> Not all drugs are created equal, withdrawal symptoms are different.

Not in my experience. I have voluntarily withdrawn from caffeine, opiates (administered by a hospital), and cannabis. All experiences were remarkably similar. When I run support groups for folks who've used drugs, I recommend folks experiment with caffeine withdrawal to gain experience with the process. It requires at least two weeks of cessation.

> They do affect the future population count

Seems that you're assuming homosexual folks would otherwise procreate if forced into heterosexual relationships, which is quite a stretch. I also know quite a few homosexual couples who raise scads of children. And childless heterosexual couples. This argument doesn't hold water.

> All experiences were remarkably similar.

Cool, my decision to not use caffeine is justified then.

What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business :) Victimless as it were.

That said, should you find yourself in a health emergency, as I did, and hooked up to a dilaudid drip for weeks, as I was, you may find experience with the symptoms of withdrawal to be quite useful for getting yourself through the worst of it, as I did.

Withdrawal is part of the human experience you don't always have a choice to avoid. Fear, avoidance, and ignorance of it makes potentially involuntary encounters with drugs more dangerous. Besides fueling unnecessarily destructive policy decisions.

Worth a think.

Sadly there are way more drugs in the world to never have used any. Drugs (now-a-days) don't even need to be physical.

> They do affect the future population count and this will affect the pension of everyone. They also will result in persons not being born.

So does abstention.

By your logic, then, if sodomy and homosexuality were illegal, then adults of child bearing age would be legally required to have sex.

Likewise, those unable to participate in conception would be prohibited from having sex.

Preventing misuse does not necessarily mean everyone should do it, so I fail to accept your logic.

Anyways I didn't want to discuss that, my claim was that you either think of something as victimless or you think it is a crime. Your data point seams to only fit this claim. To disprove it you would need to find something you consider victimless, but still think it should be a crime.

Why is misuse of drugs bad? And don't say "because it's misuse" - that would be circular.

I agree that people who think drugs, anal sex, or whatever should be a crime, can also rationalize that someone is the victim. They're wrong, of course, but they still think it.

When you said:

> They do affect the future population count and this will affect the pension of everyone. They also will result in persons not being born. You can say that this is way less of importance then the right to do whatever you want, but it is not without effect to others.

It appeared that you were not just stating what those crazy people who think anal sex should be a crime think, but what you thought. That's why you got replies arguing against the idea that anal sex should be a crime. You could have made it clear if you were just stating the views that crazy people have.

> And don't say "because it's misuse" - that would be circular.

Well that's the meaning of misuse, if it weren't bad it wouldn't be misuse. You can only ask whether something is misuse or how bad it is, asking whether misuse is bad is questioning a tautology.

> Why is misuse of drugs bad?

Actually I was replying to this:

> By your logic, then, if sodomy and homosexuality were illegal, then adults of child bearing age would be legally required to have sex.

So I was talking about misuse of sexuality.

> I agree that people who think drugs, anal sex, or whatever should be a crime, can also rationalize that someone is the victim.

Yes that what I wanted to point out. I was merely enumerating examples from the Wikipedia article.

> but what you thought.

I do think homosexuality is bad and unnatural. (No don't tell me it occurs in animals, any behaviour occurs in animals.) I don't think it should be a crime, so I don't think my opinion affects other people.

------

If we were to talk about my opinion about drugs in general, I think as to them being bad, they are kind of at the same level as money. You shouldn't become attached to them. They are more dangerous the more likely you become attached to them.

For any specific drug, I find the smell of cannabis to smell dangerous and poisonous in a weird and unexplainable way. I would like it, if this would go away, so I am in favor of banning it again. I also heard of studies indicating a rise in schizophrenia especially among young people (<30) and I don't wish that to anybody, just because someone tries to make money. I also don't think it's smart to do that, if you already have a lack of young people. But I lack the knowledge to check this for soundness.

I wouldn't mind smoking to go away from public spaces, I hate when I'm forced to inhale this. But I can't judge if it is justified.

I think alcohol is grand-fathered in. I also think there are very different kind of alcoholic beverages and also very different kind of usages. There are cultures that regularly drink liquor before eating heavy food, because it has a positive impact on the digestive system, but this is only about a few milliliters, so it is more like medicine. There is also a bit of alcohol in every apple. I think alcoholic beverages are too fundamentally incorporated in our culture, so I would find it sad to see it go away. I wouldn't mind having additional restrictions on harder stuff.

I don't think coffee causes any larger issues. I also think we don't need to discuss restricting access to sugar. Medical appliance of drugs is very restricted and constantly reevaluated.

I wish that large amounts of money would be more regulated, but I don't think we should touch the concept of private ownership. Also fashion or cars are the drugs of many, and now there is a large supply of non-physical drugs, but I don't know any non-restrictive policy that I want to support there.

I don't have experienced any other/harder drug and I prefer it to stay that way.

>> And don't say "because it's misuse" - that would be circular.

> Well that's the meaning of misuse

> I do think homosexuality is bad and unnatural. (No don't tell me it occurs in animals, any behaviour occurs in animals.)

Well, friend, that's the meaning of natural. "Found in nature"

Playing word games with one will get you called out in the same way on the other, regardless of your cognitive dissonance on the subject.

I do not now the meaning of something where badness != misuse.

> Well, friend, that's the meaning of natural. "Found in nature"

That's one meaning of nature. Other meanings are the nature of X, as in what is an intrinsic motivation or purpose, and natural law, but I guess you don't recognize that as valid concept.

Would you agree to "Killing others is natural"? You wouldn't expect "natural" to have the first meaning there either.

A lot of disagreements boil down to a different usage of a word, so "word games" are not fruitless in a discussion.

If it is important, then I would define misuse of a drug by motivation (high or low) and by application (whether the dose fits the motivation). misuse = low || dose != motivation; And I would say that this is bad, because low motivation doesn't satisfy the harm any drugs causes and a wrong does doesn't achieve the intended outcome.

None of this has any logical consistency, sorry. You weren't able to provide a rational argument for why using drugs is bad - only a circular one (it's bad because it's misuse; it's misuse because it's bad). I've heard this "nature of" and "natural law" line of argument before and it's very similar: strict heterosexuality is the nature of things because you said so despite all actual evidence to the contrary. There's no science experiment you can do to prove that, and many you can do to prove it wrong, but natural law proponents still insist it's true because they said so. "Natural law" / "nature of" is a meaningless word game.

Killing others is natural. That's a factual statement.

"I would define misuse of a drug by motivation (high or low) and by application (whether the dose fits the motivation)" is indecipherable, and therefore devoid of semantic content. It seems the war on drugs has created a problem of nobody knowing the slightest thing about drugs.

> None of this has any logical consistency, sorry.

Can you please counter any concrete logical step, instead of just dismissing it because you don't like it?

> You weren't able to provide a rational argument for why using drugs is bad - only a circular one

I stated that I consider misuse and badness to be that same thing, so no that was obviously not my argument. I told you what I consider to be the questions I would decide misuse on. Feel free to provide another definition.

> I've heard this "nature of" and "natural law" line of argument before and it's very similar

I don't expect you to agree with the philosophy of the scholastics, I only wanted to clarify my view.

> strict heterosexuality is the nature of things because you said

I think you again mistook "nature of a thing" to have a the meaning of everything the thing does do in nature. As such that would be an everything statement.

> "Natural law" / "nature of" is a meaningless word game.

No it's not. I don't accept you as the arbiter of philosophy, that just declares philosophy concepts to don't exist.

> There's no science experiment you can do to prove that, and many you can do to prove it wrong

The experiment is, do solely policy X in isolation with an isolated population. Do you like the outcome or not?

> [my definition] is indecipherable, and therefore devoid of semantic content.

Thanks. Can you please tell, what you don't understand, instead of declaring it to not have a semantic meaning?

> has created a problem of nobody knowing the slightest thing about drugs.

Could you please educate us on your mysterious knowledge about the nature of drugs? In case you somehow took that to be the case, I did not claim, that I consider any use of a drug to be misuse. I think I gave some examples in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45598978 .

> I think you again mistook "nature of a thing" to have a the meaning of everything the thing does do in nature.

Thanks for my daily laugh from the internet. For a while I thought you were serious. But this is comedic gold.

I am serious. Maybe there is something lost in translation. My dictionary gives me:

   disposition <n>, nature <n>, nature <n> of a person,  nature <n> of a thing, temper <n>, mettle sb. is made of <n> [archaic], natural <adj>, quiddity <n>, particular nature <n> (of a matter), essence <n>, suchness <n>

The examples make me think, that English indeed does have this meaning of the word "nature", and it's only you who doesn't know this, but maybe you would prefer a different word?

It only gets funnier.

Good when I can entertain you. :-)

Can you please explain the joke?

> I do not now the meaning of something where badness != misuse.

Seems to me that you've demonstrated clearly through the course of the discussion that individual definitions of "badness" differ substantially enough for there to be significant disagreement.

> A lot of disagreements boil down to a different usage of a word

Here you are making the same case yourself.

> Would you agree to "Killing others is natural"?

Happens all the time in nature, including the last time you ate a hamburger or some beans or bread. Happens also in self-defense and territorial disputes.

We also observe predators and prey co-existing peacefully in nature at times. I can see the rhetorical corner you're attempting to back the discussion into, and it's a weak position devoid of nuance or understanding. Further, it's one which can only be argued by someone who's connection to their food ends at the grocery store. Wild that some folks have forgotten what they are giving thanks for at mealtime.

You may not consider animals or plants to be "others", but then you've only given me additional reason to discount your moral judgement as incomplete, narcissistic, and even further disconnected from the nature you invoke as justification.

P.S. drug use is also observed in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_drug_use_in_anima...

> Seems to me that you've demonstrated clearly through the course of the discussion that individual definitions of "badness" differ substantially enough for there to be significant disagreement.

The claim I stated that that started this thread was, that different definitions of badness are accompanied by different but respective definitions of misuse.

> Here you are making the same case yourself.

Yes? I used a word having some meaning in mind, you interpreted it with a different meaning, which obviously doesn't work. You pointed that out, so I pointed out, that that was not the meaning of the word I was using it for.

> I can see the rhetorical corner you're attempting to back the discussion into, and it's a weak position devoid of nuance or understanding.

I think you are over-interpreting me, answering to something I haven't said.

> P.S. drug use is also observed in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_drug_use_in_anima...

That's what I was answering to, with "Killing others is natural". This is a factual true statement, but you wouldn't accept this as a moral argument in a court. Because animals (including humans) can do and do something, does not mean we want to cater to that as a society. In fact restricting things, that might not even be bad in isolation, is what separates civilization from the undomesticated.

> This is a factual true statement, but you wouldn't accept this as a moral argument in a court.

Self defense, as I pointed out, is a perfectly normal reason to kill someone which is widely accepted as a morally defensible argument in court.

> I think you are over-interpreting me, answering to something I haven't said.

Seeing as your argument was anticipated, and a suitable set of counterexamples was provided preemptively, I think not.

> Self defense, as I pointed out, is a perfectly normal reason to kill someone which is widely accepted as a moral argument in court.

"I (accidentally) killed him, while trying to protect me." is very different from "Oh, killing is just (second) nature to me, I need the daily kick." When you need to have a serious threat to make you do something, then that thing is in fact not your nature.

> I think not.

I pointed out another example of that meaning of the word "nature" and you answered as if I made claims about morality of killing or slaughtering people/animals?

Sorry to me that felt very much like scope creep.

> I think you are over-interpreting me, answering to something I haven't said.

> "Oh, killing is just (second) nature to me, I need the daily kick."

Physician, heal thyself.

And immibis complained, that my answers are indecipherable... . What do you want to say me with these words?

You state this like there aren't numerous other ways to fund these programs already.

We can start with actually taxing people with multiple piles of Scrooge McDuck money, as opposed to the current approach of cutting social programs that benefit millions of citizens to provide even MORE tax breaks for these "people".

Are you even serious with this?

What programs? What are you even talking about? Can you quote the stuff you are responding to?

Your statement: > Homosexuality and sodomy They do affect the future population count and this will affect the pension of everyone. They also will result in persons not being born. You can say that this is way less of importance then the right to do whatever you want, but it is not without effect to others. ===============================================================================

I assumed you were concerned with all social programs and not just your personal pension, hence the statement. Fixing pensions, while all other social safety net programs get gutted is not the way. Basic breeding by heterosexuals isn't the panacea you seem to believe it is, imo.

The real issue with US population growth is the insane world we live in. It's not "the gays failing to procreate". That's a laughable statement.

WTF would want to bring children into the world when literal criminals, rapists and alcoholics are running things, racism is on the rise and cheered, laws are optional for specific groups of people while abused for everyone else, SCOTUS is a complete parody of a court, Congress is run by wholly unserious people, prices of everything are rocketing up not because of genuine supply chain issues, or similar, but because of plain, old greed and much, much, much more.

Let's not forget that AI is being developed at a record pace to replace jobs, while shafting the working class, instead of being used to uplift everyone.

"The gays" were never the problem and never will be for population growth.

Yes, I was only talking about pensions, I don't think homosexuality has an effect on any other social security system.

Trying to fix pensions by forbidding homosexuality is laughable yes. There aren't even enough homosexuals for that to matter.

However a standard way to evaluate social norms is the categorical imperative. If everybody was homosexual we would have an issue there. But the only thing I wanted to say is that it does affect people, I didn't want to propose or defend any policy change.

Also I wasn't talking about money. This only gets you a portion of the future economy, the amount of young people decides how much economy there will be.

> WTF would want to bring children into the world when literal criminals, rapists and alcoholics are running things, racism is on the rise and cheered, laws are optional for specific groups of people while abused for everyone else, SCOTUS is a complete parody of a court, Congress is run by wholly unserious people, prices of everything are rocketing up not because of genuine supply chain issues, or similar, but because of plain, old greed and much, much, much more.

I don't live in the USA, so I don't think I should have opinions about your internal issues, but I do think you have a problem with authoritarianism there. But whose country hasn't so who am I to judge. However I do not understand this sentiment. How does it matter if the world is a shit show? When wasn't it that in the large scale of things? That seams to be the exception not the rule. It also completely fails to account, that people tend to have more children in darker times not less. Also how do you improve that world if not by raising children. You won't have any more lasting impact on the way of life of someone than on your children. "Science advances on funeral at a time." I think this applies to everything.

The categorical imperative always admits more than one possible rule. The rule that works here is that everyone should have sex with whatever gender they want to - not that everyone should be homosexual. Since most people are straight, the human race won't go extinct.