentage of crack users who could both hold a steady job to pay for their addiction and also not significantly drag down those around them was > 90% (e.g. workplace accidents, parenting), then I could support ending the war on crack.
If it was legal, it would probably be vastly safer to acquire and use recreationally, so even if the amount of use stayed the same, the actual negative effects would probably decrease.
One of them is the drug itself, and since I am not familiar with crack (thank god), I would consider alcohol a good example. It's legal, "dirt cheap", and can utterly destroy lives with a completeness few drugs seem to be able to match. Everybody knows what alcohol can do, yet it still happens a lot (to put it mildly). So yes, making stuff legal and having information instead of disinformation is not a magical solution.
But that doesn't mean illegality and misinformation cannot make things even worse. Legality does affect price and safety, I think it's very hard to deny this or show otherwise (feel free to try). If a dealer sells rat poison instead of Ecstasy, it's not like the buyers can go to the cops about it, for example... and I'm not saying Ecstasy if safe no matter how it's used, I'm saying rat poison is harmful in all cases. And dealers are operating in the underground anyway, so they have little reason to care about adding on top of that. I'm not sure about "gateway drugs", but I am pretty sure about "gateway criminality" being a real thing, and it also applies to addicts, not just dealers.
>But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery.
Why do you assume this? Do you think people so inclined have any trouble getting "meth or crack or other drugs"? Prohibition only raises the price, and I could make the argument that just means addicts have to rob people more often before they start having medical problems.
Prohibition does more than just raise price. It also increases the incentive for dealers to get people addicted to drugs. It also immediately makes anyone involved a criminal, so there can be little conflict resolution outside of direct violence. It also prevents enterprises which desire to stay legal from getting involved in the production and distribution of drugs, which leads to more dangerous (and probably less enjoyable) drugs.
> But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery.
Why do you think that the war being fought on those drugs isn't reducing the risk of you being a victim of violent crime or robbery? Or do you just assume that the existence of those drugs create a risk which justifies the war, even if the war makes that risk even greater?
> I have a problem with ... violating the Constitution during the war on drugs
But what's the constitutional justification for having any war on drugs in the first place? Alcohol prohibition took a constitutional amendment, and that's been repealed.
No, things that benefit society at large should be funded by society at large. I support a war on drugs only when it's constitutional and benefits society, doing more good than harm including its cost.
I'd like to see the argument that the war on drugs does more good than harm, even ignoring the financial cost. When considering the financial cost, I find it hard to imagine any remotely reasonable argument that it's beneficial to society.
Eliminating drug use mostly means eliminating mild depression (notwithstanding the medical uses of drugs), which mostly means giving people a reason to feel good about themselves and their future, which mostly mean providing an environment where they are free from oppression, constant surveillance, and a multitude of contradictory laws, along with good means of making money, which means education, positive work and life experiences, and a vibrant economy. Note that anything the individual is forced to do against their will without appropriate compensation is out of the question; such as bad schools, prison, and, dare I say it, American team sports?
Yes some people are more prone to addictive behavior than others, and yes severe depression is a serious disease which must be handled by professionals. However, the malaise in America is not clinical depression: it's the lack of opportunity to learn, excel, and be rewarded for such excellence. Yes, this opportunity exists for many people, and many do take advantage of it, to great benefit. Many others, though, for a variety of reasons, lack that opportunity. It is generally these people who fuel demand for drugs, to escape the misery and blight of a dead-end future. These people are not losers, but people to whom the dealer of cards dealt a poor hand, and who have not been told by the media and their peers that no hand is a bad hand, that there are opportunity in adversity, that it is through failure that success comes. They, alas, believe that their lot is to suffer, then die, not having achieved anything worthwhile. So, in their desperation and utter loneliness, they seek a fleeting pleasure, a personal high, to momentarily drift away from the relentless and inexorable approach of Death.
Do you wish them well? Do you seek to help them? Change yourself. Show them by the example of your own life that adversity can be overcome. Show them by the kindness in your speech, by your countenance, by your actions, that they are not ostracized from human society, but rather, as fallen and wounded, deserve further aid, further care from the rest of us.
Or do you wish them away? To be put in prison and removed from your neighborhood, your city? Do you blame them for the poor choices they have made? In their lack of ability, they fell, and unable to stand, they stayed down. Are they weak, ill-fitted for society, and perhaps their premature death at the hand of violence, poverty, and the lawman, is the just reward for their inability to thrive in the Modern Age?
As I see children in the playground at my son's elementary school, I see them all alike: full of joy, vitality, and wonder. As children, we too were alike. Then life happened. For some, with privilege and wealth, to great achievements; and for others, with violence and meanness, to suffering and loneliness.
No dude, all we have to do is be nice to everybody, increase our foreign aid even further, and establish Shariah law within the U.S.
Oh, and somehow ignore the First Amendment and ban American citizens from insulting certainly notable religious figures. Then they will surely leave us alone.
I'm not sure why my answer merited either a down vote or a sarcastic response, but I regardless, you can work to minimize terrorism without destroying our rights and liberties. I'm not sure where you're drawing the false dichotomy from.
You were probably downvoted because a "War on Terror" is not necessary to minimize terrorism. Nor, as you point out, does minimizing necessitate destroying our rights and liberties.
"The War on..." is a phrase that signals to us that we should be on the lookout for crude solutions that do more harm than good. It is a crude phrase that perfectly embodies the simplistic attitude that inevitably backs whatever program the phrase is being used to describe.
Wherever there is a "War on..." there is almost certainly something that we could be doing smarter, rather than harder.
I didn't downvote. I also didn't think I was being sarcastic, to you at least.
I don't personally live under the false dichotomy that an unending "WAR ON TERROR" is required to suppress terrorism. But nor do I fall into the trope that the solution is to simply let anyone inflict any attack that they wish.
As you say, it is possible to actually fight terrorism without destroying our rights and liberties, and I agree wholeheartedly.
I didn't mean to imply it was you who down voted me. It seems we're really on the same page here. I wasn't aware of all the strings and stigma attached to the "war on $foo" phrase.
My point was simply to object to the idea that doing nothing and simply pretending the outside world doesn't exist or that there aren't people who wish us harm out there is a Bad Idea™.
I do of course agree that open ended campaigns which cripple our rights without clear and predictable expectations is very bad, if not as bad.
To rephrase, then: I want to address and fight terrorism, but I don't want a blind or self-harming "war" on terror.
Burns: I actually had the chance to meet Klein, and his research is (IMO) amazing. See his booklet and his product [1] (I use it and it works amazingly well).
Throat: "Garlic Tea" which sounds disgusting... is fantastic for anything in your throat (allergy, cold, injury, etc):
Bring a saucepan of about 4 cups of water to boil.
Peal and crush about 10 garlic cloves, toss in water, turn off heat immediately.
Let cool to palatable heat.
Add a couple table spoons of vinegar (natural, with the "mother" if possible) and raw honey to taste.
Magic.
"I'm more concerned about the treatment and sales of honey."
Not sure I am more concerned about the treatment of honey than I am about the overuse of pesticides (ethical treatment of bees), but I do agree that honey as a product is important. IMO, one cannot do more to "help bees" than to buy your honey local, natural (non-augmented food sources), and raw ("unheated": less than 118degf, but only to 100degf if possible).
CCD: I believe that CCD is primarily caused by increased pesticide usage, glyphosate being the most common.
Are bees treated ethically by big farms: I believe the better question is, "Is our philosophy of farming unethical for any participant?" If the answer is yes (for even one identifiable participant), then I find that it will be unethical for every participant. Answer: optimize for sustainability, not for production alone.
Does the ethical treatment q relate to bees? Absolutely. See these movies... they are pretty one sided, but should be of interest: Queen of the Sun & More Than Honey
It appears wikipedia agrees with you.
In my experience (Grew up on a farm, live in the country) Pesticide is only applied to chemical insecticides, because they are rarely used; herbicides are most commonly used by name (because when you are telling someone ie. your neighbour what you are spraying the generic class is meaningless and they want to know whether spray drift will potentially damage their crops)
And biologic treatments such as viruses which may be used on certain insects are called biologics.
Change your inputs (culture), change your outputs (requirements). Ergo, you don't need that kind of money if you live more sustainably. <IdealistRant/>
So, IMO, try bee keeping[1][2] and see if it starts to change your culture :)
I think this childishness is the essential requirement of centralized power. Our current economic system rises from our (personal) taste for the conveniences of centralized power. For it we are willing to relinquish personal responsibility and individuality.
Many early people groups (nomads, pueblos, even manors and unfederated fifedoms), had optimized for small communities. Presumably they were not aware of the efficiency of centralized power, or capable of the centralization we can accomplish today. Some apparently were aware, and chose the benefits of small communities.
I believe we are now at a crossroads. We choose small communities and relinquish the convenience of centralized power, or we submit to the requirements of centralized power (lack of privacy, lack of individuality, etc).
