Posts by mark taslov
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
This is interesting, especially when observing contrasted behavioural patterns associated with alcohol use.
The research she refers to found that a surprisingly high proportion of US soldiers had used heroin during the Vietnam War, with as many as 20 per cent reporting that they had been 'addicted' to the drug. This research also found, however, that only 10 per cent of this 20 per cent used opiates on their return to the USA. This suggests strongly that the popular representation of heroin as intensely addictive, and associated with unbearable withdrawal symptoms, is quite unreliable. If regular heroin use did not produce painful withdrawal and the usual gamut of social effects such as crime, what is heroin addiction? What, for that matter, is heroin?
In raising these questions, we do not mean to imply that addiction is simply 'made up' and has no effects. Just as the idea of addiction has emerged in a particular time and place, so have experiences of addiction. Where drugs are not prohibited, for instance, they are unlikely to become scarce. Experiences of craving and withdrawal differ under conditions of plenty from those under conditions of scarcity and prohibition. In other words, addiction is partly the product of prohibition in that experiences of craving and compulsion are less likely to materialise where drugs are easy to obtain. This was true of the use of many drugs such as opiates prior to the late nineteenth century. No doubt some people (some heroin-using US veterans but not others, for example) experience addiction, compulsion, craving and withdrawal in relation to drugs, and these experiences have serious effect on their lives and the lives of others. But this does not mean that drugs should be seen deterministically as stable objects in possession of fixed characteristics that always produce predictable effects - that is, that their inherent properties determine people's experiences, and as such demand particular pre-given responses - for example, that they can and must be 'stamped out'. By the same token, we cannot assume that they have no real effects are therefore harmless. Sorting out perspectives that offer more than these two extremes, that take proper account of the materiality of drugs as Barad might ask us to do, is one of the key tasks for the field of critical studies of addiction and drugs. -
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to andin,
Science ;)
All compounded things are impermanent
All phenomena are without inherent existence
Nirvana is beyond description -
Notes & Queries: Breaking Down the Walls…, in reply to Daphne Lawless,
trans-exclusive radical feminists
Trans-*Exclusionary* Radical Feminist
I'm not a big fan, but he's inspirational to many.
-
It ain’t what you know, it’s what you feel
Don’t worry about being right, just be for real -
Hard News: Do e-bikes ease traffic…, in reply to Paul Campbell,
With that, it’s worth keeping in mind that e-bikes were widespread before there was much in the way of congestion, In the 2000s cars were encouraged primarily to hasten economic growth while the Government were simultaneously building 1000s of kilometers of subway.
China has experienced an explosive growth of sales of non-assisted e-bikes including scooter type, with annual sales jumping from 56,000 units in 1998 to over 21 million in 2008,[63] and reaching an estimated fleet of 120 million e-bikes in early 2010.[2][64] This boom was triggered by Chinese local governments’ efforts to restrict motorcycles in city centers to avoid traffic disruption and accidents. By late 2009 motorcycles are banned or restricted in over ninety major Chinese cities.[63] Users began replacing traditional bicycles and motorcycles and, in e-bike became an alternative to commuting by car.[2] Nevertheless, road safety concerns continue as around 2,500 e-bike related deaths were registered in 2007.[64] By late 2009 ten cities had also banned or imposed restrictions on e-bikes on the same grounds as motorcycles. Among these cities were Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha, Foshan, Changzhou, and Dongguang.[63][64]
China is the world’s leading manufacturer of e-bikes, with 22.2 million units produced in 2009. Production is concentrated in five regions, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Shanghai.[65] China exported 370,000 e-bikes in 2009.
-
Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to ,
-
Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to ,
Alcohol is the solution:
There’s a TV ad that’s been doing the rounds recently in which beer is touted as the catalyst for human innovation and invention…
-
Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to Russell Brown,
Wouldn’t that be contingent on your daily dosage? The consitution of the individual? Are we talking about a faint buzz or getting FUBAR? Due to its widespread usage isn’t it the case that we as a society are far more tolerant/ desensitised to the mental/physical health issues on those who drink daily over decades – evident in say our widespread acceptance (particularly by the media) of a politician’s “I can’t recall”? I can recall. As you said further up.
it’s a chemical, no more innately evil than salt or water.
-
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to John Farrell,
Here’s what they did, they set up Special Economic Zones, wages undercut the global competition, leading global tech companies relocated their manufacturing to the zones. They reverse engineered the tech they were tasked with manufacturing and copied it. Obviously problematic, but nothing on this page strikes me as compelling justification to eschew the broader aim of greater domestic self-sufficiency, unless of course it is indeed our desire to remain a client state indefinitely, prone to all the elements.
-
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to John Farrell,
I put the phosphate and drugs in a bowl, I stirred them up, wacked them in the microwave, added a little salt, still no mutton, what be happening? Is it that we're arguing against FG's larger point from an absolutist position?
