gilded-lilly

If you watched one per second, you would need to watch for 235 quintillion years before seeing them all, and 3.5 million years before seeing the same one twice.

But this is a type of knee jerk reaction confined exclusively to folks on the left.

Well, it’s a rather convenient shorthand to describe the set of views and positions (largely emotive and inconsistent) that characterize leftist thinking.

Well none that you gave a hoot about.

The “woke agenda” is a mainstream political shorthand. But I find it telling that you were able to infer that I was speaking about the left when I mentioned opposition to reason.

Well, you’re conflating a fringe movement of radical conspiracy theorists with the average person who doesn’t go along with the woke agenda. That in itself is an example of what I’m talking about.

I think civil discourse is possible if reasonable debate is allowed. Unfortunately, for one side, it appears that reason itself is problematic for them and they refuse it.

It is only possible as long as one side is able to have civil discourse, without labeling/demonizing/name calling and violently attacking their opponents. It’s quite hard to have a debate when people’s views are not only completely entrenched, they are simply not willing to give respect at all.

Not all drug crimes carry a death sentence in Singapore. Only meth/opiate manufacturing and importation above a certain threshold.

Keep spouting that nonsense. You’ve clearly never been close to a drug addict. As an addict told me once: drugs will take away everything you have.

Well, hey, if you’re willing to die on that hill, and feed your only child to the machine on principle, then I guess there’s nothing I can say that would change your mind. Personally, I think there is nothing good that can come from recreational heroin or methamphetamine. They are not only hurting themselves - the cost to society is massive. And while they may choose to do it - they can’t choose to stop.

Why do you answer?

It’s more like you go into remission.

Would you still think that if your only son became a heroin addict? Would you stand by your ideology in that case? Addiction is a life sentence.

Incorrect. Singapore has almost eliminated drugs and drug use entirely. I believe it has the lowest rates of drug abuse in the world.

If you want to prevent people dying of overdoses, then stopping people from starting would achieve that. “Decriminalization” is about treating the symptoms rather than the problem.

The thing that is, macroeconomic policy is already basically solved. It’s been understood for hundreds of years. But the lobbyists have succeeded in pumping misinformation and poisoning minds for so long that many factual untruths are blindly accepted by a large chunk of the population.

Why not encode them microscopically, using some kind of easily decipherable code?

The main issue would be loss of language. You’d end up with a gigantic Rosetta Stone of indecipherable gibberish.

Better would be to convert all literature into hieroglyphics, or graphic novels (or both), and then etch them microscopically.

Ministry of Truth. Orwell foresaw it.

Looks like people misinterpreted my point. It’s not the right to sell illegal items. It’s a right to sell your product without being compelled to do anything else from a “fairness” standpoint. That cripples productivity and innovation in the long term.

Actually, your comment is foolish. Allowing companies to not sell specialist tools to third party repair persons is not the same as selling weapons grade plutonium.

What about the right to produce sell any product you want to?

What about the right to sell any product you want?

I believe those types of problems can be mitigated or even solved by changing your perspective. Example, I can’t get revenge on those people who wronged me. But I can forgive them. And through that, I no longer care. It is in the past, and like children who have stolen a cookie from my jar, I have to forgive them. And so I’m released from my anger.

I’m not sure what the solutions to those other problems are, but I think there would be solutions of a similar vein.

I’m someone who has dealt with mental health issues over the course of my life.

The main causes are the following:

1) Illicit drug use. 2) Stress/anxiety/fear/grief

The answer is to accept the hard truths and understand what is the root cause of your depression. Is it lack of friends and family? Lack of hope for the future? Lack of enjoyment in things that previously made you happy? Belief that somehow success/truth comes at the expense of enjoyment of life (“ignorance is bliss”). Is it past trauma? A job/relationship you hate? Body/health issues? Aging? Feeling like you’ve achieved all your dreams but you’re more unhappy than ever? Bullying? Feeling unsatisfied? Unfulfilled? Shame about past behaviors?

All of these problems have solutions. Figure out what is at the core of your problem, and then treat it. Every problem is different.

For me, I realized I was harboring an incredible amount of pent up rage and resentment. The rage was so deep that it was all I could think about. Then I realized, I had to forgive the people who’d wronged me. And forgive them I did. I genuinely forgave them, in my own mind. And just like that, all my happiness came back to me. Suddenly I was free.

Also, I believe that almost all of our problems can be traced back to fear. So stop worrying. It’s a waste of energy.

There are some mental health issues that do require hospitalization and a short stint of medication to get you back on your feet and able to function in the world. But these people can hardly form a sentence without medication. Not folks who’ve self diagnosed. I think self diagnoses can be highly seductive for people, who might find false hope that their problems can be traced back to some problem for which there is a cure - when in fact the cure is usually not medical.

Your comment made me realize the universe is a quantum computer calculating the position of every sub atomic particle in real time.

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong here. I think there are strong arguments on both sides. What I would say is, I think Hendrix would’ve been booted out of a higher education system due to not conforming to the established principles of music theory, or some such thing.