[FRIAM] The Insurrection Index

Fri Jan 7 14:54:39 EST 2022

So, there are about 21 million people that are addicted to some sort of drug, 2.1 million that have an Opioid use disorder, and there are about 50k deaths a year related to opioids.   Maybe the death counts just aren't big enough to pay attention to?  (Putting this number in the context of, say, COVID-19.)  Even if the approach were Harm Enhancement, it probably wouldn't significantly change the population size.

https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/addiction-statistics/
https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/index.html

________________________________
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com>
Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 11:36 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Insurrection Index

I’m in favor of what you describe, David. Good luck getting legislation in the USA passed that would enable that. (sarcasm mode on) Speaking of the word “enable”, I believe the pushback would be that such laws would be enablers by decreasing the risk of taking drugs. The risk makes drugs less appealing. Hell, you might just as well hand out birth control to teenagers and be a teen sex enabler. F’ing Pervert. As we all know, only abstinence works. (sarcasm mode off)

On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 12:50 PM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm<mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
glen is describing the actual situation in Europe. I went to a lot of events where there was a table by the entrance where you could test the drugs (including heroin and opioids that remain very illegal there) you would be using at the event (and afterwords). This prevented both overdoses (you knew the strength of what you were taking) and foreign elements like fentanyl.

Not only was the event made safer, there appeared to be back stream pressure to the sellers and even to the manufacturers, because people knew who gave them bad or over cut drugs and refused to buy from them anymore. There were lots of conversations around the testing table about sources of drugs and who could be trusted.

BTW, the tables were usually manned by volunteers from mainstream and government labs / medical institutions and were given paid time off (unless it was nights or weekends) to volunteer. But the institution and the government were not directly involved.

davew

On Fri, Jan 7, 2022, at 9:29 AM, glen wrote:
> Hm. My conception of HR seems completely orthogonal to yours. It
> *enables* liberty and autonomy. But the way you're describing it,
> "do-gooder", "interfere", "spirals", "homeostasis", etc., it sounds
> like an attempt to *manipulate* the users.
>
> It's nothing like that. By taking my street drug to someone who knows
> how to test it, I'm ensuring that my *intention* is satisfied. "I don't
> want to take a bunch of strychnine. I want to take a bunch of LSD." HR
> is assisting the drug user in their use of drugs, not attempting to
> stop the drug user from using drugs. It's similar with other drugs like
> heroin. "I don't want to overdose. I want to get high." HR helps ensure
> your dosage is appropriate to your *intent*.
>
> Yes, of course the teatotalers and prohibitionists need to be persuaded
> to do something other than the stupidity of the drug war. So, to appeal
> to those do-gooder types, we can explain that a *side effect* of HR is
> that those who don't actually intend to get high, they're just trapped
> in some bad attractor, they will be helped out of that attractor. But
> don't confuse the side effect with the purpose.
>
>
> On 1/7/22 09:10, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>> On 1/7/22 7:01 AM, glen wrote:
>>> ...<Harm Reduction>... And perhaps it's a manifestation of whatever core physiology it is that binds the [ma|pa]ternal-individual perspectives into a triangle. HR seems to cut a comfortable, practical slice through the mess, much like what I imagine a steely-yet-kind affect would look like.
>> I do have an affinity for the  Harm Reduction conception to a degree, and see how it can break the "downward spiral" that I think is implied here (I feel bad; I take risks/drugs to feel better; I get caught/judged; I feel bad;....etc).   Someone once told me "you are always either spiraling up or spiraling down in this world, it is the choices you make at any given instant which you are doing". Even homeostasis ideation leaves room for a mix of up/down spiraling within some limits.   I don't have a lot of experience with drug (or other harsh) recovery up close, but I have known a lot of mild addicts... people whose drug/alcohol/sex/spending/exercise addictions *seem* to interfere with their quality of life and have tried (only mildly) to bump them onto new trajectories.   I would say all of them were in some kind of dynamic homeostasis that had worked for them for years if not decades, and who was I to interfere with their patterns which were by some measure, actually working.
>>> I haven't. But I'd *like* to buy some street drugs and take it to, say, a rave and have the HR team test it just to get a feel for that process from the user's perspective. I think I can project how it might feel to be on the HR team. But I really don't have any idea how the users feel about it. One of my neighbors back in Oregon, I'm speculating, would have thought the HR team was part of the "deep state" ... or spies for the DEA. But I've known many drug users who are more rational than she was.
>>
>> The major proponents of HR that I know of tend to be do-gooders who believe they are "saving people".   That is not to say that they don't have some successes, and that the spirit is a good one, but to the extent I have had people (try to) interfere in my life, it is generally unwelcome (until I am ready, whatever that means).   I think the fact (not the aspiration) of HR can mean that many individuals who might have spiraled right out the bottom have the opportunity to reverse their spirals and spin back upwards... ideally through a different mechanism (finding something besides the addiction that is hurting them to climb back up with?).  I think HR is more important to  the non-subject of the HR in that it removes us (somewhat) from the judgement that whomever is being *harmed* *deserves* to suffer, and I think for the most part, that makes us better citizens... to relieve our own judgements at least in one or two contexts.
>>
>> I had heard the phrase "there, but by the grace of God, go I" many times, and dismissed it as religious gobbledeygook until a very non-religious friend said that about a homeless person on the street in a time and circumstance when I was able to recognize the "grace" in what he was saying.
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>>
>>> On 1/6/22 09:41, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>> Your use of Gaze worked for me, but I also understand Marcus' reaction to it.  I'm sure others would as well...  Gaze as you intended it and the rest of us received it is naturally a multi-spectral phenomenon... some of us have notches in our Gaze, as you suggested Q-shaman and Rittenhouse in their own Reflective Gaze perhaps.  I had not heard the reference to the nanny/daddy/libertarian triangle before but it fits how I do think about the tensions, up to and including my own internal apprehensions and intentions which sometimes have my mind/soul running a little bit like a Wankel engine... each combustion chamber taking it's turn (positive or negative pressure) on each of the three extrema you describe.   It seems like there is a meta-pattern in there, a first derivative of those quantities that can get a resonance set up, driving us forward (or backward).   In reflection on my ambitious youth, I think I was driven by that triad... 1) Wanting the freedom to
>>>> explore/experience with abandon; 2) Wishing someone would clear my path, pick up my broken toys and cut the crusts from my avocado toast; 3) Wishing someone would bitch-slap the people who were getting in my way or not cooperating and maybe give me a hearty slap on the back anytime I did something bold.
>>>>
>>>> I also like your invocation of the Steely Affect Judge in these cases. I have my own distrust/judgement of the "<Adversarial> Criminal Justice System", mostly from having worked as a PI for a few years (in my ambitious youth) but the few members of those professions (judges, lawyers, LEOs) that I developed a lot of respect for were those that seemed to have a truly humanist center AND the Steely Affect you suggest. Unfortunately those were as Unicorn as the apocryphal Benevolent Dictator and the GoodGuyWithGun...   I left the biz because (partly) I didn't see a righteous niche for me (or anyone?) in that game.
>>>>
>>>> <aside> As an antidote to those judgements/kneejerks of mine, I *was* very pleased to see how hard the judge, prosecutor, and ultimately Governor of Colorado worked with the recent Manslaughter Case where the sentences for the trucker were required by law to be consecutive, leading to a 100+ year sentence for something that I think ended up being reduced to order 10 years.  I wanted to see more of that kind of unity (vs adversarality) in cases like Floyd, Rittenhouse, Aubery, etc...
>>>>
>>>> I have only begun to follow politics closely in the past 6 years or so but was not surprised to find how few *statesmen* we had among our elected officials.  Among those who seem to have truly dedicated their life to trying to make this nation (or any given state or locale) a better place for all who live in the jurisdiction, many have a very different idea from me of what "better place" would look like, but at least they seem to engagable on the topic.
>>>
>
> --
> glen
> Theorem 3. There exists a double master function.
>
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