Re: [ProgSoc] progsoc.org/ssh

[alister air <baitoven@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Christian Kent wrote:

> Just to argue ... what about nukes?

Didn't you watch Armageddon last weekend (or the weekend before... I
forget)?  You need nukes to blow an improbably spiky asteroid apart before
it Ends Life As We Know It On Earth.
 
> > No.  Ecstacy is largely safe, and rarely causes problems.  Playing Russian
> 
> YMMV.

Yes.  Which is why regulated production and distribution would save lives.

> > They blamed the club, I believe.
> 
> For harbouring pushers, or for not protecting her from herself?

Both, I believe, as well as letting a 15 year old (with fake ID,
IIRC) into their club.
 
> You're right about the roads.  Do you really think road drivers, base
> jumpers, and e droppers (?) think sufficiently about their mortality risks
> instead of their desire to use these things?   By sufficient, I mean
> enough to make it their fault for making a bad mistake ...

No, I don't think they do.  I do - every time I get on my bike I realise
one idiot car driver that I can't avoid will probably kill me.  But it's
not a matter of "their fault" either - you weigh the risks.  When I get on
my bike, I know the risks are small.  The same applies for when someone
drops an e.  You get few deaths from ecstacy compared to the number of
users.  You get few deaths on the roads compared to the number of
users.  A comparison would be illuminating though.
 
> Extend the paradigm (it's probably about willful negligence, or something
> with a more lay term that won't come to me right now), extend it to people
> who carelessly eat junk food so much they send themselves to hospital or
> the grave.

Longer term.  Although an e a day makes the brain cells decay.  You need
to eat junk food for quite a long time before you die, so that's more
stupid, as there's no risk as such - it's like smoking.  Smoke a pack a
day and the only reason you won't die from it is if something else (like a
car driver) kills you beforehand.

> Or to draw the bow longer, to the kind of human race that we are that
> we can't be bothered to spend the price of a Hollywood film to keep an
> eye on the heavens to see if a big rock is coming this way.

Or more practically, we're too damn stupid to implement enough serious
changes to the criminal law to reduce the incidence of crimes, because it
costs money in the short term and appears to be "soft".  Won't someone rid
me of this turbulent parrot?
 
> Probably a good mental munch.

Of interest to you, me, and one other subscriber.
 
A.



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