So let me ask you this, are U.S. states nations (autonomous self-governing sovreignties) or are they subnational states (partially self-governing provinces subject to the governance of a federal government)? If it's the former, why do people only refer to the union as the nation, and why don't the states conduct their own national elections?
Depends on what country you have in mind when you use the word "province." The term is used in Canada, but that does not change the fact that Canada is a federation.
The word federal in a general sense refers to the nature of an agreement between or among two or more states, nations, or other groups to merge into a union in which control of common affairs is held by a central authority created by and with the consent of the members.
A federation (Latin: foedus, covenant) is a state comprised of a number of partially self-governing regions (often themselves referred to as "states") united by a central ("federal") government.
So, technically, a federation can be a group of autonomous nation-states--such as with the EU--or a collective of partially self-governing provinces/subnational states--such as is the case with Canada and the U.S. But generally speaking, the EU is considered to have too weak a central government to be considered a federation.
So you've only proved my point that U.S. states are essentially provinces, not nation-states.
States are admitted by acts of Congress. The Constitution prohibits individual state legislatures from overturning acts of Congress, but that does not mean a state could leave the union either with the consent of Congress, by law or by treaty.
Like I said, the South tried to do this during the Civil War, and they failed. Unless the Federal government decides to allow a particular state to secede from the union, any such attempts would likely be met with military resistance.
Part of that is because we are a hybrid of a federation and a republic (hence "federal republic"), but the fact you mentioned "all 50 states" and not "all US citizens" should tip you off that there are hundreds of thousands of US citizens and nationals from Puerto Rico to Guam that have zero participation in federal elections, for no other reason than because where they live is not considered to have the sovereignty of a state.
How does participation in national elections show that the U.S. states are each autonomous nations? I believe that's a non-sequitur. Each state doesn't get to elect its own president; national elections are determined by votes from every state--that means that the states are not self-governing in matters of national government. If each state were a sovreign nation-state as you say, then each individual state would conduct its own national elections without the involvement of other states, such as is the case with France, or Germany, or England, and other sovreignties. Guam and Puerto Rico don't participate in national elections because they are unincorporated territories--they don't have statehood. Statehood within the U.S. does not mean that one is autonomous or a sovereign political entity:
The term state is also used to describe subnational territorial divisions within a federal system, as in the case of the United States of America. See state (law) and state (non-sovereign), federalism.
Clearly, U.S. states are not nations. Get it through your head. No one, except perhaps you, would consider interstate commerce to be international commerce, or consider interstate travel to be international travel. U.S. states do not issue their own passports because passports are issued by national governments; it has nothing to do with whether states have the right to control their borders or regulate international trade. There
I think you're both a little confused here. A state outside of its usage in reference to the 50 states in the U.S. means a nation-state--an autonomous self-governing political entity. U.S. states are subnational states--essentially provinces. You can't equivocate the two. The U.S. is a nation, whereas its states are provinces. The EU is a federation of autonomous nation-states, each with their own respective provinces. Just because the EU's members are autonomous states doesn't mean that they can't benefit from mutual cooperation and form an international alliance to pursue common interests. The EU is more akin to the U.N. than to the U.S. There just seems to be a mix-up of definitions here. I don't think anyone ever proposed that the EU should be setup as a nation with its members as provinces.
States in the U.S. are not what are commonly referred to in the rest of the world as 'nation-states.' A nation-state is defined as an autonomous political entity which governs over a particular geographic area where its population (citizens) are unified, usually through culture, language, common origin, or heritage. In other words, a state, or nation-state, is essentially a country, or nation (as in the United 'Nations'). U.S. states are basically just provinces. We are not a loose federation of nation-states. Each state is not autonomous, as demonstrated by the Civil War and the existence of a federal government which presides over national issues and policy making.
We have 3 main levels of government:
the local level: mayors, municipal courts, city council, etc.
the state level: governors, state legislatures, state courts, state agencies (dmv, education department, food and agriculture department,...), etc.
the federal, or national, level: Congress, the president, SCOTUS (Supreme Court), federal court, cabinet (defense secretary, secretary of state,...), treasury department, state department, defense department, etc.
Hence, our national elections are for all 50 states, not for each individual state. Each state doesn't have its own seat in the U.N., or its own embassadors or embassies in foregin countries. Interstate commerce is not classified as international trade, and you don't need a passport to travel from one state to another since citizenship status is the same regardless of which state you're a resident of.
U.S. states are subnational states, which is not what people mean by 'state' when they are referring to nation-states (such as in the 'State' Department). This is why most people (within the U.S. and abroad) regard states in the U.S. to be provinces of the U.S. rather than nation-states. All U.S. foreign policy is made by the federal government, and foreign affairs are genrally conducted through the Washington, so state governments can't really be considered autonomous political entities. Now, the European Union could be considered a federation of nation-states where each member is an autonomous nation, but the U.S. is not.
Shouldn't a true democracy involve more direct participation by the public such as through broad-based referendums? With the web, we've finally got the technological means to make this feasible. And maybe I'm not understanding your point about committees, but isn't that how congress runs things right now? The various tasks Congress has to deal with are divided; special committees are created for different tasks so each task force can focus on its specific tasks, and the organization can be run more efficiently and effectively. This is how most organizations are run, actually.
With internet voting (not just elections), current task forces chaired by state/national representatives could be replaced with state or nation-wide polls. Legislatures could be replaced in a similar manner. Congress has stopped representing the populace a long time ago, now serving mainly their corporate sponsors. This is only natural as election campaigns are expensive, and human beings are corruptable. But with the relatively low cost and ease of adminstering referendums conducted over the internet, elected, or appointed, legislative bodies could be bypassed altogether.
The only problem now is educating the public, and establishing a national culture that is ready for this kind of civic responsibility. I think most Americans have long forgotten our democratic perogative: to be informed about political happenings, to be critical of the governemnt, to actively participate in government policy making, and, lastly, to take responsibility for the actions of our government. Many have become disillusioned by the corruption of our political system, and as a result have forgotten that a democracy is not a democracy unless it is actually run by the people. Instead, we attack populace movements like Hugo Chavez' progressive government while deluding ourselves with the facade of still having the democratic virtues this country was founded on.
I used to work for an indie metal label, and I can tell you that iTunes is not exactly indie-friendly. In order for most indie labels to get their music on the iTMS you need to apply under a larger label that serves as an intermediary for many smaller labels. Apple will not deal with most indie labels directly, and they won't put up your music unless they think it's marketable. Not surprisingly, a lot of indie labels don't have their catalogs available on iTunes. Ofcourse, one can still do pretty well without being on the iTMS.
And I'm not clear on the EMI lawsuit you refer to or what relevance it has on this case.
Apparently, search engines have a hard time making that distinction. And whether or not Apple Records has released any new pop sensations doesn't really have any relevance to the issue. They were the first to adopt the name for their company; apple Computers agreed to stay out of music to avoid confusion, but have now broken that agreement, so legal actions have been taken. Legal agreements shouldn't be contingent on commercial success. I'm pretty sure Apple Records is still doing a lot more business than most small-time indie labels, does that mean that the law shouldn't protect the trademarks of small indie labels?
He said the computer company had paid the Fab Four's firm U.S. $26.5 million as part of the 1991 out-of-court settlement, and in return had received "a considerably expanded field of use.".
...sounds like a licensing agreement to me.
And if you search for "Apple music" on google, you're gonna get thousands of hits about iTunes, not about the record label. That's the problem with Apple Computers going into music. I'm usually against these trademark/patent/IP lawsuits, but I think Apple Corps. has a legitimate case here. The whole point of the previous settlement was to prevent these kinds of problems from occuring and Apple Computers just outright disregarded the provisions of their license agreement.
Wow, where to begin... OK, I think you misunderstood my point about opiates being less physically harmful to you than stimulants, alcohol, and nicotine. I am well aware of the dangers of heroin abuse, and the harm it is doing to my life, but those things are not directly caused by the pharmacological properties of heroin. They are problems of having a psychological addiction in general. If you are addicted to TV, videogames, or any other activity that consumes your life and inhibits your ability to perform your regular duties, then you will experience the same problems. Ingesting opiates itself does not cause one to become anti-social, neglect one's duties, or lose sight of their priorities, just like playing videogames regularly does not have those direct influences on your life. It's the process of addiction, a psychological process, which causes these problems.
Some people make the mistake of thinking that videogames can't be psychologically addictive and harmful in the same ways as drugs. I was trying to show how incorrect this premise is by raising the point about a drug with a very bad public image and explaining that the problem with heroin abuse is rarely due to physical effects it has on you. Malnutrition, poor hygene, etc. are problems of poverty, which may be an indirect result of drug addiction, but is usually a pre-existing condition which predisposes individuals to drug abuse, rather than the results of drug abuse. In any case, heroin does not have pharmacological properties that induce malnutrition or cause poverty.
I do in fact know many junkies and ex-junkies in their 30's to late 40's. None of them were ever homeless and so impoverished as to suffer from malnutrition. None of them show physical signs of being or having been a drug user. Many of them, however, have been to jail--that is one of the biggest risks of doing heroin, but other than jailtime, all of the common problems related to dope are caused by psychological addiction. Something does not have to be physically or chemically bad for you to ruin your life. And I do recognize that I have a problem and have taken steps to change it.
Regarding withdrawl, that is a sign of physical addiction/dependence. It's caused by the downregulation of opiate receptors in your brain to compensate for the increase of opiate activity in your brain when you consume opiates regularly. Physical dependence can be avoided by not doing opiates everyday, and it is not what causes junkies to relapse as they often do so even after their physical dependence has vanished.
The media has spread this misconception that heroin has physical properties that make it super-addictive, and that you become addicted forever after a single use. But while opiate withdrawl can be hell, physical dependence takes weeks or even months to develop. Benzodiazepines and alcohol can cause physical dependence just as opiates do, except opiate withdrawal can't kill you, whereas, withdrawing off of benzos and alcohol can. It's not the physically addictive properties of these drugs that make them so hard to kick. Meth does not cause any kind of physical dependence, but is arguably just as addictive as heroin. The same could be said of sex addiction, gambling addiction, and videogame addiction. It just depends on each individual's personality, and what they are predisposed towards.
Well, I'm not saying that respiratory depression isn't dangerous, but merely that stimulant abuse is generally more physially harmful even when your life isn't at risk. In other words, both extreme hypotension and hypertension can be dangerous and even fatal, but in general the hypotensive effect that heroin and other opiates induce are not harmful for your body, whereas regular stimulant use always has a cardiotoxic effect, and that effect over time can result in a higher risk of stroke or infarction. Mixing opiates with other downers such as alcohol or benzos is a different story though.
Also, opiates, unlike meth is not neurotoxic. And unlike smoking cigarettes it does not introduce carcinogens to your body. Opiates in general don't really have any long-term negative physical side-effects. And I have talked to much more experienced ex-heroin/meth users and all concur that a heroin user is hard to pick out in a crowd, whereas a meth user you can spot a mile away. Heroin generally doesn't put much strain on your body, so most physical deterioration suffered by heroin addicts can be attributed to poverty rather than any pharmacological effects of the drug. (Here's a good study outlining the differences between popular image of heroin uses and scientific views.)
Don't get me wrong. I've met plenty of heroin users who have ruined their lives in the course of addiction, been jumped, been mugged, have had to escape out of car trunks, have done hard time, etc. But the drug itself isn't any worse for you physically than vicodin.
I've never been to AA, but I have been to NA many times. The thing is, while all of these groups have to follow general guidelines, and there are many aspects of it that have strong similarities to religious institutions (a cult is just a religion which hasn't gotten mainstream acceptance), the atmosphere and environment does vary great from meeting to meeting depending on the members.
I've been to some NA meetings with very strong religious overtones and which I got nothing out of simply from not being able to relate, atleast partially due to the single-track mindset of the speakers, but I've also been to meetings led by more intelligent groups of people where the speakers were generally very intelligent and insightful and demonstrated more free-thinking and original thought than the other groups.
NA is made up of different people, and like churches, even within groups sharing the same basic doctrines, there is still a great number of different interpretations and differing attitudes. You really have to sorta shop around and find a group with people you can relate to, and whom you feel will be a good support system for you. If you look hard enough you can easily find a meeting with pretty free-thinking individuals who are more about sharing their own personal knowledge and experiences than about adhering to NA dogma.
Props for staying clean for 7 years and finding something that works for you. And I understand that I'm still taking lots of risks. I don't share needles, and I'm usually very careful about administering a new batch of unknown potency. Unfortunately with street drugs there is no guarantee that you're actually getting what you paid for, but that is risk that I really can't avoid. Because of the prohibitionist stance our government has taken in the war on drugs, there are a lot of risks which are simply unavoidable. I know that I risk jailtime if I ever get busted with dope. And there's certainly the risks of contamination. But I try as best as I can not to do anything stupid (I've learned from close calls and my stupid actions in the past).
At the moment I'm just working on slowly cutting back while improving my lifestyle little by little. But I think one thing that I have on my side is my inner drive. My friend who goes to UCLA and is addicted to meth as well as heroin does't have that advantage, and it's very hard for me to watch him just passively throwing everything away. But that's what most people who find themselves in this situation are usually faced with.
I lost sight of my goals for a while when I was struggling with depression and began heavily abusing drugs to escape my problems. But I've since recommited myself to my former goals. I got a start in web development and graphic design a few years ago with an independent record label near where I live, and I've recently started working there again, which is something that I really love. Aside from that I'm also pretty committed to going back to school and hopefully get into grad school eventually. I've had some set backs in the past due to some unfortunate and uncontrollable events in my life, but I've recently found a strong support system and am working towards my goals again.
So I'm doing alright now, or atleast a lot better than before. Thanks for the encouragement.
"All addictions are addictive because of the same essential reward pathways being triggered"
Opioid receptors cause a chain of other biochemical processes to be initiated when they are triggered. Similarly with cannabinoid receptors. Each causes complex biological responses and raises one's dopamine or 5HT levels via different mechanisms, but the general reinforcing aspects of the highs are caused by neurons in the same regions of the brain being excited--which are the same reward pathways triggered by sexual orgasm and other activities.
The nucleus accumbens is one region which plays a critical role in drug reward and addiction. Studies have shown that the nucleus accumbens plays an equally important role in natural rewards such as food, videogames, and sex.
And the physically addictive properties of opiate drugs is caused by the down-regulation of opiate receptors with chronic use, which has little to do with the psychological addictiveness of the drug. Drugs like coke and meth rarely cause physical dependence but are still equally addictive to most people.
You show a clear lack of fundamental understanding of how neurotransmitters work or the neurochemistry involved in addiction so just stop making a fool of yourself.
True. I suppose if I really wanted to play it safe I should use micronfilters that can get rid of bacteria. But I just meant that the health risks of injecting pure h is nowhere near those of doing meth or coke, which are neurotoxic and are incredibly bad for your cardiovascular system as well as other parts of your body. But I know what you mean.
Well, Daniel, I can empathize with you. Depression is definitely one of the main causes of addiction. Suffering from depression, whether clinical or situational, makes one much for susceptible to addiction. And this is often the underlying cause of addiction that I alluded to earlier. If you can address the cause of your depression, you can escape the addiction. You have to make the effort though.
And trust me, I understand the feelings you are experiencing; I felt the same way for a while. But you have to just stop pitying yourself. Yes, those are harsh words, but that is as best as I can describe it. When I was going through a similar phase I didn't realize that that was what I was doing until I took a few steps back and really reflected on my own attitude and thought process (especially the recurring patterns). You gotta just suck it up and start focusing, not on how bad of a person you are, or how worthless you are, or how no one can possibly love you and you can never be happy, but rather on things that you can improve about your life.
I'm not asking you to be an optimist and look on the bright side of things. But just take the focus off of yourself and your own life, because in your current state you will only focus on your shortcomings and the negative things in your life. You have to get out of that defeatist mindset of "I'm just screwed up."
I've found that by helping others, especially those less fortunate than me, I spend less time thinking about myself and how shitty my own life is. So instead of just hating yourself and feeling bad because of it, look around you and see whose life you can make a difference in. Do some volunteer work; it can really lead to some positive changes in your life.
Anyways, don't be so hard on yourself, and I wish you luck in your struggle to overcome your addiction.
I agree with you that just comparing clock speeds could give people the wrong impression. But to the author's credit, atleast he mentioned that raw figures like that don't give the entire picture. He was just raising the point that the leaked specs--which included memory specs also (and performance does scale more predictably with the amount of memory available)--do seem to support the idea that nintendo isn't waging a war with the other consoles on the technology front. I don't understand why so many people are having a hard time believing this when in the first sentence the author writes:
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said that his company is not interested in waging a technology war against Microsoft and Sony, whose next generation consoles promise more power and in turn high-definition graphics.
well, if their point was that they could counter a strawman argument they've constructed with no relation to the article, then perhaps I did miss the point of that. perhap you want to elucidate things for me, then?
Your reading comprehension skills aren't very good. CPU clock speeds themselves may not be enough to make precise judgements about performance, but knowing that the CPUs were designed by the same group of industry leaders, for the same applications on the same generation of consoles, likely using comparable technology, in addition to the huge disparity in available memory as well as clock speeds should allow one to get an idea of where the console stands compared to the other machines. No one is claiming that the output margins are huge, but you're kidding yourself if you think the revolution is going to out-perform the 360 hardware-wise when every piece of evidence points to the fact that nintendo isn't focusing on hardware superiority to compete with the other consoles. Clock rate might not tell the full-story, but given the circumstances, they offer one a vague idea of what to expect.
Look, nintendo makes good consoles and good games, they just don't always push for the most blistering fast machines that can pump out the most polygons or highest pixel resolution--that is the point the author was making.
the article wasn't trying to measure the performance of different consoles. why would they? they don't have access to test machines. he was making a point that the focus wasn't on hardware. a point which you seemed to have missed.
and the difference in clockspeeds is staggering. the 360's clockspeed is more than 4x the clockspeed of the revolution's CPU, in addition to having more cores than the revolution. that itself should tell you something no matter how the performance for each chip scales with clockspeed. this is same generation hardware designed by companies which are are frontrunners of the industry.we're not comparing cyrix with pentium. IBM designed the Broadway CPU, and was also part of the effort behind the Cell processor. There's not much of a technology gap in between the companies involved.
No one is saying that the 360 is 400% faster than the revolution, but it is definitely faster. If the clockspeeds were only different by a margin of 20-30% it'd be another story. But the revolution clearly isn't trying to compete with the raw hardware power of the other consoles.
you won't get someone stuck on games who gets plenty of dopamine in their life otherwise.
Do you have any idea what you are talking about, or are you just throwing around terms that you might have heard in high school biology and only have a very vague understanding of?
I don't think the GP was trying to scare anyone, but rather to point out the relationship between a chemical addiction and a so-called non-chemical one to put things in perspective. I have a co-worker who's been in Narcotics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous for over 20 years. He'd argue that his chemical addictions and non-chemical addictions were not fundamentally different. Also, drugs like heroin, meth, coke, weed, alcohol, etc. do not replace the neurotransmitters in your brain. All addictions are addictive because of the same essential reward pathways being triggered. Some drugs are more addictive than others because the reward is much more immediate.
So in that way, IV heroin may be more addictive psychologically than alcohol, or videogames because the reward is almost instantaneous. But people with different personalities also have predispositions for different kinds of addiction, and a lot of people can find alcohol, or sex, or videogames far more addicting than heroin. And the end result whether you are addicted to heroin, or sex, or alcohol, or videogames, or anything else is generally the same: your social life suffers, you lose sight of your priorities, you may become incapable of performing your job functions or other daily functions, etc.
Don't be so quick to rip on other people's thoughts before you look into it. You don't seem to know what you are talking about regarding dopamine or the etiology of addiction. In the end you've basically just dismissed one person's statements with your own opinions based on unsupported and somewhat misinformed speculation. The GP's post atleast seems to conform with what I've read in scientific literature and isn't based on pure speculation. So what's more pseudo-scientific here?
Even assuming that you're right (personally, I find Xbox's graphics to be far better than both the gamecube and ps2's), what does that have to do with anything? All he wrote were the numbers. He also wrote that numbers aren't everything. He didn't say that the 360 is 400% faster than the revolution just because its clockspeed is 4x the revolution's. No one is making such claims. Get a grip. These figures are only crap because you're reading them wrong and assuming that everyone else must be doing the same. But that wasn't even what the author was implying. The article simply talks about Nintendo focusing its energy on coming up with innovating ideas like the free-style controller, or other areas where they excel in, such as game design, rather than on hardware.
Personally, I think that nintendo's approach has always been an emphasis on game design rather than technological superiority. They're more creative with their game designs so they don't need to rely heavily on photo-realistic graphics or bleeding-edge video hardware to compete with the other consoles. So in my opinion the reason for the lower clockspeeds probably has less to do with the ingeniousness of IBM and ATI chip architecture, and more to do with where Nintendo would rather put its energy--in the design of the games themselves.
And I think trying to argue that the revolution is going to be as powerful or more powerful than the ps3 or 360, in terms of hardware, is a bit of a moot point. Clockspeed might not always reflect the performance of a system, but you can't say that it isn't a factor or indicator. Why else would CPU manufacturers continue to increase the clockspeed of their processors? In the case of Intel vs. AMD, if you look at the processors with similar architectures (same number of cores, equal amount of cache, etc.), AMD CPUs and Intel CPUs with comparable performance will not have clockspeed differences of more than 20-30% As it stands, the 360's clockspeed is more than 4x the revolution's and it also boasts 2 more cores. The 360 also has more than 6 times the memory as the revolution. Unless you're talking about a completely different generation of technology, or atleast technology made by companies with totally disparate engineering capabilities, those numbers should still tell you that nintendo isn't aiming to deliver the most powerful of the next-gen consoles. And all 3 consoles have custom-made, specialized components. We're not comparing PDA CPUs with videocard GPUs here.
Frankly, these specs are in line with the gamecube's relative hardware performance in the previous generation consoles. Nintendo has done well by focusing on the games, not the raw processing power of their hardware. There's no need in trying to argue how nintendo's contender in the next gen console wars could still be the hardware powerhouse despite the numbers published. That isn't their strategy. The DS has less processing power than the PSP, but it's still much more successful. Nintendo doesn't need to be the top contender in every single aspect of the gaming platform, so there's no need making tenuous arguments to try to "defend" them here. If you feel that you need to, then you're missing the point.
Have you played Soul Caliber on Xbox and on Gamecube? They are no way comparable in terms of graphics. PS2 was much closer. Gamecube relied on gameplay, not hardware performance. Also, the article only gave those figures, it didn't suggest the Gamecube would barely be as powerful as the Xbox. This is different generation hardware, and the author himself states that these numbers don't tell the full story. People are just unhappy that the article mentions one aspect of the console wars that nintendo isn't focusing on, and thus isn't their strong point.
But the people getting mad at the author for pointing this out are missing the point. And it doesn't make sense to criticize the author for something he didn't imply. Might I point out that the same people mad at the article for seemingly making the nintendo revolution out to be a POS seem to be the only ones drawing those invalid conclusions from the numbers published. So it's even more idiotic to project these ideas onto the article writer, when he himself made no such suggestions, and then getting mad at him for making such claims.
While I agree with you that most addictions can only be treated by changing one's lifestyle (introducing new hobbies, finding new interests, setting goals for yourself, meeting new people, etc.) I disagree with you on the difference between a chemical addiction and a non-chemical one.
Most chemical addictions are rooted in the release of neurotransmitters such as endorphines, serotonin, dopamine, etc. which control the pleasure pathways in your brain. These things are responsible for emotions of happiness and general feelings of euphoria (physical and psychological). Ultimately, one becomes addicted to sex, videogames, TV, internet, reading, working out, and all other addictions because of similar biochemical processes that these activities cause. The only difference is that with drugs like meth and heroin, the effect is more dramatic, and the reward is more instantaneous.
I'm probably going to get a lot of flak from people, and I know that most people reading this will probably pass a lot of unfounded judgements about my character by my revealing this, but I do think I'm more knowledgeable about addiction than a lot of people because of my first-hand experience, and I appreciate how serious a problem an addiction can be, so I'm gonna share a little of my personal experiences.
When I was in junior high, and high school, I used to be really addicted to counter-strike. I mean, I would spend 6+ hours a night playing CS, often neglecting to do my homework till 3 or 4 AM. I had other interests such as programming and reading, but around 9th and 10th grade videogames began really consuming my life. So I understand the overpowering grip of a videogame addiction. Luckily, I was able to kick that addiction before I left high school, so while I saw my roommates in college cripple their social life, and ultimately dropping out of school because they became so utterly unhappy with their day-to-day life, I did not suffer from the same pitfalls.
However, at some point in the past 2 years I became addicted to heroin and opiates. I used to "chip"--as they call it--meaning, shooting up once a week or once a month only. I had no physical dependence to the drug, and in fact it played a very small role in my life. I was actually chipping for quite a while before I actually descended into full-blown addiction. Nowadays, I can't stay clean for more than a week at a time. I have to go through withdrawal to even get that far, but even after I fully detox and lose my physical dependence, I still relapse.
Now, a lot of people think that heroin is poisonous to your body, or that most heroin users inevitably OD and die. That's not true. Heroin, like morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone(vicodin, percocet, etc.), codeine, etc. are actually rarely ever physically harmful unless combined with alcohol or other respiratory depressants. Even at high doses, they don't really exhibit any toxic effects on your body. They actually lower your heart-rate and blood pressure, and are arguably healthier for you in the physical sense than alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine even. It is unlikely that I will ever die from using heroin, or that I'll loose my arm like in Requiem for a Dream; I have pretty good hygene and adhere to safe injection techniques. Heck, I'm probably better at administering an IV injection than most trained nurses. So long as I continue to use sterile saline solutions, don't re-use or share needles, and avoid doing stupid things like injecting pills, I'm unlikely to suffer any physical consequences from my heroin habit other than perhaps I'll age a little slower than other people (a side effect of chronic heroin use).
But the reason why this is an addiction, and not just a habit, is because it has consumed my life. It takes up all of my energy (constantly trying to acquire drugs, support my habit, get new needles, avoiding withdrawal), and when I'm not on heroin, I'm thinking about it. Even before I started doing heroin I abused other drugs such as weed and alcohol, and my social life has been negatively af
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So let me ask you this, are U.S. states nations (autonomous self-governing sovreignties) or are they subnational states (partially self-governing provinces subject to the governance of a federal government)? If it's the former, why do people only refer to the union as the nation, and why don't the states conduct their own national elections?
See:
and also:
So, technically, a federation can be a group of autonomous nation-states--such as with the EU--or a collective of partially self-governing provinces/subnational states--such as is the case with Canada and the U.S. But generally speaking, the EU is considered to have too weak a central government to be considered a federation.
So you've only proved my point that U.S. states are essentially provinces, not nation-states.
Like I said, the South tried to do this during the Civil War, and they failed. Unless the Federal government decides to allow a particular state to secede from the union, any such attempts would likely be met with military resistance.
How does participation in national elections show that the U.S. states are each autonomous nations? I believe that's a non-sequitur. Each state doesn't get to elect its own president; national elections are determined by votes from every state--that means that the states are not self-governing in matters of national government. If each state were a sovreign nation-state as you say, then each individual state would conduct its own national elections without the involvement of other states, such as is the case with France, or Germany, or England, and other sovreignties. Guam and Puerto Rico don't participate in national elections because they are unincorporated territories--they don't have statehood. Statehood within the U.S. does not mean that one is autonomous or a sovereign political entity:
Clearly, U.S. states are not nations. Get it through your head. No one, except perhaps you, would consider interstate commerce to be international commerce, or consider interstate travel to be international travel. U.S. states do not issue their own passports because passports are issued by national governments; it has nothing to do with whether states have the right to control their borders or regulate international trade. There
I think you're both a little confused here. A state outside of its usage in reference to the 50 states in the U.S. means a nation-state--an autonomous self-governing political entity. U.S. states are subnational states--essentially provinces. You can't equivocate the two. The U.S. is a nation, whereas its states are provinces. The EU is a federation of autonomous nation-states, each with their own respective provinces. Just because the EU's members are autonomous states doesn't mean that they can't benefit from mutual cooperation and form an international alliance to pursue common interests. The EU is more akin to the U.N. than to the U.S. There just seems to be a mix-up of definitions here. I don't think anyone ever proposed that the EU should be setup as a nation with its members as provinces.
States in the U.S. are not what are commonly referred to in the rest of the world as 'nation-states.' A nation-state is defined as an autonomous political entity which governs over a particular geographic area where its population (citizens) are unified, usually through culture, language, common origin, or heritage. In other words, a state, or nation-state, is essentially a country, or nation (as in the United 'Nations'). U.S. states are basically just provinces. We are not a loose federation of nation-states. Each state is not autonomous, as demonstrated by the Civil War and the existence of a federal government which presides over national issues and policy making.
We have 3 main levels of government:
Hence, our national elections are for all 50 states, not for each individual state. Each state doesn't have its own seat in the U.N., or its own embassadors or embassies in foregin countries. Interstate commerce is not classified as international trade, and you don't need a passport to travel from one state to another since citizenship status is the same regardless of which state you're a resident of.
U.S. states are subnational states, which is not what people mean by 'state' when they are referring to nation-states (such as in the 'State' Department). This is why most people (within the U.S. and abroad) regard states in the U.S. to be provinces of the U.S. rather than nation-states. All U.S. foreign policy is made by the federal government, and foreign affairs are genrally conducted through the Washington, so state governments can't really be considered autonomous political entities. Now, the European Union could be considered a federation of nation-states where each member is an autonomous nation, but the U.S. is not.
Shouldn't a true democracy involve more direct participation by the public such as through broad-based referendums? With the web, we've finally got the technological means to make this feasible. And maybe I'm not understanding your point about committees, but isn't that how congress runs things right now? The various tasks Congress has to deal with are divided; special committees are created for different tasks so each task force can focus on its specific tasks, and the organization can be run more efficiently and effectively. This is how most organizations are run, actually.
With internet voting (not just elections), current task forces chaired by state/national representatives could be replaced with state or nation-wide polls. Legislatures could be replaced in a similar manner. Congress has stopped representing the populace a long time ago, now serving mainly their corporate sponsors. This is only natural as election campaigns are expensive, and human beings are corruptable. But with the relatively low cost and ease of adminstering referendums conducted over the internet, elected, or appointed, legislative bodies could be bypassed altogether.
The only problem now is educating the public, and establishing a national culture that is ready for this kind of civic responsibility. I think most Americans have long forgotten our democratic perogative: to be informed about political happenings, to be critical of the governemnt, to actively participate in government policy making, and, lastly, to take responsibility for the actions of our government. Many have become disillusioned by the corruption of our political system, and as a result have forgotten that a democracy is not a democracy unless it is actually run by the people. Instead, we attack populace movements like Hugo Chavez' progressive government while deluding ourselves with the facade of still having the democratic virtues this country was founded on.
I used to work for an indie metal label, and I can tell you that iTunes is not exactly indie-friendly. In order for most indie labels to get their music on the iTMS you need to apply under a larger label that serves as an intermediary for many smaller labels. Apple will not deal with most indie labels directly, and they won't put up your music unless they think it's marketable. Not surprisingly, a lot of indie labels don't have their catalogs available on iTunes. Ofcourse, one can still do pretty well without being on the iTMS.
And I'm not clear on the EMI lawsuit you refer to or what relevance it has on this case.
Apparently, search engines have a hard time making that distinction. And whether or not Apple Records has released any new pop sensations doesn't really have any relevance to the issue. They were the first to adopt the name for their company; apple Computers agreed to stay out of music to avoid confusion, but have now broken that agreement, so legal actions have been taken. Legal agreements shouldn't be contingent on commercial success. I'm pretty sure Apple Records is still doing a lot more business than most small-time indie labels, does that mean that the law shouldn't protect the trademarks of small indie labels?
...sounds like a licensing agreement to me.
And if you search for "Apple music" on google, you're gonna get thousands of hits about iTunes, not about the record label. That's the problem with Apple Computers going into music. I'm usually against these trademark/patent/IP lawsuits, but I think Apple Corps. has a legitimate case here. The whole point of the previous settlement was to prevent these kinds of problems from occuring and Apple Computers just outright disregarded the provisions of their license agreement.
Wow, where to begin... OK, I think you misunderstood my point about opiates being less physically harmful to you than stimulants, alcohol, and nicotine. I am well aware of the dangers of heroin abuse, and the harm it is doing to my life, but those things are not directly caused by the pharmacological properties of heroin. They are problems of having a psychological addiction in general. If you are addicted to TV, videogames, or any other activity that consumes your life and inhibits your ability to perform your regular duties, then you will experience the same problems. Ingesting opiates itself does not cause one to become anti-social, neglect one's duties, or lose sight of their priorities, just like playing videogames regularly does not have those direct influences on your life. It's the process of addiction, a psychological process, which causes these problems.
Some people make the mistake of thinking that videogames can't be psychologically addictive and harmful in the same ways as drugs. I was trying to show how incorrect this premise is by raising the point about a drug with a very bad public image and explaining that the problem with heroin abuse is rarely due to physical effects it has on you. Malnutrition, poor hygene, etc. are problems of poverty, which may be an indirect result of drug addiction, but is usually a pre-existing condition which predisposes individuals to drug abuse, rather than the results of drug abuse. In any case, heroin does not have pharmacological properties that induce malnutrition or cause poverty.
I do in fact know many junkies and ex-junkies in their 30's to late 40's. None of them were ever homeless and so impoverished as to suffer from malnutrition. None of them show physical signs of being or having been a drug user. Many of them, however, have been to jail--that is one of the biggest risks of doing heroin, but other than jailtime, all of the common problems related to dope are caused by psychological addiction. Something does not have to be physically or chemically bad for you to ruin your life. And I do recognize that I have a problem and have taken steps to change it.
Regarding withdrawl, that is a sign of physical addiction/dependence. It's caused by the downregulation of opiate receptors in your brain to compensate for the increase of opiate activity in your brain when you consume opiates regularly. Physical dependence can be avoided by not doing opiates everyday, and it is not what causes junkies to relapse as they often do so even after their physical dependence has vanished.
The media has spread this misconception that heroin has physical properties that make it super-addictive, and that you become addicted forever after a single use. But while opiate withdrawl can be hell, physical dependence takes weeks or even months to develop. Benzodiazepines and alcohol can cause physical dependence just as opiates do, except opiate withdrawal can't kill you, whereas, withdrawing off of benzos and alcohol can. It's not the physically addictive properties of these drugs that make them so hard to kick. Meth does not cause any kind of physical dependence, but is arguably just as addictive as heroin. The same could be said of sex addiction, gambling addiction, and videogame addiction. It just depends on each individual's personality, and what they are predisposed towards.
Well, I'm not saying that respiratory depression isn't dangerous, but merely that stimulant abuse is generally more physially harmful even when your life isn't at risk. In other words, both extreme hypotension and hypertension can be dangerous and even fatal, but in general the hypotensive effect that heroin and other opiates induce are not harmful for your body, whereas regular stimulant use always has a cardiotoxic effect, and that effect over time can result in a higher risk of stroke or infarction. Mixing opiates with other downers such as alcohol or benzos is a different story though.
Also, opiates, unlike meth is not neurotoxic. And unlike smoking cigarettes it does not introduce carcinogens to your body. Opiates in general don't really have any long-term negative physical side-effects. And I have talked to much more experienced ex-heroin/meth users and all concur that a heroin user is hard to pick out in a crowd, whereas a meth user you can spot a mile away. Heroin generally doesn't put much strain on your body, so most physical deterioration suffered by heroin addicts can be attributed to poverty rather than any pharmacological effects of the drug. (Here's a good study outlining the differences between popular image of heroin uses and scientific views.)
Don't get me wrong. I've met plenty of heroin users who have ruined their lives in the course of addiction, been jumped, been mugged, have had to escape out of car trunks, have done hard time, etc. But the drug itself isn't any worse for you physically than vicodin.
I've never been to AA, but I have been to NA many times. The thing is, while all of these groups have to follow general guidelines, and there are many aspects of it that have strong similarities to religious institutions (a cult is just a religion which hasn't gotten mainstream acceptance), the atmosphere and environment does vary great from meeting to meeting depending on the members.
I've been to some NA meetings with very strong religious overtones and which I got nothing out of simply from not being able to relate, atleast partially due to the single-track mindset of the speakers, but I've also been to meetings led by more intelligent groups of people where the speakers were generally very intelligent and insightful and demonstrated more free-thinking and original thought than the other groups.
NA is made up of different people, and like churches, even within groups sharing the same basic doctrines, there is still a great number of different interpretations and differing attitudes. You really have to sorta shop around and find a group with people you can relate to, and whom you feel will be a good support system for you. If you look hard enough you can easily find a meeting with pretty free-thinking individuals who are more about sharing their own personal knowledge and experiences than about adhering to NA dogma.
Props for staying clean for 7 years and finding something that works for you. And I understand that I'm still taking lots of risks. I don't share needles, and I'm usually very careful about administering a new batch of unknown potency. Unfortunately with street drugs there is no guarantee that you're actually getting what you paid for, but that is risk that I really can't avoid. Because of the prohibitionist stance our government has taken in the war on drugs, there are a lot of risks which are simply unavoidable. I know that I risk jailtime if I ever get busted with dope. And there's certainly the risks of contamination. But I try as best as I can not to do anything stupid (I've learned from close calls and my stupid actions in the past).
At the moment I'm just working on slowly cutting back while improving my lifestyle little by little. But I think one thing that I have on my side is my inner drive. My friend who goes to UCLA and is addicted to meth as well as heroin does't have that advantage, and it's very hard for me to watch him just passively throwing everything away. But that's what most people who find themselves in this situation are usually faced with.
I lost sight of my goals for a while when I was struggling with depression and began heavily abusing drugs to escape my problems. But I've since recommited myself to my former goals. I got a start in web development and graphic design a few years ago with an independent record label near where I live, and I've recently started working there again, which is something that I really love. Aside from that I'm also pretty committed to going back to school and hopefully get into grad school eventually. I've had some set backs in the past due to some unfortunate and uncontrollable events in my life, but I've recently found a strong support system and am working towards my goals again.
So I'm doing alright now, or atleast a lot better than before. Thanks for the encouragement.
Opioid receptors cause a chain of other biochemical processes to be initiated when they are triggered. Similarly with cannabinoid receptors. Each causes complex biological responses and raises one's dopamine or 5HT levels via different mechanisms, but the general reinforcing aspects of the highs are caused by neurons in the same regions of the brain being excited--which are the same reward pathways triggered by sexual orgasm and other activities.
The nucleus accumbens is one region which plays a critical role in drug reward and addiction. Studies have shown that the nucleus accumbens plays an equally important role in natural rewards such as food, videogames, and sex.
And the physically addictive properties of opiate drugs is caused by the down-regulation of opiate receptors with chronic use, which has little to do with the psychological addictiveness of the drug. Drugs like coke and meth rarely cause physical dependence but are still equally addictive to most people.
You show a clear lack of fundamental understanding of how neurotransmitters work or the neurochemistry involved in addiction so just stop making a fool of yourself.
True. I suppose if I really wanted to play it safe I should use micronfilters that can get rid of bacteria. But I just meant that the health risks of injecting pure h is nowhere near those of doing meth or coke, which are neurotoxic and are incredibly bad for your cardiovascular system as well as other parts of your body. But I know what you mean.
Well, Daniel, I can empathize with you. Depression is definitely one of the main causes of addiction. Suffering from depression, whether clinical or situational, makes one much for susceptible to addiction. And this is often the underlying cause of addiction that I alluded to earlier. If you can address the cause of your depression, you can escape the addiction. You have to make the effort though.
And trust me, I understand the feelings you are experiencing; I felt the same way for a while. But you have to just stop pitying yourself. Yes, those are harsh words, but that is as best as I can describe it. When I was going through a similar phase I didn't realize that that was what I was doing until I took a few steps back and really reflected on my own attitude and thought process (especially the recurring patterns). You gotta just suck it up and start focusing, not on how bad of a person you are, or how worthless you are, or how no one can possibly love you and you can never be happy, but rather on things that you can improve about your life.
I'm not asking you to be an optimist and look on the bright side of things. But just take the focus off of yourself and your own life, because in your current state you will only focus on your shortcomings and the negative things in your life. You have to get out of that defeatist mindset of "I'm just screwed up."
I've found that by helping others, especially those less fortunate than me, I spend less time thinking about myself and how shitty my own life is. So instead of just hating yourself and feeling bad because of it, look around you and see whose life you can make a difference in. Do some volunteer work; it can really lead to some positive changes in your life.
Anyways, don't be so hard on yourself, and I wish you luck in your struggle to overcome your addiction.
well, if their point was that they could counter a strawman argument they've constructed with no relation to the article, then perhaps I did miss the point of that. perhap you want to elucidate things for me, then?
Your reading comprehension skills aren't very good. CPU clock speeds themselves may not be enough to make precise judgements about performance, but knowing that the CPUs were designed by the same group of industry leaders, for the same applications on the same generation of consoles, likely using comparable technology, in addition to the huge disparity in available memory as well as clock speeds should allow one to get an idea of where the console stands compared to the other machines. No one is claiming that the output margins are huge, but you're kidding yourself if you think the revolution is going to out-perform the 360 hardware-wise when every piece of evidence points to the fact that nintendo isn't focusing on hardware superiority to compete with the other consoles. Clock rate might not tell the full-story, but given the circumstances, they offer one a vague idea of what to expect.
Look, nintendo makes good consoles and good games, they just don't always push for the most blistering fast machines that can pump out the most polygons or highest pixel resolution--that is the point the author was making.
the article wasn't trying to measure the performance of different consoles. why would they? they don't have access to test machines. he was making a point that the focus wasn't on hardware. a point which you seemed to have missed.
and the difference in clockspeeds is staggering. the 360's clockspeed is more than 4x the clockspeed of the revolution's CPU, in addition to having more cores than the revolution. that itself should tell you something no matter how the performance for each chip scales with clockspeed. this is same generation hardware designed by companies which are are frontrunners of the industry.we're not comparing cyrix with pentium. IBM designed the Broadway CPU, and was also part of the effort behind the Cell processor. There's not much of a technology gap in between the companies involved.
No one is saying that the 360 is 400% faster than the revolution, but it is definitely faster. If the clockspeeds were only different by a margin of 20-30% it'd be another story. But the revolution clearly isn't trying to compete with the raw hardware power of the other consoles.
I don't think the GP was trying to scare anyone, but rather to point out the relationship between a chemical addiction and a so-called non-chemical one to put things in perspective. I have a co-worker who's been in Narcotics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous for over 20 years. He'd argue that his chemical addictions and non-chemical addictions were not fundamentally different. Also, drugs like heroin, meth, coke, weed, alcohol, etc. do not replace the neurotransmitters in your brain. All addictions are addictive because of the same essential reward pathways being triggered. Some drugs are more addictive than others because the reward is much more immediate.
So in that way, IV heroin may be more addictive psychologically than alcohol, or videogames because the reward is almost instantaneous. But people with different personalities also have predispositions for different kinds of addiction, and a lot of people can find alcohol, or sex, or videogames far more addicting than heroin. And the end result whether you are addicted to heroin, or sex, or alcohol, or videogames, or anything else is generally the same: your social life suffers, you lose sight of your priorities, you may become incapable of performing your job functions or other daily functions, etc.
Don't be so quick to rip on other people's thoughts before you look into it. You don't seem to know what you are talking about regarding dopamine or the etiology of addiction. In the end you've basically just dismissed one person's statements with your own opinions based on unsupported and somewhat misinformed speculation. The GP's post atleast seems to conform with what I've read in scientific literature and isn't based on pure speculation. So what's more pseudo-scientific here?
Even assuming that you're right (personally, I find Xbox's graphics to be far better than both the gamecube and ps2's), what does that have to do with anything? All he wrote were the numbers. He also wrote that numbers aren't everything. He didn't say that the 360 is 400% faster than the revolution just because its clockspeed is 4x the revolution's. No one is making such claims. Get a grip. These figures are only crap because you're reading them wrong and assuming that everyone else must be doing the same. But that wasn't even what the author was implying. The article simply talks about Nintendo focusing its energy on coming up with innovating ideas like the free-style controller, or other areas where they excel in, such as game design, rather than on hardware.
Personally, I think that nintendo's approach has always been an emphasis on game design rather than technological superiority. They're more creative with their game designs so they don't need to rely heavily on photo-realistic graphics or bleeding-edge video hardware to compete with the other consoles. So in my opinion the reason for the lower clockspeeds probably has less to do with the ingeniousness of IBM and ATI chip architecture, and more to do with where Nintendo would rather put its energy--in the design of the games themselves.
And I think trying to argue that the revolution is going to be as powerful or more powerful than the ps3 or 360, in terms of hardware, is a bit of a moot point. Clockspeed might not always reflect the performance of a system, but you can't say that it isn't a factor or indicator. Why else would CPU manufacturers continue to increase the clockspeed of their processors? In the case of Intel vs. AMD, if you look at the processors with similar architectures (same number of cores, equal amount of cache, etc.), AMD CPUs and Intel CPUs with comparable performance will not have clockspeed differences of more than 20-30% As it stands, the 360's clockspeed is more than 4x the revolution's and it also boasts 2 more cores. The 360 also has more than 6 times the memory as the revolution. Unless you're talking about a completely different generation of technology, or atleast technology made by companies with totally disparate engineering capabilities, those numbers should still tell you that nintendo isn't aiming to deliver the most powerful of the next-gen consoles. And all 3 consoles have custom-made, specialized components. We're not comparing PDA CPUs with videocard GPUs here.
Frankly, these specs are in line with the gamecube's relative hardware performance in the previous generation consoles. Nintendo has done well by focusing on the games, not the raw processing power of their hardware. There's no need in trying to argue how nintendo's contender in the next gen console wars could still be the hardware powerhouse despite the numbers published. That isn't their strategy. The DS has less processing power than the PSP, but it's still much more successful. Nintendo doesn't need to be the top contender in every single aspect of the gaming platform, so there's no need making tenuous arguments to try to "defend" them here. If you feel that you need to, then you're missing the point.
Have you played Soul Caliber on Xbox and on Gamecube? They are no way comparable in terms of graphics. PS2 was much closer. Gamecube relied on gameplay, not hardware performance. Also, the article only gave those figures, it didn't suggest the Gamecube would barely be as powerful as the Xbox. This is different generation hardware, and the author himself states that these numbers don't tell the full story. People are just unhappy that the article mentions one aspect of the console wars that nintendo isn't focusing on, and thus isn't their strong point.
But the people getting mad at the author for pointing this out are missing the point. And it doesn't make sense to criticize the author for something he didn't imply. Might I point out that the same people mad at the article for seemingly making the nintendo revolution out to be a POS seem to be the only ones drawing those invalid conclusions from the numbers published. So it's even more idiotic to project these ideas onto the article writer, when he himself made no such suggestions, and then getting mad at him for making such claims.
While I agree with you that most addictions can only be treated by changing one's lifestyle (introducing new hobbies, finding new interests, setting goals for yourself, meeting new people, etc.) I disagree with you on the difference between a chemical addiction and a non-chemical one.
Most chemical addictions are rooted in the release of neurotransmitters such as endorphines, serotonin, dopamine, etc. which control the pleasure pathways in your brain. These things are responsible for emotions of happiness and general feelings of euphoria (physical and psychological). Ultimately, one becomes addicted to sex, videogames, TV, internet, reading, working out, and all other addictions because of similar biochemical processes that these activities cause. The only difference is that with drugs like meth and heroin, the effect is more dramatic, and the reward is more instantaneous.
I'm probably going to get a lot of flak from people, and I know that most people reading this will probably pass a lot of unfounded judgements about my character by my revealing this, but I do think I'm more knowledgeable about addiction than a lot of people because of my first-hand experience, and I appreciate how serious a problem an addiction can be, so I'm gonna share a little of my personal experiences.
When I was in junior high, and high school, I used to be really addicted to counter-strike. I mean, I would spend 6+ hours a night playing CS, often neglecting to do my homework till 3 or 4 AM. I had other interests such as programming and reading, but around 9th and 10th grade videogames began really consuming my life. So I understand the overpowering grip of a videogame addiction. Luckily, I was able to kick that addiction before I left high school, so while I saw my roommates in college cripple their social life, and ultimately dropping out of school because they became so utterly unhappy with their day-to-day life, I did not suffer from the same pitfalls.
However, at some point in the past 2 years I became addicted to heroin and opiates. I used to "chip"--as they call it--meaning, shooting up once a week or once a month only. I had no physical dependence to the drug, and in fact it played a very small role in my life. I was actually chipping for quite a while before I actually descended into full-blown addiction. Nowadays, I can't stay clean for more than a week at a time. I have to go through withdrawal to even get that far, but even after I fully detox and lose my physical dependence, I still relapse.
Now, a lot of people think that heroin is poisonous to your body, or that most heroin users inevitably OD and die. That's not true. Heroin, like morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone(vicodin, percocet, etc.), codeine, etc. are actually rarely ever physically harmful unless combined with alcohol or other respiratory depressants. Even at high doses, they don't really exhibit any toxic effects on your body. They actually lower your heart-rate and blood pressure, and are arguably healthier for you in the physical sense than alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine even. It is unlikely that I will ever die from using heroin, or that I'll loose my arm like in Requiem for a Dream; I have pretty good hygene and adhere to safe injection techniques. Heck, I'm probably better at administering an IV injection than most trained nurses. So long as I continue to use sterile saline solutions, don't re-use or share needles, and avoid doing stupid things like injecting pills, I'm unlikely to suffer any physical consequences from my heroin habit other than perhaps I'll age a little slower than other people (a side effect of chronic heroin use).
But the reason why this is an addiction, and not just a habit, is because it has consumed my life. It takes up all of my energy (constantly trying to acquire drugs, support my habit, get new needles, avoiding withdrawal), and when I'm not on heroin, I'm thinking about it. Even before I started doing heroin I abused other drugs such as weed and alcohol, and my social life has been negatively af