I’m mildly curious (but not quite enough to go spend 20 minutes doing web research) how much of cocaine’s harmfulness is intrinsic and how much is due to the fact that the underground nature of its production means it is often cut with rat poison and the like.
Many people on LW seem to think highly of caffeine and nicotine, both of which are also addictive stimulants, but which differ from cocaine in being legal and therefore normally produced in a “safe” form.
Anecdote! -- George H. Smith (author of
Atheism: The Case Against God)
talks about his experiences with cocaine (generally
positive) and heroin (generally negative) in several posts
here
and several email messages (quoted by another user)
here.
He used it “on a regular basis for nearly 15 years”.
A few quotes:
[...] my years of cocaine use were the most productive,
intellectually and financially, of my life.
With cocaine, this problem [of knowing when to stop] is
exacerbated by its illegality, which means you have to use
a product that has been cut many times—sometimes with a
benign substance like baby laxative but more often with
something to give it a punch, especially “crank” (i.e.,
speed).
To this day I remain convinced that if I had been living
in a civilized country and been able to go into a drug
store and purchase valium (or something similar) over the
counter, I would never have touched heroin.
If it’s the addictiveness that’s your true objection to the game, then talking about (the ridiculously small amount of) deaths that have occurred in relation to the game is a complete distraction.
Sorry, I guess this is illusion of transparency. I thought I was being obvious.
Tobacco, alcohol, fast cars, hamburgers etc. all have direct medical damages. The addiction is a contributing factor, not the cause. WoW is addictive enough in and of itself that it has the potential to make you keep pressing the lever until you die. That is not true, to my knowledge, of chess.
But chess, precisely because the abstract challenges on the board can be so absorbing, can also derail a kid. Listen to Shawn, who’s ranked third on the Murrow team and constantly skips school to play blitz games in the park. In an interview with the New York Times before the high-school championships, the foundering student lashed out at his mentors. “I became addicted to chess. They think they did something for me, but they didn’t. Chess didn’t save my life. They want to make it like I’m a kid from the ghetto and I can play chess and that’s special. Why does it have to be like that? It’s embarrassing.”
So I should avoid tobacco, alcohol, fast cars, and hamburgers; and stay with safer things, like cocaine.
I’m mildly curious (but not quite enough to go spend 20 minutes doing web research) how much of cocaine’s harmfulness is intrinsic and how much is due to the fact that the underground nature of its production means it is often cut with rat poison and the like.
Many people on LW seem to think highly of caffeine and nicotine, both of which are also addictive stimulants, but which differ from cocaine in being legal and therefore normally produced in a “safe” form.
Anecdote! -- George H. Smith (author of Atheism: The Case Against God) talks about his experiences with cocaine (generally positive) and heroin (generally negative) in several posts here and several email messages (quoted by another user) here. He used it “on a regular basis for nearly 15 years”.
A few quotes:
My point was more that the video game is so addictive that it kills people...
If it’s the addictiveness that’s your true objection to the game, then talking about (the ridiculously small amount of) deaths that have occurred in relation to the game is a complete distraction.
Sorry, I guess this is illusion of transparency. I thought I was being obvious.
Tobacco, alcohol, fast cars, hamburgers etc. all have direct medical damages. The addiction is a contributing factor, not the cause. WoW is addictive enough in and of itself that it has the potential to make you keep pressing the lever until you die. That is not true, to my knowledge, of chess.
Not so fast...