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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ae87e6c0-fc2d-5ba4-3282-440feb5e8117@gmail.com">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.
<br>
</blockquote>
Precisely, that was my point, it often manifests that way. I'm not
denying your conception, only noting that my introduction to it was
complementary to your ideation.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ae87e6c0-fc2d-5ba4-3282-440feb5e8117@gmail.com">
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*.
<br>
</blockquote>
I can get behind that. One of the people I mentioned as being
low-grade addicts was actually a very high-grade addict in the sense
that she was always and forever seeking novel "altered states" and
had a very sophisticated way of managing and expanding that without
acute harm to herself or others. I had to leave her orbit because
in fact, I did find her to ultimately be a harm to me, but not
acutely, or at least not through her myriad pursuits of novel
altered states.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ae87e6c0-fc2d-5ba4-3282-440feb5e8117@gmail.com">
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.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I accept that YOUR purpose for developing an HR strategy/system
might be to enhance the opportunities for "novel altered states",
and I believe that Oliver Sacks work in neuropharmacology was
precisely aligned with that ideation, but I don't think the
folks/systems who coined the term Harm Reduction were doing
anything *but* trying to help people survive/recover-from their
worse instincts, even if *some* of them might be very sympathetic
(and practiced at) drug use themselves. <br>
</p>
<p>I would think that you would find the ultimate collaboration in
your ideas with major Drug Cartels... why *wouldn't* they want a
burgeoning drug-trade built on top of high-functioning
drug-culture? I can *imagine* that there are some good (bad)
reasons for the illegal drug business to cultivate bad
side-effects for their wares... (the current stuff about lacing
everything with Fentanyl?) for short-term gains and/or keeping
control of the business by keeping it black-market (maybe don't
want to have to compete with the Sacklers, et al?). Maybe a good
hedge would be to work both ends of that one? I think that is a
common theme in cyberpunk.<br>
</p>
<p>For a day-after-tomorrow view of a deliberate high-functioning
society of drug use, I offer up Walter Jon Williams' (ABQ) 1986
cyberpunk novel <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/304761.Hardwired">Hard
Wired</a> where his protaganist wears a pharmaceutical grade
drug-delivery pump not unlike an insulin pump which has only three
drugs: red, white, and blue... following the convention of
downers, uppers, and hallucinagens with an AI interface that
monitors his vitals and convolves them with his aspirations for
the moment. It is coincidental, but interesting (to me anyway)
that this was set in what WJW referred too as the ABQ-Flagstaff
Strip, a Strip City in the near future not unlike the
Ft-Collins-Pueblo Urban Strip that was already emerging in 1986.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ae87e6c0-fc2d-5ba4-3282-440feb5e8117@gmail.com">
<br>
<br>
On 1/7/22 09:10, Steve Smith wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<br>
On 1/7/22 7:01 AM, glen wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">...<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. </blockquote>
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.
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">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.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
- Steve
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<br>
On 1/6/22 09:41, Steve Smith wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
<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...
<br>
<br>
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.
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</blockquote>
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