Leo Gura

Fentanyl would not be sold. No one will want fentanyl if they can get pure heroin or coke. Fentanyl is an inferior substitute. But yes, more people would try drugs, however the drugs would be safer and there wouldn't be a stigma around it. Yes, there is a cost to legalization. It's not 100% upside. But the biggest win is ending the drug war permanently. This ends a lot of crime. Weed legalization is a good case study. We already did it in Vegas. Now more people use weed but the system makes more sense, it's more humane. Of course weed addiction is still a problem but ultimately people have to take responsibility for their consumption habits. That's how freedom works.

Addiction is largely a function of an improperly lived life and bad environment. The real solution to addiction is to improve people's environments so they have no motivation to escape it via drugs.

@Hardkill You need to stop consuming toxic online manosphere content. That's fueling your self-deceptive mind. Only consume content that motivates you to go out and socialize. Cut out all the other crap.

I'm not even sure what's in that deal at this point. It would help but this is a global problem so it would still be a minor acheivement.

In this case I think the biggest barrier is technological, not political. The politics of it cannot work if the technology is not advanced enough. And advanced enough means affordable, reliable, and scalable enough. We just don't have that yet. But in 50 years we will. At which point the politics will be on board. The political roadblock is really an economic one, which boils down to tech. For example, in 50 years all the cars produced will be electric and we will have enough mined materials for all those batteries. But we can't have that today.

For now we are taking baby steps. The first step is to decriminalize across the country. Then we can move onto more robust programs. The core issue is the lack of political will and the stigma. Which requires slow cultural evolution, similar to gay rights. I don't know the details of Portugal's system. That requires reaearch, but it's really an empirical matter. We need to look at the social science of what works best. Basically the politicians need to say: "Here's a blank check, implement whatever system reduces harm and addiction the most according to the science."

Conservatives tend to give more power to the status quo, which results in rich people getting richer and hollowing out the middle class.

I suggest to you that this isn't actually true but a self-deceptive story your crafty mind concocted.

You are exaggerating and creating stories. You can find people.

Well then, keep waging that endless war on drugs. How's that workin out? But no one is suggesting outlawing guns. You are allowed to buy a gun just like buying pills at the pharmacy. The pharmacy is regulated. Also, the big difference is that black market guns don't explode in your face the way fentanyl-laced heroin does. So taking drugs off the black market can solve a problem that guns don't have. Deaths from pure heroin and cocaine are very rare. People can use it for years without dying if it's pure. So ensuring purity is a big piece of this puzzle. This would be easy for pharmacies to do. Pharmacies could also offer ibogaine, which nukes all opioid addiction at the brain-receptor level. So we already have a cure for opioid addiction. It's just currently illegal.

There is no point worrying about things you cannot control, only those you can. Raising your numbers does not give any gaurantees, it's just the best overall strategy.

Any answers you get on this matter will just be stories from your POV. We don't have any reliable scientific answers to these questions.

Dolphins not polluting the Earth has nothing to do with their intelligence. Dolphins are also not friendly to each other. Dolphins rape each other and more. Be ware of romanticizing animals. Animals behave in horrible ways on the regular.

The only solution is to socialize more to increase your odds. It's a numbers game. The more people you meet the more likely you are to meet exceptional matches. There's not any magic to it, you just gotta invest energy in socializing way more. Consistency is the key. Half the battle is won just by showing up every day when you could be doing something else.

The fentanyl problem cannot be solved in any way other than by allowing affordable legal sales of drugs like heroin and cocaine. Decriminalization was never suposed to solve the fentanyl problem. Why would it? Of course decriminalization will not reduce addiction rates. To really solve the drug problem requires eliminating the black market by selling all the worst drugs in pure form at affordable prices at the pharmacy. Which is way too radical for most politicians to enact. Decrminalization is good, but it's merely a half-measure. It won't solve the larger drug problem. The real solution is to eliminate the black market through pharmacy sales. And then you gotta invest the drug war resources into rehab clinics and mental health.

That would make sense. But I expect any aliens to look weird by default.

Nuclear is expensive and takes decades to build. But it's part of the solution. There is no one magic bullet. It's gonna require a hodgepodge of new tech over the next 50 years.

We should be doing the opposite of this: looking into making brains bigger. That will help with climate change.

The problem is not that people deny climate change, the problem is that people are too poor/greedy to want to pay the cost for green energy. It all boils down to cost. If you want green energy it will cost twice as much per kilowatt. The rich can pay that but the poor cannot. So as energy cost goes up it ends up hurting poor people more than climate change.

@RawJudah Of course the life experience is worth it. Especially if you do it in less touristy ways. The best would be actually living in lots of different places for some time. If you live in a very foreign place for a month, that will generate massive experience.

There are much better solutions to climate change than this wacky idea. I doubt crocodiles have big brains. It's not simply a matter of size, it's about size in the right parts.

@hoodrow trillson The deaths and suffering are not being denied, it is being contextualized.

Not a good topic for public discussion. People may have serious issues which require privacy.

Travel can be very beneficial. Just keep in mind that you cannot use travel to run away from yourself. Wherever you go, there you are.

The mature view is to realize that mankind's energy demands will keep growing for a long time to come, which includes fossil fuels. This issue is too serious for anyone to be able to politically manipulate it. What damage is done will be undone by the wealth of future generations. That's how this will play out.