The Widening Divisions

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paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

A good example would be the old guard democrats of the early 1900s, they were racist bigots to the 9 degree.
when LBJ made steps to open the party to the African origin american then that's when the party started to take strides to equality for all men. He realized this step was necessary change to embrace if is political party was to survive the decade.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

paperburn1 wrote:Ok, lets make this simpler, when thing evolve and adapt to the changes of the forces around it there is the possibility of improvement, BUT when something is ripped from the system the force that fills its gap usually is not for the better.
Medical SCIENCE is not a social force.
Medical Science (or for that matter any Science) is not a social force...Science is usually defined as "the study of fill in the blank". Studying something of course isn't a force....however the application/practice of Medicine (and science) and its effect(s) definitely are. The actions/practices of Medical doctors and/or health care workers are to medical science what an engineer is to other sciences, and is definitely a social force. A physicist studying physics is not a social force...however the results, engineers & scientists building nuclear power/weapons/medicine definitely are; whether the studier intended it to be or not. The effects of applied technology medical or otherwise are probably the most powerful force of social change in human history.
Last edited by williatw on Sun Jun 29, 2014 1:00 am, edited 2 times in total.

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

Diogenes wrote:
MSimon wrote:So the demise of alcohol prohibition has left things worse off?

Now that *IS* an interesting question. I'm thinking that in terms of body count, we are way worse off. Deaths caused by Alcohol are way up over what they were in 1932. It occurs to me that since you regard yourself as an expert on this issue, how about you take the contrary position for a moment and give us an objective analysis as to whether we are better off or worse off as a nation since Alcohol was re-legalized.
Interesting point...maybe we should substitute alcohol (legal or otherwise) for something with a much lower body count:

Alcohol Has Killed Thousands Of People Since This Morning. Pot Use Has Killed Zero Since Forever.

Image
The alcohol-related deaths figure is based off global statistics for annual alcohol-attributable deaths from a World Health Organization report, using the latest available data. To get the number on the left, accidental alcohol-attributable deaths -- such as those from traffic accidents -- are subtracted from the total number deaths due to alcohol. Counting only deaths due to the direct effects of alcohol consumption and dependence, around 1,760,000 people are killed by those causes around the world each year. This number is then used to calculate total deaths per second, and that figure is paired with the current time to estimate the total number killed so far that day.

While the alcohol counter is something of a rough estimate, the marijuana data is more precise. Nobody has ever been killed directly by marijuana use. According to one study, a marijuana smoker would have to consume thousands of joints' worth of THC -- the compound that gets users high -- in order to be at risk of dying.
The direct lethality of THC may not be up for debate, but drug warriors frequently claim that marijuana leads to deaths because it is addictive and leads to violence, suicidal thoughts and interest in harder drugs. The studies they use to back these contentions are controversial, however, and many don't actually draw the conclusion that smoking pot in and of itself leads to these behaviors.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/1 ... 14511.html

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

Just FYI there are TWO deaths directly connected to Marijuana consumption .
Apr 18, 2014 - DENVER - This week, two Denver deaths were linked to marijuana use, and while some details of the deaths have yet to emerge...
Last edited by paperburn1 on Sun Jun 29, 2014 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

Alas , Never mind, I lack the prose and ability to properly express myself in the written word on this subject.
Social forces refers to the influence of the society as a whole has on the behavior of individuals.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

paperburn1 wrote:Just FYI there are TWO deaths directly connected to Marijuana consumption .
Apr 18, 2014 - DENVER - This week, two Denver deaths were linked to marijuana use, and while some details of the deaths have yet to emerge...
One man jumped to his death after consuming a large amount of marijuana contained in a cookie, and in the other case, a man allegedly shot and killed his wife after eating marijuana candy.
http://gazette.com/2-denver-deaths-tied ... le/1518448

Uhh...that would not be a death directly caused by marijuna use; i.e. death by overdose (or something like Liver cirrhosis as in the case of alcohol); those would be examples of two indirect (tied to) use. A better argument for your side would be what about marijuana deaths caused by say emphysema? Do heavy pot smokers get emphysema or (lung cancer)?

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

paperburn1 wrote:Social forces refers to the influence of the society as a whole has on the behavior of individuals.
Society as a whole is how people collectively behave...applied technology directly strongly influences that (the effect of oral contraceptives on people's sexual behavior for instance); technological change is probably the dominate factor affecting social change/forces.

ladajo
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by ladajo »

williatw wrote:
paperburn1 wrote:Just FYI there are TWO deaths directly connected to Marijuana consumption .
Apr 18, 2014 - DENVER - This week, two Denver deaths were linked to marijuana use, and while some details of the deaths have yet to emerge...
One man jumped to his death after consuming a large amount of marijuana contained in a cookie, and in the other case, a man allegedly shot and killed his wife after eating marijuana candy.
http://gazette.com/2-denver-deaths-tied ... le/1518448

Uhh...that would not be a death directly caused by marijuna use; i.e. death by overdose (or something like Liver cirrhosis as in the case of alcohol); those would be examples of two indirect (tied to) use. A better argument for your side would be what about marijuana deaths caused by say emphysema? Do heavy pot smokers get emphysema or (lung cancer)?
So why is crashing a car direct under this interpretation?

And for that matter, what good is parading around a statistic that is not accurate nor measured?
For example, road fatalities still do not accurately collect on and analyze drugs users. The focus is on drinking, although that is now changing, the system is not up to the speed and efficiency of the alcohol tracking and reporting.

It is like saying gun deaths verses breaking it out for suicides, crime, negligence, malfunctions, darwin, etc.
Some road deaths only record substance influence and these automatically get counted as alcohol. Or, even better, someone in the car was drunk (not the driver) and it is counted as alcohol related, and one more on that theme, even if the driver is legally sober, but still had a drink in the "x" time period before the accident, it is counted as well.

Bottom line, statistics like these are worse than normal. Not only are they made to say something the analyst wants, but they are politically driven as well.

It is asinine to say that pot has never killed anyone. You might as well say eating cheeseburgers has not killed anyone.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

Betruger
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Betruger »

paperburn1 wrote:
Betruger wrote:For example?
If you need me to show you examples , your really not paying attention. And this is not just about Simon's favorite subject. This is a life in general statement.
I wanted to know what the first example you'd pick would be. No biggie.
williatw wrote:
paperburn1 wrote:Social forces refers to the influence of the society as a whole has on the behavior of individuals.
Society as a whole is how people collectively behave...applied technology directly strongly influences that (the effect of oral contraceptives on people's sexual behavior for instance); technological change is probably the dominate factor affecting social change/forces.
I think that's too semantic. The gun is a force? It's rather the human pulling the trigger. Technology is not a force, it's a means of influence towards whatever agenda, of the human wielding technology. It's a force multiplier, but not a force.


I think both MSimon and Diogenes are right in some important respects. It is wrong, period, to coerce people into abstention. But cultural drift (of the bread and circuses kind, but also because things are just getting too complex for healthy brains too - viz scientific specialization) is definitely happening and coercing people into order is basically the most effective method. But it's still wrong.

Technology is as (I've said this 10x already, but it gets truer everyday) Vinge says. Sooner than later, the tech will exist to multiply the effect of people's intentions to such magnitudes that basically anyone with a bad hair day can nuke or at least momentarily make the world stutter. There are growing pains coming for Humanity, where either people wizen up, or The Man will be the only thing between a relatively easy life of post scarcity leisure and chaos.

Maybe a checks and balances sort of equilibrium is the only way to keep a lid on technologically enabled griefing and chaos. Like M.A.D. What's for sure is that at least some communities will inevitably move past and away from religion as existential fool proofing; others won't, and various others will diverge in this and all others dimensions of human culture. Getting off this planet and populating all habitable parts of this solar system as we populated these continents, nooks and crannies and all, is probably a major means of enabling that fractal divergence. IOW let those divisions widen, if that's what those people want.

What's for sure is that politics is not going to do shit in the long term. There's no salvation there; it's just crowd control. We're not going to crowd control our way to post-scarcity. Post-scarcity is the only real positive endgame. There won't be a new man (barring some miraculous re-engineering of humans.. ahem), and there won't be any political Solution of Everything. Sublimating this bondage that most of the planet is in because of scarcity is the only thing that resolves everything enough that everyone is basically free from social obligations; or the other way around: that their pot smoking etc won't ballast the workforce. It still won't be nearly paradise, but IMHO problems then are basically all trivial.

TLDR
Post scarcity and curing aging. Not politics.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.

MSimon
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by MSimon »

Lots of things get ripped from the system and death is evolution's assistant.

And in fact with 50%+1 votes - politics is nothing but a ripping.

It was Teddy Roosevelt with his "Walk softly and carry a big stick" that set us on the wrong path. We forgot the "walk softly" part and have come to the general conclusion that you can get what ever you want with a big enough stick.

Politics is nothing but tipping points. Less of it would allow more room for evolution. The general idea that "we must stop this or stop that" (aside from simple rules that are universal and understood by a two year old - "mine, mine, mine" and "don't hurt me") has gone insane. It holds back evolution.

Power and Control interferes with evolution.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by MSimon »

It is asinine to say that pot has never killed anyone. You might as well say eating cheeseburgers has not killed anyone.
True that. If you get a large enough bale of it dropped from a sufficient height on you it will kill you.

But DEA Judge Francis Young said "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

So it is safer than most medicines.

But the real question is better or worse? Well it is safer than alcohol. And switching from alcohol to pot lowers traffic deaths.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/w ... ic-deaths/
So what is the latest scare "Traffic accidents that are 'cannabis related' are up." I won't go into the methodological problems with those studies. I will state the most important fact: if traffic deaths are declining then we are getting a net gain.

And even that doesn't matter. Americans are tired of Prohibition.

Think of the "living in a police state" mentality that half the kids get even if they are only occasional users in the 15 to 25 yo cohort. And some of the bystanders get the message too. It imprints them for life. Good job my prohibitionist friends. Because people who have experienced a police state are its most ardent foes.

Heinlein expressed the dichotomy exquisitely.

“Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.” – Robert A. Heinlein
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

The best example of social force would be the Holocaust.
The Holocaust was a social force in that people had to choose whether to take a stand and resist what the Nazis were doing or whether they chose to simply be a bystander and remain safe.
When the Nazis were spouting antisemitic rhetoric, individuals believed them. Some individuals chose to discriminate against Jews when they might not have had they not heard what the government said about the Jews. but just because of what they has heard second hand and not experienced.
Another good example would be our president, even 30 years ago this would have not happened or even been considered as a viable option for running someone of color for president.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

If we use Simon's definition of death caused by, then you would have to lower the DIRECT death to .1 per 100,000 rather than the 27 per 100,00 quoted in the articles.

Lies, darn lies, and Statistics "Mark Twain"
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

MSimon
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by MSimon »

paperburn1 wrote:If we use Simon's definition of death caused by, then you would have to lower the DIRECT death to .1 per 100,000 rather than the 27 per 100,00 quoted in the articles.

Lies, darn lies, and Statistics "Mark Twain"
27 per 100,000? That is well past the murder rate (5 per 100,000). I find that difficult to accept. Got a link? And a similar one for alcohol so comparisons can be made? Maybe alcohol during Prohibition so the data reflects similar circumstances.

In any case Americans are tired of Prohibition and the police state that comes with it. This guy for example:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/3 ... -c-w-cooke

BTW in America we have turned the police state on. In Germany against the Jews form 1933 on - people noticed. The slow motion holocaust (we can afford prisons - Germany couldn't) against the unfavored since 1937 hardly gets a remark (except for derision) in some circles.

You have to ask yourself who those SWAT teams will be attacking once it is no longer open season on dopers? You would also have to ask those on the right why they didn't think of that when they were building the power of the State?

But I will admit that the Progressive Prohibitionist impulse since 1900 or so has been an error. Funny enough the Progressives have repudiated their error while "conservatives" are left holding the bag. Delicious. And not unanticipated.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. — G.K. Chesterton
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

I will try and find it again, was from the CDC
Overall, the median death rate due to alcohol-related causes was about 28.5 per 100,000 people, after adjusting for the age of victims.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

Better source
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822014
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

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