[fsloth]

Addiction is a complicated problem and labeling the addict as 'bad' is an antipattern. Modern society should be able to approach everyone from a position of dignity and humanity - dehumanizations erodes both parties in an interaction. 'You deserve to die because of your past history' is a brutal, ethically untenable stance.

[mistermann]

Then again, considering we have limited resources for dealing with this problem, pretending all users are the same when we damn well know they aren't is probably not the most efficient approach.

[fsloth]

I wasn't claiming statistics or individual differences don't exist.

From the point of view of outcomes and efficiency it's better to approach people as individuals and not as statistics, or even worse, statistics with moral binning into good and bad. The logical argument is that humans are complex and it takes a lot of time to gather sufficient data to be correct.

I can dig out references if you like but medical facilities which focus more on individual-to-individal interactions rather than on factory like throughput work better.

[mistermann]

Well sure you can cite evidence where treating people as individuals is beneficial and optimal, my dispute was that this is always the optimum approach.

[wlievens]

I obviously agree.