BahRamYou
2d ago
Drugs are not made alike. Someone smoking weed, doing coke or dropping molly before a concert is in a very different reference class to people shooting up heroin/fent or smoking crack pipes.
Accidental ODing from taking an entirely different drug is closer to dying of a peanut allergy after ordering gummy bears. It's not suicide.
I particularly dislike fent because it's like the Worst Drug Imaginable, and because it screws over even people who want to stay away from it. Thankfully it's not common in the UK, and the Albanians keep the coke clean.
Agreed with you on all of this. As far as I know, almost no one intentionally takes Fentanyl, because it's not fun and it's pretty much straight poison. They take it accidentally because it gets mixed in with other drugs.
This situation is dicey. As I understand it, most of US cocaine comes from South America and especially Venezuela these days. They don't need to bother with Fentanyl, cocaine is plenty cheap enough there already, the only hard part is getting it into the US. So these drug boats are probably just carrying cocaine. However, after it's into the US, it gets mixed in with fentanyl by dealers here who want to make extra profit. The Fentanyl comes from Mexico or China, and it's a lot harder to stop because it comes in such small quantities and we have less power to use military force against those countries.
Using lethal force against a fentanyl dealer seems justified. Using lethal force against a coke dealer seems like massive overkill. In this case... maybe that's the only way to stop the fentanyl from being used? I don't know, seems like a trolley problem.
BahRamYou
4d ago
The point is that sharing a room is obviously worse than having your own room. The whole discussion was about things that are better now compared to the 1950s or vice versa. You're not adding anything to the discussion with your condescending boomer comments about "kids these days" or crying about your shitty childhood, it's totally irrelevant.
BahRamYou
4d ago
Not even close to what I wrote. But hey, if you want to relive your childhood, I'm sure you can find a retirement home with small rooms and a roommate to share.
BahRamYou
5d ago
what does a 1950s hotel look like? I feel like, in some places it would be really good, and in other places it would be terrible. Just luck of the draw, maybe.
BahRamYou
5d ago
that sounds uh... awkward. i mean. I'm glad that you're family was so close. you're probably happy in many ways, and I envy the close family relationship you have. but wasn't it uh... awkward...?
BahRamYou
5d ago
far enough that it's a pain in the ass to walk there before having coffee in the morning
BahRamYou
5d ago
Yeah. I thought that went without saying, but its worth spelling that out in case some people don't know.
This also led to ann odd situation where, for a while, relatively poor white people in the rural south could afford help that middle class whites in the northern suburbs wouldn't have.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Ironically im currently living in an airbnb with no coffee maker, so all i can have is crappy instant coffee. But i guess its nice i can stay in an airbnb and not uh.... a boarding house? Whatever the 1950s equivalent would be.
BahRamYou
5d ago
I dont think its like, objectively morally wrong or anything. I just think most people find it uncomfortable and would prefer not to live that way. At least past the age of, like, 6.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Right? This is the sort of argument that makes economists look like crazy people. Or rather, like ivory tower academics who have no idea what the real world is like. It's almost like a strawman version of an economist, where the only thing he cares about is maximizing GDP and ignores anything else.
There's plenty of other things you could point to in the 1950s that would horrify a modern person though. For example, most of their jobs were terrible, and families were cramming 4+ kids into a tiny home, with kids sharing rooms in bunk beds. Also very limited heat or AC, and you'd waste a lot of time on menial household chores if you weren't rich enough to afford servants.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Interesting. I should really get around to reading that series one of these days. I remember starting it as a kid and being very confused that it wasn't like the Narnia books.
BahRamYou
5d ago
I'm much the same. half the reason I eat at restaurants is just to get out of the house and have a change of scenery where I can relax and experience the meal. Getting food delivered in a soggy Styrofoam container so that I can spend my meal staring at a screen is just dystopian. It's surreal to sit in a popular restaurant which is completely empty of anyone actually eating there, just an endless stream of delivery drivers coming in to pick up bags of plastic containers.
BahRamYou
5d ago
The rich 1959 guy wouldn't necessarily be driving to a restaurant. He could also afford to keep a personal cook or housekeeper. Or, you know, just have a servant to do all the regular housework while his fancy wife did the cooking.
I think a lot of these "would you rather" comparisons across time are hard to compare, because we've basically substituted capital for labor. So would you rather have a human do stuff for you, or a machine? I've never had servants so i can't really say, it seems like it would be awesome in some ways but also really awkward in other ways
Anyway, "I Love Lucy" was a great show and driving a brand new Cadillac to the local supper club sounds awesome, so I don't know what he's talking about there.
BahRamYou
6d ago
sigh I suppose it's up to us middle-aged men to lead the way. who wants to help me start a Hitler Youth scouting organization? (kidding obviously, I don't really want to do that)
why do they do that? why not oxy or heroin? how are they even still alive?
More options
Context Copy link