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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29569 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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Novel behaviors emerge out of collections of components. Locusts are harmless and even helpful when in their solitary phase, but subjecting them to enough density induces a far more destructive gregarious phase by a cascade of social and physiological changes.

To take a human example, I don't really care if someone does fentanyl alone in the confines of their own home. I guess it's sad if they die, but that's their life. But allowing large groups of fentanyl addicts to congregate and use together has damaging consequences far larger than the damage they inflict on themselves.

Unless you're a hyper-individualist, it's perfectly coherent to say it's reasonable for the government to regulate destructive collective behaviors while otherwise taking a hands off approach to individuals.

To take a human example, I don't really care if someone does fentanyl alone in the confines of their own home. I guess it's sad if they die, but that's their life. But allowing large groups of fentanyl addicts to congregate and use together has damaging consequences far larger than the damage they inflict on themselves.

I would say that the obvious solution to preventing groups of fentanyl addicts from congregating is to stop individuals from using fentanyl in the first place. Further, I'm not sure that groups of people using fentanyl in and of itself is the problem, but the results of that such as homelessness and destitution. Suppose a group of otherwise functioning fentanyl addicts congregate to one of their homes and does fentanyl, then leaves afterwards and goes back to work and later goes back to their families. Is that a problem in your eyes? Conversely, if a single fentanyl addict is shitting in the street and yelling at passers by, is that not a problem simply because it's an individual?

They're both problems, but a large, concentrated group is worse. It drives the formation of consistent, predictable markets and behavioral norms. Concretely, 100 addicts spread out around the city are a much better problem to have than 100 addicts congregated on a single block. Once you have 100 on a single block, you make the market much more efficient, and political structures develop around those 100 addicts to defend them, advertise for them, and make it much harder to actually address the issue.

Devil’s advocate, but it’s almost never just their life. Sooner or later someone has to pay the bill. So long as it’s possible to go outside and make a mess, the warped incentives of drugs will lead people to do so. And we’re a long way from the level of totalitarianism you’d need to make it impossible.

You can still say it's better for them to individually go outside and make a mess, then to allow groups of drug-zombies to collectively make a mess.

I suppose so.

I’m unhappy about individual drug use in the same way that I’m unhappy about individual suicides. You probably ought to have the right, but that won’t make the janitors feel much better.

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