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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • Well, from a purely imperical viewpoint, it kind of is. Pros: a criminal is captured and potentially made to suffer in some way, which somehow balances out the cosmic scales of justice or something; this high ranking criminal can be plumbed for information, which has many assets seizing and additional criminal capturing implications. Cons: there is no reduction in criminal activity; there is actually an increase in violence and volatility; the power vacuum will inevitably be filled and essentially all the clandestine infiltration/investigation work up to this point resets to square one. Could be someone better, could be someone worse, but absolutely will be someone.






  • Well, there’s more people now then ever. The environment is either at or past an irreversible tipping point. Every year being either the coldest, the hottest, the wettest, or the driest in recorded time. We have too much CO2 and not enough potable water. The ice caps are melting, the choral is bleaching, the sea is rising, and bugs are on the ropes. We’ve got fascism problems in basically every country simultaneously. Not to mention there is frank discussion about not whether or not there are aliens, but what about them should be declassified and discussed with the public. Our terrestrial telescopes can’t see shit because of the sheer volume of satellites blanketing the night sky. And we’ve got cascading humanitarian crisis being captured in high definition and beamed to our 24 hour pocket sized global information machines, but all anyone seems to care about is what genitals you pledge allegiance to.

    There may be precedents for these times, but they are the type of precedents that immediatly precede a global cataclysms. If anything your average person is not being dramatic enough.



  • Speaking of HHS (from NYT):

    Marijuana is neither as risky nor as prone to abuse as other tightly controlled substances and has potential medical benefits, and therefore should be removed from the nation’s most restrictive category of drugs, federal scientists have concluded.

    The recommendations are contained in a 250-page scientific review provided to Matthew Zorn, a Texas lawyer who sued Health and Human Services officials for its release and published it online on Friday night. An H.H.S. official confirmed the authenticity of the document.

    But sadly

    Last month, Michael D. Miller, a Justice Department official, defended the D.E.A.’s prerogative in making the final decision on the administration’s position.

    “D.E.A. has the final authority to schedule, reschedule, or deschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act, after considering the relevant statutory and regulatory criteria and H.H.S.’s scientific and medical evaluation,” he wrote in a letter to Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who has pushed the D.E.A. to reconsider marijuana.

    I see no motivation for the DEA to voluntarily forfeit power and money just because it’s the right thing to do. Also think of career DEA guys’ pride and ego. They are not going to easily admit they’ve been wrong and that their rhetoric has been overheated for the past 50 years.







  • Because they would make him feel important. Because they would make him feel cool and nonconformist. He would feel like he’s really making decisions and choosing a path. He would feel in control and ontologically whole. Incidentally these are the same blinding motivations which guide the anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, anti-education anti-healthcare, anti-student loan forgiveness, anti-free school lunch, anti-gun control, anti-immigration, anti-affirmative action, anti-environmental protection, anti-democracy crowd.

    The problem with billionaires is the same as those who worship them, which I believe is what endears the latter to the former. They have a very profound hole in their self worth. If you’re a billionaire you probably got to be one by compulsively looking for something to fill that hole, or alternatively you inherited your wealth from someone who has. If you don’t recognize your worth, you don’t recognize your power. If you don’t recognize you power you feel powerless. If you feel powerless, your desperation to control makes you either easy to manipulate or antisocial, or both.