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This will probably get some play and is a bit of a different topic. Former CEO of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicicki son died of a drug freshman year of college at Cal.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-youtube-ceos-son-found-dead-uc-berkeley-rcna139355
The obvious implications is he took something laced with fentanyl. Culture war wise concerns about fentanyl are red coded though issues with fentanyl seem apparent in both red and blue states and people.
Overall I feel like this issue has lost its place in the news cycle. A quick google overdose deaths topped 112k in 2023 an all-time record. I am seeing a current U.S. population of 334 million. So to put this in perspective 112k multiplied by an average lifespan of 80 years is like 9 million deaths. Or close to 3% of US population at current rates will die by a drug overdose. I think I can fairly say it’s a huge issue even if you disagree with how I’m calculating the average persons risks of OD at around 3% in their lifetime.
Quick analysis of the kid he looks in shape for a 19 year old and was majoring in math so he’s the dream of any parent. Odd thing is he was found unresponsive at 4:23 pm on a Tuesday. That is going to be weird and details will come out as that time frame is more of an addict death. Versus I expected a weekend OD and he did some fentanyl laced coke/Molly during the weekend.
From people I’ve talked to opioids are amazing. I do not know if I’ve ever done them. They have to be if people do them. I’ve done molly/coke/mushrooms in the past. The big thing to me is I’m paranoid I’m doing something laced now and have largely cut out doing anything now.
The midtwit take is that dealers either sell both and cross contaminate or lace other drugs to get people addicted. Personally opinion and perhaps a difference without a difference is it’s probably lacing just so people say it’s the good shit.
Sorry for their loss.
Culture war issues
Plays into the immigration debate of not controlling the border
Blue states seem to be adopting a let it happen and treat but it doesn’t seem to be working
War on drug topics. I don’t think the old war on drugs ever dealt with the death rate we have now but war on drugs doesn’t seem stupid when it’s a 3% population level lifetime death rate which is far higher than COVID and killing people with high life expectancy
Other policy considerations. Some would say things like legalize drugs to kill fentanyl and people get “safe” drugs. Some conservative arguments that something’s should just be illegal. Opioids probably are fantastic but the death rate for someone who tries opioids seems extremely high.
My numeracy tells me this is a big problem and I believe an order of magnitude bigger problem than COVID. I don’t think it’s quite as hard coded in culture wars.
The culture in public schools seems to have changed a lot in the 1-2 decades since I've been there, but surely they still tell kids, "drugs are bad, mkay"? I have a similar reaction to this as I do when people talk about the "suicide epidemic". There is a very simple solution, don't kill yourself.
Why would kids listen to a teacher and not the famous, status-signaling rapper than shows up on their YouTube feed glamorizing drugs? One of them is presenting a way to money and power, the other one is giving them homework.
Indeed, YouTube complicity in the opiate crisis is why I consider this death the least bad possible opiate death. While still a tragedy, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving parent. I only wish that all parents of opiate victims worked in the music industry.
What the hell?
You're going to have to elaborate on "Youtube complicity." I'm struggling to imagine what policy they implemented that made you hate their former CEO more than, I dunno, the dealer. The manufacturer. Whatever rapper you have in mind.
It’s quite simple: YouTube allows drug glamorization culture and music videos to be watched by young people. For vulnerable young people, there is a straight line from idolizing a rapper to doing the drugs of said rapper. See: Lil Peep (1 billion+ views, mostly teenagers). Some of these rappers are a walking advertisement for drug use. When you’re then at a party listening to their music and there’s drugs available, you are more likely to participate in taking drugs.
— are not engaged in a sophisticated emotional manipulation campaign to get adolescents to find drugs cool.
I think this is all too far. Notably, crime-glorifying rap was around well before YouTube was able to become a star-maker. I don't think YouTube not being around would have made that much difference for rapping about fent charting on radio or whatever.
But I don’t think that absolves them of their crime, because as per my OP, I think all of the players involved are complicit and not only YouTube. If our culture wanted they could make this music require an 18+ identification card for consumption, but there’s too much money to be made and they don’t care about the consequences of their actions.
I mean, we kinda tried, though it perhaps wasn't overly strict and the high-contrast label they slapped onto those albums arguably only made them more desirable. Our culture is not set up for this.
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I don’t see how allowing a certain type of content is comparable to making that content, let alone making the stuff which the content is about.
That’s the same reasoning which leads to colleges banning public speakers.
Colleges are environments specifically designed for intellectual inquiry among adults. And even then, a speaker whose entire shtick is “drugs are good and fun” should probably be prevented from speaking without serious warnings and counter arguments. YouTube is an environment for young peoples’ entertainment, which is very much unlike a college. The content is algorithmically fed to young people, and YouTube profits off of it. As a parent doesn’t escape jail by saying they only allowed their children to drink alcohol, a content server should not escape guilt and shame by saying they only allowed impressionable young people to watch music videos glamorizing opiate use.
Notably, YouTube bans holocaust denialism, which is a less bad thing than the promotion of opiates.
Guilt and shame isn’t equivalent to jail time. Algorithmic service isn’t the same as actually providing drugs. Which, at least in freedom land, isn’t actually illegal, not from a parent to his or her child. Not that youtube provides a parental or even collegiate level of authority over viewers!
Frankly, the analogy is completely incoherent.
We could imagine a scenario where a parent serves their child a reasonable amount of alcohol in their presence. But clearly, in this context, “a parent allowing their child to drink alcohol” isn’t referring to that. This is a discussion on illicit drug use, so a reasonable reader would interpret that in its intended meaning, as an illicit act. But I can be more detailed, if that’s important:
There we go.
But what do they have in common? They are considered the just responses to an infraction. Our society deemed it an infraction to allow children to drink alcohol illegally, and parents aren’t excused by claiming they merely permitted it and merely had the alcohol out in the open for easy access. Now, at least among many people, showing young people a glamorous depiction of drug use by their idol is considered shameful. The YouTube CEO is not excused from shame by merely permitting it and merely having it in the open for easy access.
So the analogy is comparing the relevant commonality of the two cases. Analogies are by their nature simplifications to save time. But your analogy re: college didn’t work because the expectations of freedom of speech on a college campus are distinct from the expectations on an app used by young people and children, from which the CEO derives profit per view.
Is it the same as providing a desirable lifestyle of drug use? Why or why not?
How would you react if someone went up to a teen and showed them really cool depictions of drugs? That would be pretty shameful, right? YouTube does this knowingly using middle men.
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Does YouTube allow the “promotion of opiates”? From their website:
I think videos explicitly encouraging illegal opiate use are probably banned on YouTube given they likely involve the use of hard drugs.
Yes. From their website: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mRTV-j87wOo
You can hear more of his lyricism in works such as Overdose, Benz Truck, and Giving Girls Cocaine. All on YouTube. He is not the only rapper who glamorizes opiates.
Not if they encourage the drug through catchy lyrics and interesting music videos designed to be memorable to adolescents.
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There's a lot that Susan gets flack for, chief among them being the CEO of YouTube during its TV-ification.
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Second least bad, surely. It could've been a Sackler.
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You sound like you have a complete disconnect from other people's experiences and suffering, while also believing in free will.
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Is this sarcastic? Do you genuinely not understand that many people live lives of despair and feel they have no hope of things ever getting better?
Most people don't want to OD from drugs or commit suicide. They do because their lives are purposeless, hopeless, and devoid of meaning.
"They do because their lives are purposeless, hopeless, and devoid of meaning."
Y'know, most people would say that people kill themselves because they feel their lives are purposeless, hopeless, and devoid of meaning.
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Or alternately, because they think doing some drugs would be fun or cool, and pick up a habit.
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I doubt the Stanford freshman son of the CEO of YouTube had nothing to live for.
Why doubt that? Just because he had status and wealth doesn't mean he had anything he cared about deep inside. Our culture is corrosive to purpose and meaning, I'd think wealthy scions would be more susceptible to a lack of meaning in some ways since so much is handed to them.
"Purpose" and "meaning" seem to be used here to refer to some sort of internal phenomenon which could probably be produced by the right drugs.
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Oh I’m not disputing that the rich can be suicidal at all, just that if he was, it probably wasn’t because of a lack of opportunity in his life.
Yeah, I think we're talking past each other a bit. Opportunity =/= purpose and meaning. If anything a massive amount of opportunity can drain purpose and meaning, as you get slammed with the paradox of choice.
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Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim.
Maybe this is an obvious reference for the Anglophones, but why not just post the poem in its entirety?
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You actually misspelled Cal with Stanford. Which is sort of curious because even though I’ve heard Stanford is no fun now her son would have seem connected enough to get into Stanford with a mere mortals test scores. I would assume 99% of people who get into Stanford and Cal go to Stanford.
Yes, I read somewhere it’s typically considered easier for extremely well-connected Silicon Valley individuals to get kids into Stanford than Berkeley, private colleges having more flexibility. Seems he was probably pretty smart then.
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Material success is not known to prevent suicidal ideation. Humans require a purpose greater than “make widget, do drugs and women”.
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Yeah if anything, it's probably living too much that got him.
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