On 7/30/2010 2:20 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> You don't need a medical degree to read articles on the effects of
>>>> these things, and no, I don't have, or remember, the specific
>>>> magazines, or which issues.
>>>
>>> Fair enough, but are you certain you're not falling to confirmation
>>> bias?
>>>
>> How is, "Taking there chemicals does X, and we can test people that take
>> it and *show* that it does. Not to mention it never goes away, and every
>> medical professional says that the people they treat never lose the
>> addiction, they just learn to avoid every place, person, or thing that
>> helped trigger it.", qualify as confirmation bias?
>
> Assumption:  You're only reading sources that agree with something you
> already think.  Again, just a question.
>
I am using reading sources that agree with the medical community, many 
of which have to deal with the problems caused, not necessarily the 
actual rehab, and others of which deal, quite clinically, with the 
chemistry involved, without dealing directly with people at all (except 
in some cases, to confirm their findings, after concluding that the 
effect exists). Why are we throwing out ever neurochemist, neurologist, 
biochemist, etc., in favor of, "Someone else says this isn't true, and 
they have a clinic that charges $5,000 a session, for (Insert Woo) 
Therapy, and a list of all the patients that claim it helped them, sans 
all the vast majority it didn't, to back them up." As someone once said, 
the plural of anecdote is not evidence. But, it can be worse than that, 
in the plural of "selective" anecdotes, which exclude all contradictory 
stories, isn't just *not* evidence, its *false* evidence, i.e., lying by 
exclusion.

>> We protect people from themselves all the damn time. Everything from, "
>> "Don't drive drunk, or we will arrest you.",
>
> That's protecting the public, not the individual.
>
>> to, "You can't swim in the
>> sewage pond, so we put big warning signs and a fence around it.",
>
> That's perhaps the best example.
>
>> to,
>> "You vehicle **must** have working turn signals.",
>
> That's about the public, not the individual.  My turn signal doesn't tell
> me anything, it's a way of telling others what you're about to do.
>
Yeah, got one out of three.. Point of all of them is that we "do" put 
rules in place to protect people. How about another one, "We don't sell 
that to you without a prescription." I.e., unless someone else says you 
*need it*, not just because you personally *think* you need it. Wait.. 
isn't that just what you are sort of advocating for some of this stuff? lol

>> etc., are all about
>> protecting not just the rest of the people, but the moron doing it.
>
> I disagree.
>
Lot of it is about perception of "harm". We get in this argument a lot 
on some blog with libertarians. Do you put in place laws, regulations 
and rules, **in case** someone does something wrong, or wait until they 
do, then try to step in and fix the problem, after real damage has 
**already** been done? They say, "wait", or worse, "it will fix itself 
in this case, if you let it", the other side say, "Yeah, but, by the 
time it *fixes itself* 2 million people are out of work, most of the 
companies are hoarding money, and you people **still** insist its all 
going to a) fix itself, and b) we don't need laws, or regulations, to 
keep it from happening again." We know what open drug use *has* done in 
cases where it took place, because people get stoned, drive, go to work, 
etc., all the damn time, and get other people killed/hurt. Its the whole 
fracking reason why companies do drug tests now. They can't afford to 
have someone *on* the drug, on the job, because of the *real* problems 
it causes. And that doesn't mean "within 24 hours", it means, "without 
*any* of it in the persons system, since people differ, and the guy that 
took a hit two days ago *may* be as big a hazard, from withdrawal, and 
the other guy that just took one five minutes ago, and is seeing green 
pixies, telling him to run over the floor manager with a fork lift.

Some rules are put in place to preemptively prevent problems, and as 
long as people are going to do stupid frakking shit, even while "not" on 
drugs, a basic principle has to be to *minimize* the possible causes of 
that behavior, which means, not letting people get high, *then* go to 
work in that condition, or drive on the street, etc. Which, in the case 
of drugs, generally means to not let them do them at all, recreationally.

>> I don't dispute that, and have said so, but the problem is that you are
>> classing people that are, "not in their right minds", by choice or
>> otherwise, in the same category as, "non-violent", in some cases. We
>> also prefer to arrest someone who is intentionally acting in a way that
>> *could* cause someone else harm. As I said, people on certain drugs do
>> not just all, "sit around at home, being stoned", they go places, they
>> do it in public, they get into their heads, while in a state of mind
>> where they *can't* make rational decisions, to do things that get
>> themselves and others killed.
>
> And when they get dangerous, they should be stopped.
>
Again. Meaningless. You can't even tell when some mentally ill people 
will become dangerous. You can keep them, if they "could be", and there 
is reasonable cause to believe they might be, from dealing with the 
public. Otherwise, what do you do to really prevent tragedies, just 
chalk it up to, "Oops, we couldn't have ever seen that coming!", like BP 
did, on the basis of the number of cases where problems *never* 
happened? Oh, wait, I know.. We can create a "precog" center, like in 
minority report. That will work...

>> By your logic, it would be perfectly fine
>> to let mental patients out, even if classed as, "potentially dangerous",
>> because that particular day they are not "acting" dangerous, never mind
>> that they could turn at any moment, due to their condition.
>
> Um, no, that's something different.  Someone who's schizophrenic is quite
> different from someone who *voluntarily* takes crack cocaine.  And now
> you'll argue that the addiction makes it a compulsion, not voluntary, but
> they voluntarily started taking it.
>
But, once it is a compulsion, their initial "voluntary" choice is 
rendered mute from that point on. Its no more rational to conclude 
otherwise than it is to conclude that someone who "intentional" drove 
their car into a tree, but *only* caused limited brain damage, must be 
held accountable for all subsequent choices, regardless of nature of 
severity, **based on** the fact that the damage in question was to the 
part of the brain that lets them feel empathy, or make moral choices. 
Damage is damage, cause is irrelevant.

> There's safer and fairer when it's in the public interest, and then
> there's "safer and fairer" which removes all the risk from life entirely,
> and that latter removes the responsibility and consequences of actions
> from individuals and places it on society.  "It's not *my* fault I shot
> the store clerk, it's *society's* fault that they didn't protect the
> store clerk from me as effectively as they should have."
>
> Jim

If I was also suggesting stopping hang gliding, or skying, you would 
have a point. What I am talking about is the equivalent of someone 
suffering damage that leads them to, without real control, start hang 
gliding into buildings, or skying through crowds. The initial decision 
to hang glide, or sky, is not at issue, even if the *reason* for the 
damage, by pure accident, was a result of slamming into a building, or 
skying through a crowd of people. Its not relevant to the problem.


-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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