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When the Chinese banned opium the British went to war to reopen that market because it was so profitable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

It seems like many drugs are banned in various societies today, so I don't quite follow you.


> It seems like many drugs are banned in various societies today, so I don't quite follow you.

OP thinks no "advanced civilization" has ever allowed drugs. Drugs bans enforced by state power only became a thing near the end of the 19th century. That means no advanced civilization existed before then - not the Romans, nor Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Indians, or Chinese - and countless others. Sounds incorrect to me.


The abstract would seem to suggest methamphetamine is one correlation; you might also reasonably suggest toxoplasmosis and I have heard a naturopath suggest that it can be treated nutritionally(!) I'm certain there's other valid explanations


Bret Devereaux's writing is often cited here for his writing about warfare, logistics, and the like. But he occasionally writes also about his own profession and the difficulties in getting there, c.f. https://acoup.blog/2021/10/01/collections-so-you-want-to-go-...

He also laments the difficulty in getting a full professorship (an opportunity recently denied to him) and finds universities increasingly focused on "paycheck degrees" such as STEM, which seems to rankle him. But it seems a likely outcome from the demographic and economic changes laid out in this article. I wish him all the best, I enjoy his writings, but I confess that my tech career seems more stable even with recent layoffs shaking the market.


Non-paycheck academics just don't need universities and begging for government grants.

They can be independent, on YouTube and Blogs and Twitter and Patreon.


I'm reminded of "Red Dwarf"

How many of us saw this and thought "anti-drone lasers can't come soon enough"?


Would anyone be interested in organizing a class action lawsuit against Ross Teixeira and Princeton?


Is the point to get money or stop this from happening again?

If it’s the latter, I wonder if it would be more effective to bring this incident (and the apparent ineffectiveness of Princeton’s IRB) to the attention of the NIH. I would think the prospect of putting all that grant money in jeopardy would cause people in high places to take notice.


I think the plaintiffs would be people who spent money reacting to the emails, and I suspect Princeton may be quick to take care of those expenses to avoid further action.

I personally didn’t incur any monetary costs, just a lot of unnecessary stress.


Intentional infliction if emotion distress is a cause of action for a civil suit. You don't have to have lost money.


I think this is pretty awful, but I'd still give the person the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't intentional.


They bought it for data gathering and market/competitor research. I was with Amazon at the time. Was great for keeping track of what products were drawing most traction on eBay (Longaberger baskets and Beanie babies, says my vague memory)


That's Mike Daisey, he did a tour called "Doing Time At Amazon.com"


Thank you for scratching that mental itch. I see his book(s) are available... on Amazon.


Not generally, but maybe as "Borat In The Wild West"


Your username suggests an option, but I shall hope you are focused on solar at the moment


Solar is fusion, right?


Just solar but rethinking things into something you can start using without installing.


There's a local cooperative here in Germany (named Energiegewinner if you want to look them up) that acts as a facilitator for this. They're approaching this from all directions:

1. You can buy power from them at normal power company retail rates. You get power from the grid that they buy at wholesale rates, profits go into building out solar.

2. You can become a member by buying any number of shares. Capital gets used to fund solar buildout, profits go back to each shareholder. Each shareholder has one vote regardless of the number of shares they own to prevent buyouts.

3. You can rent them your roof space. You get paid, other people put cells on. You get reduced-rate power from your own roof's cells, excess goes to grid.

4. You can buy solar panels and rent them to the cooperative. For every large installation they make, they'll ask people to buy panels. You get paid a part of what the panels produce for 20 years, at a guaranteed rate, and at market rate after that.

5. You can have them act as a solar installer and set up panels on your property for your own use. They'll buy excess production and sell you grid power when you have insufficient production. In this case you finance the install yourself.

They have excellent economies of scale from standardizing installs and they allow people with capital but no roof space to connect with people with no capital but usable roof space. Because retail rates for power are high and they've centralized installation costs they're making an okay profit. Maybe something like this can work where you are?


That doesn't seem to be the case per NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/opinion/actually-prohibiti...


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