Teslas Robotaxi has to be cheaper than a taxi with a human and i don't think they will be able to have a lot higher revenue per ride than uber. Not 9x
And if Tesla starts to deliver a robotaxi, all of this revenue has to be shared between taxis, uber, Tesla, Waimo, Zoox, Rimac, Cruise, Baidu, WeRide, ...
So how huge is the market for Tesla to be valuated 9x higher than Uber?
We can even combine a big car company, a robotics company, a solar roof company, battery storage company, ETruck and a robotaxi company and STILL don't get to the same valuation than Tesla currently has.
>> i don't think they will be able to have a lot higher revenue per ride than uber. Not 9x
Why would Tesla need to have higher revenue per ride than Uber? The value of a company is driven (ultimately) by its profit, not its revenue. And Tesla doesn't have to give the majority of the fare to the driver.
Tesla has to pay for the operational and maintenance costs of the vehicle which Uber can offload to the drivers (most drivers barely break even after taking these cost into account), on top of all the ride management infrastructure that Uber deals with.
Higher costs means higher revenue is necessary to break even. It's basic math. Don't even need to get to first order principles.
Early on in Uber's life, I went to a presentation they held where they showed there was a U shaped curve by income of who used Uber. Upper middle class people used them as discretionary entertainment vehicles but Uber had a substantial lower class population using them as necessary transport when working graveyard shifts in locations public transit didn't go.
So yes, there's a surprising contingent of people who commute to work every single working day using hire cars.
> Upper middle class people used them as discretionary entertainment vehicles but Uber had a substantial lower class population using them as necessary transport when working graveyard shifts in locations public transit didn't go.
This is information that suggests that Uber does not compete with public transit
When I was a child visiting my grandma in a large city in England, we would often take the bus to the supermarket, but use a taxi to come back with the shopping. In the 1990s some local taxi company even had a special phone by the supermarket entrance with a single button to dial to request one.
I think my grandma could easily afford this, but there would have been others considering dragging the shopping onto the bus.
Just a guess but she probably would have taken the buss back if you weren't there? Like, she wouldn't want to bore you waiting for the buss or try to time it shopping with a kid.
I think it was the weight of the shopping. My food would have increased what needed to be carried, but I was too young to be much use carrying it.
The point is taxis supplement and can replace public transport for low-income or unable-to-drive people in some situations — not necessarily every day.
Unless you're truly car sharing with a bunch of other people going the same way, I don't see how that makes sense. You have to wait for the car to arrive and you're paying a premium for it.
Most wouldn't because it's expensive. But at scale automated vehicles should be dramatically less expensive, in the range of 50-60¢/mi conservatively, and at that level it is going to be quite compelling to a lot of people since it's a private vehicle (no taxi driver) and it's reasonably affordable, a 1 seat ride, etc.
It's possible they'll be even cheaper but that range is the cost according to the IRS of operating a typical vehicle all in, and that seems like a reasonable guess of the cost of an autonomous electric vehicle with far lower probability of crash than a human (all the savings basically going to profit margin).
At ~60¢/mi, there'd be a lot of people who would save money on balance using autonomous taxis to get everywhere vs owning a private vehicle (10k mi/yr would cost only ~$6k/yr, a pretty low cost of ownership/use for a private vehicle).
The problem is that the automobile based transportation system doesn't scale because the road dimensions are fixed.
So even if prices plunge, thus encouraging people to take more self driving cabs vs other things because of the fixed road size you immediately induce severe traffic, which discourages people and sets a ceiling on adoption as people pick more efficient alternatives.
I just calculated it for 40 cents per mi and just the basic commute to my company would cost already 40 euros.
But I calculated traveling 2 times a week, of course at the commute time everyone else commutes and public transport costs 50 Euros per month.
My company car though costs 200 Euros + 100 Euros energy.
Im pretty sure cybertaxi can't and will not provide 40 cents / mi in high demand times, for middle class paying more mone for the convinince of having your own car is still cheap and if i need to do anything further away like any trip, it will be expensive again.
And all of these cybertaxis have to live somewere.
First of all, some people do commute via ride hailing apps, yes. Second of all, transportation is a much bigger category than simply taking people to and from work.
To what extent by your estimation do taxis compete with public transit in New York City? The comment I was responding to said that New York City is obvious proof that taxis do, in fact, compete with public transit. That is what is being discussed here.
To the extent that millions of customers use them every month to move around NYC. In reading this thread it appears you may have some narrower definition of "compete" than everyone else here.
Typically this word means that the product or service broadly serves same market in some way that overlaps. It isn't typically used so narrowly to imply that the products/services are directly replaceable in all ways.
Waymo is already there, just needs to scale and they are already cooperating with Uber.
>public transit
Unless Musk develops the shrink ray it will never compete with actual high throughput public transit, for the same reason if jets flew themselves we wouldn't commute by air. The cost of drivers per fare is less than in a private car, so the benefits for a bus are lesser. Modern metros are already autonomous.
Also the US is essentially the only country with failed public transit, outside of Africa. If he thinks he can expand his robo taxi fleet to China or Europe or hell even Russia he's got screws loose
Coming from a country with no tipping at all, it was somewhat creepy how the people expecting tips acted when I visited the US for the first time. You can tell when friendliness is fake/forced, and living in a country without tipping you don't see it nearly as much. I felt a bit uncomfortable.
There’s tipping everywhere (more or less, there are some exceptions). But there’s just one country that I know of where 15% is ”no tip” because it’s the expected baseline, and 25% is a small tip because it’s 5-10% over the expected minimum so the actual ”tip” part of a 25% tip is actually less.
I tip 0-10% where I live. Just like most Americans tip 15-25% but the first 15 are just eaten by expectation. There is zero difference except that 1) my menu shows actual prices 2) wait staff have a living wage regardless of tips or how busy the restaurant was that day.
I've been to both, a lot, and I've not noticed any difference whatsoever. Good service is the norm everywhere, honestly, and the odd instance of bad service happens everywhere too.
Beyond that, I personally find that leveraging someone's economic desperation to coerce deference out of them is disgusting. Give me staff who have the option to walk out without material harm, and choose not to.
This is a bad approach. At least if its only that.
In Manhatten this works because there is already a decent public transport, already a culture of waking and an established culture of biking.
You can just force people into better cities with punishing taxes. You actually have make the roads safer, provide alternatives and so on. And this is easier said then done, almost all cities in the US have zoning codes and other laws that make it completely impossible to build decent urban infrastructure. And the traffic standards are literally 100% backwards to providing safety.
In fact, because the traffic standards are so bad that less cars actually kill more people. This is because a lot of traffic slows down vehicle speeds on avg.
So basically, if all you are doing is forcing less people to drive, without doing anything else, you are just gone make the roads unsafer, and not improve the city or the lives of most people.
You can tax to such levels that you have both the funding for and the road space for a legitimately great bus or tram system.
This is unfortunately a problem where, as you say, many issues interact to make it difficult to solve piecemeal in most places. But that doesn't mean we can or should just allow it to fester. I agree zoning and physical infrastructure need to improve in tandem in most places.
Pretty trivial to discount/exempt people as is done in NYC.
An even simpler starting point (which we should actually do for all road-related fees like tickets IMO) is to set fees by the KBB value of the vehicle in question. Let people contest them in court if they want.
Banning those over 60 is a funny jab against an older generation who are susceptible to conspiracy theories and who are not media smart. They have lots of trouble differentiating sound and noise. I doubt this person was serious. Nevertheless, it was funny.
This is part of the rhetoric that pushed people towards Trump.
Instead of asking why they didn't consider voting Democrat or why Trump was a consideration you respond with the equivalent of "well maybe you're not an intellectual"
I've seen a trend of Democrats resorting to attacking anyone that has different views than they do instead of taking the time to understand.
It does nothing to bridge the gap and bring people to your side. The opposing view still exists without being challenged. I would imagine it just pushes some people into an echo chamber of their own.
You respond with the equivalent of "well maybe you're not an intellectual".
That isn't what they said. They said that the PhD, by itself, isn't sufficient evidence of intellectualism.
Which is a perfectly natural reaction to have to anyone who, like the commenter being responded to, holds up their PhD as a defense of their intellectual prowess.
I really don't believe this is just a trend in Democrats; Republicans aren't innocent of this either. They'll resort to the overused labels of "socialist," "woke," or "un-American" for anyone with progressive views.
The whole system is just so polarized that both sides absolutely despise each other, and so both side dehumanize the other. I don't see this ever improving, it's just a shit show where both sides blindfold themselves to opposing ideas and fling as much of it as they can.
Trump won the popular vote. So it seems you have two options:
1. Convince yourself that the majority of the country are in the "cult of MAGA" and that you will never win their votes. With this option Democrats will never win the Presidency again - in fact, Democrats can simplify all our lives and simply stop competing in Presidential elections! There's no point - the majority are in the "cult of MAGA" so Democrats can never win.
2. Do some introspection and realize that while a significant portion of country are in the "cult of MAGA", the reason Trump won is because another portion of the country is just fed up with the current vision of the Democratic party. https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-tale-of-two-machines
1. The average voter is complicit in voting in the person into office yes or do you think that Hitler magically got elected by Aliens?
That however does not correlate what so damn ever with what I said, I specifically said that people suggest democrats have to do amends with Republicans, the same base that foster actual lunatics who has called for the death of the opposition, who has said that the entire democratic party is degenerate oh and made fun of the attempted murder of Nancy Pelosi's husband.
Just say that you think the victim is to be blamed and that the perpetrator is innocent because they just HAD to do it.
2. Again love the victim blaming, let's not hold each accountable for what they do no let's only hold 1 side accountable who already tries to some degree to be accountable and instead gaslight and victim blame those who expect the republicans to take the same accountability.
Whenever or not people are fed up with the democrats is irrelevant when the opposition is saying actually crazy shit like "let me suspend the constitution for 1 day and I'll fix everything", sounds eerily familiar to "let me enact the enabling act, promise 1 month and I'll fix everything".
So you have presented me with: 1. victim blaming and 2. victim blaming, what a good choice.
But hey, hope you like me get to enjoy that juicy 20% tariff causing prices to deflate so much it causes an unsigned integer overflow.
This is my point exactly. Independent of ones intelligence, it stands that someone with a phd isn't exactly anti-intellectualism (which is what the parent post was about, but it seems many people missed)
>And the rise of anti intelllectualism in the USA continues to rise.
I already responded about Gaza in the other comment, but can you explain more about the globalization point? I'm assuming you think Trump will improve the situation, can you explain your reasoning there? I do think the CHIPs act was a step in the right direction to reduce US dependence on foreign nations.
Me too. It was very hard to give someone (Harris) my vote when she was at best complicit in, and at worst aiding a genocide. But Trump said Netanyahu was doing a very good job and he has serious support from the most batshit insane people in AIPAC. Trump actually said they need to finish the job.
Trump is not anti-intervention abroad as matter of policy, which I could support. Trump is anti-intervention (pull funding for Ukraine) when it helps his team (Russia) and pro-intervention when it helps his buddies (Miriam Adelson and her zionist ilk). I do think Trump will end the war in gaza, but it will be because Israel exterminates the remaining inhabitants and annexes it and the west bank. Mark my words. There will be no consequences for them doing so, because they have Trump and the US by the balls.
And, I agree with you on the second point, that the US would be better off with stronger manufacturing. There was a lot of good stuff in the inflation reduction act and the CHIPS act. At least domestically, Biden wasn't the disaster that he was wrt foreign policy. But again, it seems like Trump's inability to stand for anything is going to cause issues. We'll get tariffs but those are a pretty blunt instrument that is going to decimate American manufacturing while it gets up to speed.
It's wild that we agree on the direction of the country yet come to such different conclusions. How does this happen?
Biden has been meddling in Ukraine since the Maidan back in '14. He was basically in charge of the country after Maidan under Obama. Not enough has been written about this, but there's enough including a French documentary released back in 2018 or 2019.
I have friends from the "wrong side" of Ukraine and their family has been shelled by Kiev since Maidan.
As to Gaza, I see Trump and Kamala tied. I have to project Biden's admin onto her because otherwise she is completely devoid of content to judge her with. And this admin's record is that of Bibi bandolier.
So on the bloodshed in Gaza they're tied. On the blood spilt in Ukraine Trump's ahead. Advantage Trump.
Which leads me to Dr. Stein. A courageous Jewish woman who has the backbone to stand up to Bibi.
EDIT: if you want to know more about it Stephen F Cohen, a lifelong liberal married to the editor of "The Nation" wrote a book about it "War with Russia?". It came out in '19 based on his weekly interviews by John Batchelor. Prof. Cohen died in '20 ('21?)
It's not a tie for Gaza. Trump is the one who provoked and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. With his SIL being jewish, and his love for authoritarian regime like Bibi's - in what world do you think he gives a flying F about Palestinians? The left disappointed us for Gaza, but Trump will be much worse.
With regards to Ukraine - how do you judge the accuracy of the French documentary you watched? Who financed it?
Even in a far fetched scenario where you believe Putin felt threaten with NATO closer to his borders - does that suddenly make it ok for him to invade a sovereign state? Especially given they made an agreement to respect their territory in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nukes?
Oh right - Russia's word means sh!t.
PS: Stein is fully in Putin's pocket. Don't buy the Green Party BS who only exists for a few months every 4 years.
"The left disappointed us for Gaza, but Trump will be much worse."
The left "disappointed" you? That's a quaint way to describe material, personnel, logistical and diplomatic cover for a genocide. Real cute.
By contrast, all we have on Trump are mean tweets and executing a (stupid) decision by Congress to move the embassy.
"how do you judge the accuracy of the French documentary you watched? Who financed it?"
It's one of a vast volume of data that have definitively proven Biden's role. It is coherent other sources in a way that the narrative we're fed by the likes of The Economist isn't. The French made an easily digestible documentary for those who want to wade into a complicated story. It's a starting point. Prof. Cohen's another.
Btw, Hunter Biden's laptop - now validated in court - acknowledges Biden's culpability and form part of the whole of evidence.
"Even in a far fetched scenario where you believe Putin felt threaten with NATO closer to his borders - does that suddenly make it ok for him to invade a sovereign state?"
Do we really need to list the countries Democrat and GOP presidents have invaded for BS reasons? And Putin invaded for the genocide Banderites were committing in Donetsk. I have friends in Donetsk, so I have primary sources.
"Especially given they made an agreement to respect their territory in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nukes?"
The agreement also required Ukrainian neutrality,m. Meanwhile, Zelensky publicly declared in late '21 he wanted nukes. Anyway, there were the Minsk II accords that the Ukr. were in violation of.
"PS: Stein is fully in Putin's pocket. Don't buy the Green Party BS who only exists for a few months every 4 years."
Im not afraid of Putin. I'm afraid of the Lobby class in DC.
And Putin invaded for the genocide Banderites were committing in Donetsk.
So how do you think it's possible that this "genocide" was taking place at the time, when even now, several years later -- you will not be able to find a single reliable report of any kind documenting it?
It is all about NATO expansion into Ukraine and entirely avoidable. After hot debate, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO in 2014. This led to Russia taking Crimea to send a message.
NATO funded the expansion and upgrade of Ukrainian army for the next 6 years, and then reaffirmed the Ukraine would become a member in 2020, leading to the boarder buildup. Russia demanded Biden to disavow membership or face invasion, and Biden refused.
From the Biden administration perspective it was a win win situation. Ukraine falls and NATO support grows. Russia fails, and Russia is weaker.
> It is all about NATO expansion into Ukraine and entirely avoidable.
No, its not.
> After hot debate, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO in 2014. This led to Russia taking Crimea to send a message.
That’s a very nice theory, except it has nothing to do with the facts. The declaration that Ukraine would “eventually” become part of NATO was not made in 2014, it was made at the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest when NATO also bowed to Russian pressure and declined to offer Ukraine and George Membership Action Plans to serve as near-term on-ramps to membership. After that:
1. In 2010 Ukraine adopted a law prohibiting joining any military bloc, abandoning efforts to join NATO
2. Russia invades Crimea in March 2014
3. Russia invades eastern Ukraine in August 2014
4. In response to (2) and (3), Ukraine’s government in 2014 announced it would seek to have the non-bloc status law repealed and restart efforts to join NATO
.
.
.
n. At the NATO Brussels Summit in 2021, while again not granting Ukraine a MAP, NATO “recalled” the 2008 statement that Ukraine would eventually be a member.
You are absolutely right that I misremembered the Bucharest summit as 2014, not 2008, and it was Georgia that Russia invaded 4 months after the NATO secretary-General said the two countries would have eventual membership.
I think it would be only fair to include serval things on your timeline. Between 1 and 2 of your list you have the revolution ousting of the pro-Russian government that passed the 2010 NATO laws.
You also have a number of escalations following #4. In 2016, Ukraine was granted the Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds. In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status. In 2020 Ukraine was given the Enhanced Opportunities Partner status, Which is that status formerly held by Finland and Sweden, and currently held by Australia.
>> It is all about NATO expansion into Ukraine and entirely avoidable.
> No, its not.
Do you seriously think that we would be in the current situation had NATO flat out told Ukraine "no", or if the US had backtracked in the 2020s, instead of pushing forward?
> Do you seriously think that we would be in the current situation had NATO flat out told Ukraine "no", or if the US had backtracked in the 2020s, instead of pushing forward?
No, we’d be in a situation where Russia was firmly in control of Georgia, Ukraine, and probably Moldova, and was actively pressuring, e.g., the Baltic republics.
The way we’d be in a better situation is if NATO had told Russia to take a flying fuck in 2008 and extended MAPs and interim security guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine, and backed those guarantees up with forward deployed forces.
>The way we’d be in a better situation is if NATO had told Russia to take a flying fuck in 2008 and extended MAPs and interim security guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine, and backed those guarantees up with forward deployed forces.
I agree that MAPs and security guarantees in 2008 could have prevented Russian expansionism.
I agree that Russia would have significantly more control and influence in Ukraine with a "No" answer from NAT0, and be forced into many Pro-Russian positions.
I think better situation is relative to objectives. I think generally from the military strategic perspective, the current state of war is close to optimal for the USA, and far superior to either Ukraine in NATO or Ukraine in Russian control. It drains and isolates Russia, increases NATO spending, and spreads NATO influence. It does so for a tiny economic cost and no US military lives lost. It is a military strategists wet dream. However, I also think the current outcome is abhorrent from the moral, philosophical, and humanitarian perspective.
My main criticism is that I truly believe that US chose to take action to bring about this outcome over the much more humanitarian outcomes. It is easy to play chicken with Russia when the US has nothing to lose and everything to gain from a collision.
My ideal outcome from a moral perspective would have been a militarily neutral Ukraine (because I do not support extension of NATO for the sake of expansion) and some sort of autonomous Crimea and Donbas as Russian clients (because I support political self determination).
What criteria do you use to judge hypothetical outcomes, and what do you think should be optimized for? I suppose this is ultimately the crux of these disputes, and the historical chain of events is just window dressing.
Do you seriously think that we would be in the current situation had NATO flat out told Ukraine "no"
They did in fact give a flat "no" to both George and Ukraine, and that was the key outcome of the 2008 Bucharest Summit. What you seem to be missing here is that despite the nice-sounding press release you shared in the other comment, their formal application, in the form of their requests for what's known as a Membership Application Plan, was denied:
From 2008, Russia began stating its opposition to Ukraine's membership. That March, Ukraine applied for a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the first step in joining NATO. At the April 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared that Ukraine and Georgia would someday join NATO, but neither would begin Membership Action Plans.
One can read those various press releases ("communiqués") that came later as hedges / equivocations -- but that's all secondary. At the time, it was crystal clear that their applications had been rejected, and this was really quite a bit deal at the time.
As to whether we would be in the current situation right now: that gets into hypotheticals of course, but the main point is that Putin definitely did not launch those invasions simply "because NATO", but because his disappointment with the change of government in Kyiv in 2014 (and at least one of Putin's insiders has said there had been plans to at least re-take the Crimea since way back in the early 2000s). And as a way of perpetuating the regime's power, and cementing his own legacy.
That's why the whole NATO encroachment line is basically a foil -- it's just something Putin says, but it's not the reason he launched those invasions.
Im not making the argument that Ukraine became a member in 2008. They were told not only that they could become a member in the future, but that they would become a member in the future, and NATO would help them get there.
After hot debate, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO in 2014.
It did no such thing. NATO formally rejected Ukraine's membership application in 2008. And there it has sat, in the doghouse, ever since.
This led to Russia taking Crimea to send a message.
Russia's regime invaded the Crimea and Donbas on the 2014 on its own initiative, out of its own ideological motivations; nothing "led" it to take that action.
>We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process[1]
That's just word salad, and doesn't change the central fact:
NATO formally rejected Ukraine's membership application in 2008
It's exactly the same as when you get rejected by Google - of course you get a nice email (months later) saying that you're welcome to apply again. That's all that "aspirational" statement was. It wasn't a proclamation of anything of substance.
I can see how people overprotect it. There's been a systematic campaign against it since the 1930's with reefer madness and more propaganda that's deeply rooted in racism. Many older generations still share a very negative sentiment towards marijuana. It seems that some people over defend it given their experience with the negative connotation. It's still considered a schedule 1 drug by the federal government with no accepted medical use.
Sure, though what I find annoying is many of the same people are rabidly against tobacco smoking, even the faintest second hand smoke or vaping is treated like it's this deadly killer, but smoking farmed pot is this totally healthy thing in their eyes.
- I wonder if anyone considers smoking pot "totally healthy", or if this is just a straw man.
- Being exposed to second hand smoke is involuntary, whereas smoking weed is a personal choice. Probably makes a huge difference in how these are perceived.
- Tobacco contains tar and many other chemicals that are not present in weed and are mostly responsible for the harmful effects of smoking.
- Your comment is very polemic: "faintest second hand", "totally healthy". Not the best way to discuss the topic.
> Sure, though what I find annoying is many of the same people are rabidly against tobacco smoking
This is because we understand very well the harmful chemicals found in tobacco and cigarettes. We know that it is strongly physically addictive, and that it is the direct cause of hundreds of diseases millions of people die from every year. We even know very well its effects from second-hand smoke.
On the other hand, cannabis is not physically addictive. The chemicals it contains have been found helpful in treating several health conditions. Most importantly: there are very few, if any, deaths directly linked to cannabis use in all of recorded human history. This is not just many orders of magnitude less than currently legal drugs; it is within the margins of a statistical error.
Cannabis is not some miracle drug, of course. We desperately need more research into it, which has historically been difficult. But to compare it to tobacco is simply insane given what we know today.
As for the study mentioned in TFA, it's not clear whether the cancer link is due to smoke inhalation or cannabinoids. I did find the other mentioned study[1] that links certain cannabinoids to tumor growth more concerning. I'm glad that more research is coming out.
By that definition, any substance is physically addictive. Quitting sugar and carbohydrates has withdrawal symptoms.
The difference with tobacco is that nicotine is one of the most addictive chemicals on Earth, and it is toxic to humans. Cigarettes have been engineered to make them even more addicting, by boosting the amount of nicotine and adding many other harmful chemicals. The comparison to cannabis and THC is laughable in that sense.
The usage amount is also highly relevant. Even "heavy" cannabis users don't smoke more than a handful of joints a day. Meanwhile heavy tobacco use can mean smoking several packs a day. The difference in the average amount of tobacco vs cannabis consumption is staggering.
Tobacco is up there with heroin, yes. Caffeine is probably also worse than THC.
That doesn't mean that THC isn't addictive, though. It just means that it's less addictive.
Sure, but there are orders of magnitude of addictiveness between these. If THC is as addictive as sugar, we may as well consider it nonaddictive. But the narrative of the articles you linked to, and even from people experiencing THC withdrawal symptoms, is equating these levels, which is ludicrous.
Besides, is THC itself addictive? What about other cannabinoids? There are many non-toxic components of cannabis that people have been benefiting from for centuries. In comparison, there are few, if any, such components and benefits from tobacco. More research is definitely needed, but to address the original post: this is why people are against tobacco smoke. There is a world of difference between these plants, and equating them is further promoting the myths about cannabis we've been fed for decades.
THC isn't nearly as addictive as sugar. That's not to say it's not addictive, but more to point out that people seem to frequently underestimate just how insidious particularly refined sugar products can be -- mostly because most people have never taken the time to actually completely give up sugar for awhile to see the experience.
It's interesting that everyone acknowledges just how physically addictive alcohol is, and yet sugar, which is so closely related, is treated like an innocuous substance.
I think dismissing people's concerns as indoctrination is pretty weak.
My concerns are very similar to my concerns over alcohol and tobacco. It likely has benefits in small infrequent quantities but widespread regular use ("abuse" in any other drug) is a serious negative for society.
I do think it should be available but for use in private, with penalties for public consumption, DUI, child abandonment, and supplying children, that include losing retail access.
And for consistency, I do think tobacco smoking and drunkenness in public impinges on others' rights to go about their business. I'm far from a libertarian but I'm not against people doing their own thing as long as they're not putting others at risk.
None of those things really matter. It's crazy that we're invoking the racism boogeyman on this topic for instance. This is an article about a contemporary study. At the end of the day there are only a couple of things here that matter.
1) Understanding the full impact marijuana use in its various forms has on one's health.
2) Deriving that understanding 100% from high quality evidence, because that is the only way we can form an accurate opinion.
3) There is no 3).
We don't figure out the right dose by wringing our hands over bad policy decisions in the 1930s. Or over anything else, really, if that thing isn't good medical evidence.
The problem with this pro-MJ bro brigade online is when any evidence which comes up that's even remotely critical of marijuana usage, they pile on and ruin the signal to noise ratio of the discussion. These guys are losers who detract from the goal of being dispassionate and objective and understanding how to be healthy. I mean I've been pro legalization my entire life, I'm cautiously pro both recreational and medicinal usage, but I hate these guys because they're clearly not interested in talking about evidence and being healthy, they're interested in justifying their habit to other people.
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