I read the first paragraph of this article and I already think it sucks. If heroin was fully legalized, zero restrictions, we’d be much better off than the current situation we have right now with the war on drugs, fentanyl analogs, and xylazine. Full stop.
America Has Become a Digital Narco-State - Paul Krugman
Submitted 3 weeks ago by GertrudGoethe@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/america-has-become-a-digital-narco
Comments
deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
DomeGuy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Paul Krugman is a nobel-prize winning economist who used to have a column in the NY Times. He has a relatively impressive record of predicting terrible things.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman
And while I certainly don’t want to push back on the difference between heroin and other opium derivatives, it’s worth noting that legally speaking they’re both exactly as illegal when not used as prescribed for the treatment of pain or disease.
It’s not a blog post about heroin or opiates, though, so quibbling over the imperfections of his analogy is kinda missing the point. Please give it another read if you have a few minutes; the analogy is fairly apt, though very depressing as an American.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Paul Krugman is a nobel-prize winning economist who used to have a column in the NY Times.
Aka totally discredited.
Devial@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
Has this dude never heard of the tobacco, alcohol or gun Industry ?
He’s talking about commercial heroin like it’s some outlandish and unthinkable idea that a harmful thing would become a billion dollar industry
pdxfed@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
He’s deliberately making the point accessible because he’s writing for all levels of readers, including Americans.
He won the nobel prize for economics and was one of the few sane voices during the great recession.
ijon_the_human@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Who is this author and why is he so ignorant of the past few decades of opiate problems in the US?
The author is Paul Krugman, a little known economist, writes for the papers I think.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Sorry if I’m getting whooshed, but Krugman is an infamous economist. He takes really big swings and is sometimes incredibly wrong.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve heard the name before but I’m not super tuned into this area. The analogy just really struck out for me in the first two paragraphs, monumentally so. If he writes with this amount of conviction about something he clearly has no idea about, I’m not likely to trust anything else that he writes in the same article. It’s important to know your limitations.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Another shill for the NYTimes… Check their op/ed pages. Full of worthless libs saying dumb shit.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Based on this I’m not gonna read the rest of the article because he’s already demonstrated a head-up-ass perspective.
You do know that the entire rest of the article never mentions drugs ever again and you’re getting needlessly spun-up about a metaphor for social media and you’re just trolling, right?
deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
No, I’m not trolling. Why would I believe this person to know what they’re talking about in a subject I don’t understand well, when I know they’re wrong about a subject I do understand well?
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
You do know that the entire rest of the article never mentions drugs ever again
Cause it’s clickbait bullshit.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If heroin was fully legalized, zero restrictions, we’d be much better off than the current situation we have right now with the war on drugs, fentanyl analogs, and xylazine. Full stop.
If we hadn’t invaded Afghanistan and started importing heroin in bulk through Ahmed Wali Karzai’s mafia connections, we wouldn’t have tons of cheap heroin to hook people to begin with. Also, we did have fully legalized (functionally) zero restrictions opioids, back under Bush Jr. That’s what Oxycotin was.
If you want to describe the US as a criminal nacro-state, you can start at the Florida pill-mills that flooded the country with hundreds of billions of dollars in highly addictive pain pills and made the Sackler Family some of the wealthiest people on the planet.
Based on this I’m not gonna read the rest of the article
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Freely available heroin is not a good thing. Drug addiction would get significantly worse. Decriminalize possession, criminalize distribution. That’s a more balanced approach
demonsword@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Freely available heroin is not a good thing. Drug addiction would get significantly worse.
same thing was argued about cannabis and there was no explosion of addiction predicted by the puritanist false Cassandras.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
They weren’t saying it was a good thing, just that it would be better than what we have. Which is true.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Yeah because the tobacco, pain reliever, and social media industries clearly show how great and non predatory totally legal heroin would be.
zebidiah@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Sackler heroin? … Only if Bayer gives up the patent!
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Krugman is a worthless hack. Sensational headline with implicit endorsement of the “war on drugs” is a prime example.
willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Here’s one of the best traders talking about the same issue:
invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=bMK8ct6ybjQ&t=1918
It eloquent and funny at the same time.
I included a timestamp to jump (almost) directly to the most relevant bit (also 33m, but 31m sets up a better context for an extra 2min of time compared to going directly to the 33m mark). But the whole video is worth watching.
cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Being one of the best paid traders in the world does not necessarily qualify you to advise the government… There are plenty of morons who (for some time) are able to make a killing as a trader due to taking excessive risks and being sufficiently lucky for some stretch of time.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So it would be OK to hit the suppliers with bombs like the US does in South America?
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Only if they attack unrelated people that they don’t like.
lmr0x61@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Damn Paul, from downtown!
Suoko@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
I’m not sure heroine is the right sample, I know digital products cause addiction like heroine, maybe cocaine would be more realistic when talking about possible increase in GDP, with all that heroin around the US population would be wiped out in a couple of gen
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s an analogy, the article is about digital privacy not drugs.
It doesn’t matter what substance he uses as an analogy because he’s talking about the dangers of pushing a dangerous product at industrial scale.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 50 minutes ago
It's not just about digital privacy. It never talks about data privacy. It's about consumer protection and social media's nature being harmful. The only European law violations mentioned are anti-scamming + "𝕏 refuses to make its public data available to researchers". It's also explicitly in favor of KOSA, which lets the FTC ban anything it wants from children's eyes online. It's quite implied that the article supports banning social media for youth.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
It actually mattes what shitty “analogy” he uses, because he’s implicitly endorsing prohibition and related violence that’s ongoing and extreme. It’s a typical lib tactic of normalizing state violence.
Suoko@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Well, didn’t I say it was just the wrong analogy?
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The metaphor is a bit of a reach
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The usual bullshit Krugman clickbait.
NatakuNox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As well as just your average narco state. We love our drugs
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Seems like the Opium Wars all over again.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 1 hour ago
Okay, that comparison's still wayyyy over-the-top.