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Lumifer comments on LINK: An example of the Pink Flamingo, the obvious-yet-overlooked cousin of the Black Swan - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (75)
That line of argument isn't going to go well for you, see e.g. marijuana.
The article glosses over the reasons for criminalization except for a single unbacked reference to "xenophobia".
Also what about cocaine and heroin. The example of cocaine is illistrative, after Friedrich Gaedcke first isolated cocaine it took decades to realize how dangerous it was. Part of the reason was that he and his doctor friends didn't have problems with it. Turns out that 19th century doctors had been selected for unusually high willpower.
Furthermore, the fundamental problem of which the isolation of cocaine was emblematic is getting worse as technology improves.
Google is your friend. The criminalization of marijuana is well-documented.
So we have nothing to worry about plants humans consumed for millenia -- like Cannabis sativa and Papaver somniferum?
Unless chemists start concentrating the relevant chemical, or they're used by people whose ancestors haven't had millennia to adept to them. Yes, this applies to alcohol as well.
Thanks, I needed a big laugh today. Your grasp of artificial selection is completely ludicrous.
Wow, you totally fail at reading comprehension.
Hint: the word "selection" has meanings besides the biological one.
Still implausible. At which point did willpower factor in the career path of an aspiring 19th-century doctor (in a way that it doesn't today)?
I never said it doesn't today.
Your earlier comment implied that there was something specific about 19th-century doctors that prevented them from realizing how dangerous cocaine was. Today we know it's dangerous. What did you intend to say was different about doctors back then?
The fact that today we have data on its effects on people who aren't high-willpower doctors.
You're answering a different question. First you said 19th-century doctors were especially willpowered, then you said willpower is also a factor in today's doctors. Now you say the difference is not willpower but the population examined. You're not only not giving any evidence for you claims; you're running in circles.
Reread my comments again. Your failure at basic English comprehention is not my problem.
I think he's saying that the original population didn't notice it because of high willpower, then it get into the mainstream population who didn't have as high willpower, at which point we began to get data on the effects in a low willpower situation.
Cocaine is not even close to as dangerous as heroin, the physical debilitation from alcohol and cannabis is far more extreme than anything with coke, in fact most are underwhelmed and cannot see the point.