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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   23752 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024

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This seems like a misrepresentation or at least to have some logical leaps.

My objections:

  • It's perfectly fine to hold those beliefs and still want accountability for a drug company that does bad things. Someone's desired counterfactual isn't limited to a binary.
  • "I think these firms should do less to limit beneficial healthcare and do more to prevent harmful healthcare" isn't some gotcha where you should object "Well do you want more or fewer free markets"
  • The tradeoff between good-quality tested opioids and sketchy street drugs isn't real. I can't pull them up right now but throughought the 2010s the economist had like 4 studies cited that showed about 60% of people dependent on street drugs (from someone else's prescription to black tar heroin) started out on prescription pain killers like oxycontin.

I don't understand your first objection. There were a lot of "beliefs" hinted at in my post, not all of which I hold or think someone else holds.

Your second objection seems to entirely make my point. What counts as "beneficial" vs. "harmful" seems to significantly hinge on other politics. People select politics first, then determine "beneficial" or "harmful", and then decide whether something is 'corruption' or 'negotiation'... or whether it's 'righteous gatekeeping' or 'evil profit-seeking gatekeeping'. Your politics are baked in to your statements, which is why you think other politics can be just brushed aside and totally ignored. Moreover, because we've essentially nationalized policy (while retaining nominal private ownership), the entire arena is fundamentally a matter of confused national-scale politics, rather than distributed optimization to local and personal values.

Your third objection, and the responses it's already produced, absolutely seals my point. People are divided about the politics, which leads to all sorts of confusion in trying to 'design' a nationalized system with clear purpose and vision, instead leaving the matter ripe for all sorts of politicized framing effects.

I don't see the use in framing common disagreements between different groups as some sort of political contradiction. Wanting more government regulation of the border or guns, but also wanting fewer EPA requirements for food or DEI requirements isn't a contradiction or a gotcha, it's a valid expression of people's political desires. Similarly, wanting healthcare but not have addictive or unnecessary procedures or medicine pushed on you is totally acceptable. I reject the notion that it's just a matter of politics as a broad claim you've made. I concede there is a large amount of political finagling and ideology in many of these decisions (whether by doctors, congress, hospitals, the federal executive), but I also believe you could parse out 60-75% of policy as being harmful or helpful to individuals and have broad (over 75%) public agreement.

political contradiction ... contradiction or a gotcha ... valid expression of people's political desires

I have no idea what you're on about. I'm not claiming a contradiction or gotcha. I'm not claiming anything is invalid.

studies cited that showed about 60% of people dependent on street drugs (from someone else's prescription to black tar heroin) started out on prescription pain killers like oxycontin.

Note that this does not mean that they started with painkillers prescribed to them for legitimate pain issues. It's likely that many (most?) started with opioids that were stolen, diverted, or obtained for recreational purposes through doctor-shopping.

Yes, I flagged that in brackets.

The tradeoff between good-quality tested opioids and sketchy street drugs isn't real. I can't pull them up right now but throughought the 2010s the economist had like 4 studies cited that showed about 60% of people dependent on street drugs (from someone else's prescription to black tar heroin) started out on prescription pain killers like oxycontin.

Basically the drug warriors were pushing that line. But if you follow the references back, they end up at a study of street heroin users which determined that some large percentage started on prescription drugs.... but usually not their own.

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