[balamatom]

To demonstrate that you are in fact unable to deep dive into the mind of the local fentanyl dealer, who is probably a much more fascinating human being than the role you have attributed him in your thought experiment (or in your society) would ever permit you to comprehend.

[bitlax]

So the point WAS to just make stuff up to excuse bad behavior!

[balamatom]

Same as the point of "hey you! why are you not more empathetic! no i don't have to explain what that is!"

[bitlax]

"I'm sorry ma'am. Your son is dead, but the drug dealer is FASCINATING. No you won't be able to tell."

[balamatom]

Well, considering her son ended up on fentanyl, probably not very able to tell some things, yeah.

"I'm sorry kid, I know you probably have aspirations and all that shit, but due to a host of technical reasons we don't care about any of that. Here's this fentanyl instead, either shoot it or go sell it to the next loser. And say hi to your mom from me - she's an absolutely remarkable woman."

[bitlax]

There goes that empathy. Glad you do in fact realize that dealing fentanyl is wrong. Not something fantastic people do.

Edit: After your edit you seem to have found a rationale for rounding up and executing drug dealers "because reasons" so I think we're all done here.

[bitlax]

On re-read I may have been caught by Poe's Law here, in which case Thank God. I need sarcasm tags.

[balamatom]

No, there's no Poe's Law involved; it's just that you're unlikely to permit yourself to empathize with anything else besides your ingroup. (Exactly as unlikely as you're meant to be; congratulations - there is some safety in numbers).

That's all rather revealing as to what this so called "empathy" actually is, and why of all possible ethical values this is the one which epitomes of uncaring choose to pay lip service to.

Circling back to your original strawmonster - no, I don't believe any particular disaffected youth has had any voice in whether society should go through an opioid epidemic. As to the actual people responsible, I'm sure you'd perceive them as having vivid, rich inner lives, not unlike your own.