Heroin was the best medicine I ever had. It calmed me down, made me able to function without the constant "white noise" that makes me so anxious around people. The biggest problem with heroin was its illegality.
How much music has been produced on heroin? Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, etc. Obviously you can execute lots of intricate muscle movements to control the sound produced by your instrument, while high. Listen to Charlie Parker Live at Carnegie Hall; it's documented that he shot up right before the concert. Can you hear it in his playing? Can you hear his creativity and energy?
While recording "Kind of Blue" the story goes that all the musicians would be off shooting up before takes. And Kind of Blue sold, and still sells.
In conclusion, heroin is a tool, a technology, a medicine. Give everyone access to all the knowledge we have and let each person decide for themselves. Also, do research to eliminate unwanted side effects, to produce better drugs. And just let ppl choose for themselves.
In a democracy, I as an individual have an unalienable right to speak up and change the laws.
The financial costs are a result of the laws. We produce a vast oversupply, more than enough to take care of everyone. Heroin users can be productive and contribute to society. It is the laws that drive them underground and to crime that cause the drag.
Heroin use is a case of civil rights, not finance. We should not ask "how much does it cost?" but "is it the right thing to do, to legalize heroin?"
Finance is all about funding things today based on future returns. And as the private sector has proven again and again, when those future returns don't materialize, it is perfectly okay to create money (via the Fed) to bail out the financiers. Why can't we do the same for individuals?
Even Kenneth Rogoff agrees that it would have been better to bail out homeowners instead of banks:
Without question the best and most effective approach to the problem would have been to bail out the subprime homeowners directly, forcing banks to take losses but keeping them manageable. For an investment of perhaps a few hundred billion dollars, the US Treasury could have saved itself from a financial crisis whose cumulative cost, counting lost output, already runs into many, many trillions of dollars. Instead of "saving Wall Street," a subprime bailout would have been targeted, almost by definition, at lower-income households. But unfortunately, this approach too would have been politically impossible prior to the crisis.
The question is why politics makes impossible the obviously "best and most effective approach". I think we see something similar with drug prohibition. It becomes a political thing and reason goes out the window.
Fuck Bellevue. Fucking decrepit old people doddering along dressed in bright yellow highway worker jackets and wearing headlamps, so afraid that the other bumbling alzheimer's patients still driving will hit them. Fuck Bellevue. Bunch of out-of-touch insulated rich fucks with silly trivial shallow problems like "oh my mexican yard worker didn't show up today, whatever will I do? My lawn needs trimming!" Fuck Bellevue High and its two black kids and parking lot full of rich kid cars. Fuck Bellevue and its gated communities within gated communities. Fuck what they did to Bridle Trails turning it into a horse park for the fucking rich fucks who're so rich they keep horses in the fucking suburbs.
What's the real problem with heroin? It's the warlike conditions under which it has to be obtained and used, because of the laws. Many heroin users can be productive and would not turn to crime if they could get it legally.
If someone OD's, and they had all the information they wanted about dosage, etc., then they wanted to die or didn't care, and you should have intervened before they OD'd instead of paying lip service to "human tragedies" etc.
Coburn's fixation on budget deficits is absolutely contrary to humanitarian compassion. Deficits don't matter, as Reagan proved. To cut food stamps and suicide prevention programs in the name of "pay-go" is morally, ethically, and economically wrong.
The main problem with the EU is the artificial scarcity of money, which isn't working anyway because the dollar, even with the trillions created over a matter of weeks by the Fed, is stronger against the Euro.
And when teabaggers say that scientists shouldn't be allowed to testify before Congress about climate change, because they're being paid to study it, that's the gospel truth, right?
"as if money is merely a technology with no ties to motive, ambition, wealth, effort or culture."
But the motives, etc. behind money is what led to AT&T turning down engineers who came to them with proposals to build an internet infrastructure in the 1970s. AT&T, motivated by the perverse incentives of capitalism, saw the internet as competition for their telephone business and wanted no part of the new technology. Wouldn't we be a lot better off if we realized that money is indeed merely a technology, a tool we invented to serve us, not the other way around?
The flip side (the error Stross seems to be making) is to assume that because economics predicts something (hyperinflation, scarcity, etc.), it will happen.
I thought of Pournelle while reading the summary, and some of the comments, because he seems to be in the vein of "it will happen because of economics". But economics is notoriously non-predictive, and Pournelle's understanding of it is as deficient as Stross's apparently is.
Pournelle makes libertarian economics his theme. I was reading some short stories of his from the 1970s. His predictions, based on libertarian economics, were ridiculously off the mark, of course. For example: he predicted the Swiss franc would be the world's currency, and that it would still be backed by gold. But in fact, the Swiss just voted against a gold standard-type initiative. And the Swiss banks don't want to make their currency a world reserve currency. So they deliberately keep the exchange rate low. Pournelle completely failed to see that psychology. His libertarian economics led him to wildly inaccurate predictions.
What's the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics? Microeconomics is wrong about specific things, and Macroeconomics is wrong about things in general.
My question is similar: when will programming evolve to use subject-predicate syntax, rather than function-argument?
Function-argument goes back (at least) to Frege, and his prejudices against subject-predicate syntax (which dominates natural languages). But isn't changePassword(a,b) more ambiguous than "change the password from a to b"? Don't we get an "information gain" effect from using a syntax we are familiar with outside of programming? When you first come to a function-argument command such as (in Oz, which is used in the Paradigms of Computer Programming MOOC) {Push S X}, there is maximum entropy as to whether S is pushed, or pushed onto. "Push X onto S" has no entropy; you know immediately, from the syntax alone, what is pushed onto what.
The first 20% or so is axioms and suppositions and assumptions. If you don't agree with those, the rest comes tumbling down. Conservation laws, for example, are philosophy, not science. Dark energy violates conservation, so does the Big Bang itself, and conservation is not needed in General Relativity.
Slashdot Mirror
Heroin was the best medicine I ever had. It calmed me down, made me able to function without the constant "white noise" that makes me so anxious around people. The biggest problem with heroin was its illegality.
How much music has been produced on heroin? Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, etc. Obviously you can execute lots of intricate muscle movements to control the sound produced by your instrument, while high. Listen to Charlie Parker Live at Carnegie Hall; it's documented that he shot up right before the concert. Can you hear it in his playing? Can you hear his creativity and energy?
While recording "Kind of Blue" the story goes that all the musicians would be off shooting up before takes. And Kind of Blue sold, and still sells.
In conclusion, heroin is a tool, a technology, a medicine. Give everyone access to all the knowledge we have and let each person decide for themselves. Also, do research to eliminate unwanted side effects, to produce better drugs. And just let ppl choose for themselves.
In a democracy, I as an individual have an unalienable right to speak up and change the laws.
The financial costs are a result of the laws. We produce a vast oversupply, more than enough to take care of everyone. Heroin users can be productive and contribute to society. It is the laws that drive them underground and to crime that cause the drag.
Heroin use is a case of civil rights, not finance. We should not ask "how much does it cost?" but "is it the right thing to do, to legalize heroin?"
Finance is all about funding things today based on future returns. And as the private sector has proven again and again, when those future returns don't materialize, it is perfectly okay to create money (via the Fed) to bail out the financiers. Why can't we do the same for individuals?
Even Kenneth Rogoff agrees that it would have been better to bail out homeowners instead of banks:
The question is why politics makes impossible the obviously "best and most effective approach". I think we see something similar with drug prohibition. It becomes a political thing and reason goes out the window.
Fuck Bellevue. Fucking decrepit old people doddering along dressed in bright yellow highway worker jackets and wearing headlamps, so afraid that the other bumbling alzheimer's patients still driving will hit them. Fuck Bellevue. Bunch of out-of-touch insulated rich fucks with silly trivial shallow problems like "oh my mexican yard worker didn't show up today, whatever will I do? My lawn needs trimming!" Fuck Bellevue High and its two black kids and parking lot full of rich kid cars. Fuck Bellevue and its gated communities within gated communities. Fuck what they did to Bridle Trails turning it into a horse park for the fucking rich fucks who're so rich they keep horses in the fucking suburbs.
What's the real problem with heroin? It's the warlike conditions under which it has to be obtained and used, because of the laws. Many heroin users can be productive and would not turn to crime if they could get it legally.
If someone OD's, and they had all the information they wanted about dosage, etc., then they wanted to die or didn't care, and you should have intervened before they OD'd instead of paying lip service to "human tragedies" etc.
If he had pot, it was at least legal under Wa state law.
Coburn's fixation on budget deficits is absolutely contrary to humanitarian compassion. Deficits don't matter, as Reagan proved. To cut food stamps and suicide prevention programs in the name of "pay-go" is morally, ethically, and economically wrong.
Coburn cares more about figures in a ledger book than about people suffering needlessly just so his budget looks pretty to him.
The main problem with the EU is the artificial scarcity of money, which isn't working anyway because the dollar, even with the trillions created over a matter of weeks by the Fed, is stronger against the Euro.
Austerity has not worked in Europe.
I get my 90% Lindt, and 100% Baker's or Ghirardelli's, at Walmart, you insensitive clod.
Lindt, Baker's, Ghirardelli's...
And when teabaggers say that scientists shouldn't be allowed to testify before Congress about climate change, because they're being paid to study it, that's the gospel truth, right?
"as if money is merely a technology with no ties to motive, ambition, wealth, effort or culture."
But the motives, etc. behind money is what led to AT&T turning down engineers who came to them with proposals to build an internet infrastructure in the 1970s. AT&T, motivated by the perverse incentives of capitalism, saw the internet as competition for their telephone business and wanted no part of the new technology. Wouldn't we be a lot better off if we realized that money is indeed merely a technology, a tool we invented to serve us, not the other way around?
The flip side (the error Stross seems to be making) is to assume that because economics predicts something (hyperinflation, scarcity, etc.), it will happen.
I thought of Pournelle while reading the summary, and some of the comments, because he seems to be in the vein of "it will happen because of economics". But economics is notoriously non-predictive, and Pournelle's understanding of it is as deficient as Stross's apparently is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Early Heinlein was heavily influenced by C. H. Douglas's Social Credit ideas, including a Basic Income.
Pournelle makes libertarian economics his theme. I was reading some short stories of his from the 1970s. His predictions, based on libertarian economics, were ridiculously off the mark, of course. For example: he predicted the Swiss franc would be the world's currency, and that it would still be backed by gold. But in fact, the Swiss just voted against a gold standard-type initiative. And the Swiss banks don't want to make their currency a world reserve currency. So they deliberately keep the exchange rate low. Pournelle completely failed to see that psychology. His libertarian economics led him to wildly inaccurate predictions.
Economics is a very poor model of human behavior.
What's the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics? Microeconomics is wrong about specific things, and Macroeconomics is wrong about things in general.
Kennedy said we should, and we found (created) the money. So we just need more politicians who create scientific visions.
I think it was the noise. The US banned it, because it was so much noisier.
My question is similar: when will programming evolve to use subject-predicate syntax, rather than function-argument?
Function-argument goes back (at least) to Frege, and his prejudices against subject-predicate syntax (which dominates natural languages). But isn't changePassword(a,b) more ambiguous than "change the password from a to b"? Don't we get an "information gain" effect from using a syntax we are familiar with outside of programming? When you first come to a function-argument command such as (in Oz, which is used in the Paradigms of Computer Programming MOOC) {Push S X}, there is maximum entropy as to whether S is pushed, or pushed onto. "Push X onto S" has no entropy; you know immediately, from the syntax alone, what is pushed onto what.
Jainism is a religion, but requires no "outside actor". Maybe you should update your definition of 'religion'?
Is that why the private sector created some $76 trillion in 2013, according to the BIS? To keep it scarce for everyone but themselves?
The artificial scarcity of money is the chief factor holding us back from a post-scarcity society. We don't have a production capacity problem.
Understandable reaction to the quantity of smugness in the story?
The first 20% or so is axioms and suppositions and assumptions. If you don't agree with those, the rest comes tumbling down. Conservation laws, for example, are philosophy, not science. Dark energy violates conservation, so does the Big Bang itself, and conservation is not needed in General Relativity.