[WillPostForFood]

Even if one ascribes to this nihilist POV, it isn't an answer. We see the negative effects on communities, families, and people around addicts. Even if you don't care that people are destroying themselves, when they take out the surrounding area it is a problem we share.

[stillwithit]

Yeah and humans have seen it for centuries and failed to stop it

Who is to say any progress we make won’t be undid by another pandemic we cannot predict, or some nutter launching the nukes

We have political agents hell bent on war and subjugating undesirables, rather than pushback against them let’s focus on some people who don’t want to live?

Why not ask Oceangate how the war against physics is going. It will always win and erode any social progress we think we made

[nomel]

> failed to stop it

I don't think that's the goal. The goal is to attempt to reduce harm of something that removes freedom. Try asking a drug addict if they want to keep taking drugs. I suspect you'll be surprised at the answer. Stopping drugs would be like achieving abstinence as the primary form of contraceptive. Both are impossible because they work on the same soup of chemicals, but one has evolved with some form of continuation in mind. The other is a direct injection, orders of magnitude stronger, that just fucks up all the machinery of the brain.

[stillwithit]

Well we all better stop flying and driving if we’re set out to reduce human suffering.

But hey the toxic mess we leave for the future to suffer through won’t be our problem so shrug

This is the most disingenuous and self righteous thread I’ve ever been involved with. Traditional catechisms and stubbornness will win out against physical reality. RBG fans I guess.

[nomel]

> Well we all better stop flying and driving if we’re set out to reduce human suffering.

If the car has doors your can't unlock, and the plane forced you to fly or you die from withdrawals, both of which follow you around you're whole life honking their horns begging you to get back in, even if you do manage to stop, then your analogy could make sense.

Do you have any experience with addiction?

Having experience with the pain it causes, and not liking the idea of more families being ripped apart/abandoned due to a few milligrams, isn't self righteous as much as sympathetic. I think there's some compromise between complete freedom and "this thing completely removes freedom, so maybe it's a bad idea".

[stillwithit]

Yes, yes I do have family history with addiction

Both times my family wished for euthanization options rather than watch family rot

But patronizing high minds said no; in our society they must suffer until they die

Americans have spent so much time huffing toxic positivity whippets.

All the high minded worship and praise of the economy, tech, feeding notions of American exceptionalism has led us to believe we really can do anything

But we all can’t live forever and have no guarantee the future won’t just screw it all up again

Physics rules, not human philosophy. Reality itself is the root of our misery. There’s no eradicating suffering without eliminating humans; we cannot violate physics and the physical word fosters suffering. Erosion and entropy of all structure.

This forum is sounding way too religious. Thought it was science nerdy when I signed up but it’s just typical “America great!”

[lazyasciiart]

You don’t have to watch others rot just because they are alive - you are choosing to stay alive to do so, and can change your mind at any time without imposing on anyone else’s rights.

[mardef]

> Well we all better stop flying and driving if we’re set out to reduce human suffering.

No, we're better off regulating safety, setting increasingly strict pollution and mileage standards, and continuing to update laws to eliminate behaviors such as DUI or texting to continue to have those freedoms while limiting externalities.

[huytersd]

Humans have absolutely stopped it in places with draconian laws. The use of heroin in Singapore, other parts of south east Asia and parts of the Middle East is essentially zero because they give traffickers the death penalty and jail the few users for a very long time. If you can truly secure your borders and you can’t grow poppy in your country there will be no heroin.