Week Question #1 - Do you think you should be able to decide what you want to do with your own body?

[Chronus]

Just tried that. Not working.

Can you tell me if:
- you can edit/correct any post, replied to or otherwise?
- you can edit new or old posts?

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Just tried that. Not working.

Can you tell me if:
- you can edit/correct any post, replied to or otherwise?
- you can edit new or old posts?

yes on all of them. strange...

 

[Chronus]

Uh. Go figure.

Thanks, Hampus.

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

For premium members there is unlimited time to edit posts. I assume there is a time limit for normal accounts but not sure how much it is.
http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/account/upgrades

 

[Chronus]

Hmm...Are you Premium, Hampus? Maybe that is it?

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

Hmm, seems not:/ Maybe @Bram Hengeveld can help

 

[Chronus]

Ok, no prob, Knut. Thanks for thinking about this issue.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Nope no premium unless Bram forgot to tell me haha

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

I can still edit mine...?

 

[Carlos Luna]

Yes, people should decide what they are able to do with their own body. It is THEIR body, so who are you to tell people what to do with themselves? Of course, I don't mean to say that people should just be allowed to do everything to their body. Anything that can be lethal or causes hallucinations should be monitored, such as drugs or medicines. The candy example Hampus brought up is a perfect example. The same idea applies to soda, it's been studied endlessly that soda is not healthy for the body yet there are multi-million dollar businesses that thrive off the sale of soda.

It's issues like these that anger me in US politics. Abortion and gay marriage being two topics that this applies to. Republicans believe that abortions should be outlawed and that gay marriage should not be allowed;however, what gives them the right to choose what other people can do with their body? A lot of republicans defend their stances through religion, which is complete nonsense as well as there should be a separation of religion and government in the first place. /rant about US politics

 

[Chronus]

Yes, people should decide what they are able to do with their own body. It is THEIR body, so who are you to tell people what to do with themselves? Of course, I don't mean to say that people should just be allowed to do everything to their body. Anything that can be lethal or causes hallucinations should be monitored, such as drugs or medicines.

On one hand, according to the above, yes you should decide what to do to your own body.

On the other hand, people "should just be allowed to do everything to their body".

Which is basically the issue here, thus making it a complex one.

Abortion and gay marriage being two topics that this applies to. Republicans believe that abortions should be outlawed and that gay marriage should not be allowed;however, what gives them the right to choose what other people can do with their body?

Gay marriage? Nothing to do with what we can do with our own body, but you are right people should decide, not the state.

Abortion? Again not a matter of doing something to one's own body, but rather attacking and destroying another human life (even if in its very initial stages of development - still Life and still human).

It is a complex issue, and not as black and white as some "Rights activists" make it look. As I said previously, one is never alone, there are always consequences to one's actions, and these consequences alone may (should?) settle the debate with a simple conclusion: NO YOU CANNOT DO EVERYTHING TO YOUR OWN BODY.

 

[Warren Dawes]

I'll give a mature person prespective, but one which will probably be dismissed by most younger people.

The argument that "I should be allowed to do what I like, so long as it doesn't affect anyone else" is very common these days, but the decision isn't usually made under the best circumstances. It might be ok if the person made that decision in full knowledge of the impacts, long term consequences, but I doubt this is usually the case. The decisions made when you are young are very likely opposite to those you would make later in life, but sadly, it may then be too late.
Many young people (I'm talking very young eg. teenagers) take up smoking, drugs, alcohol, etc for very stupid reasons (to look cool, experimentation, boredom, rebellion), but realise too late that the addiction has long term consequences.
Secondly, it's impossible to judge whether your decision will impact others. Mostly, others will be badly affected and in ways that weren't anticipated.

So, whether we like it or not, we NEED laws to try to protect people as best we can. In my rather long lifetime, I've seen many people regret the decisions they made when they were young, I've seen the results of bad decisions, and often it is not pretty.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

I'll give a mature person prespective, but one which will probably be dismissed by most younger people.

The argument that "I should be allowed to do what I like, so long as it doesn't affect anyone else" is very common these days, but the decision isn't usually made under the best circumstances. It might be ok if the person made that decision in full knowledge of the impacts, long term consequences, but I doubt this is usually the case. The decisions made when you are young are very likely opposite to those you would make later in life, but sadly, it may then be too late.
Many young people (I'm talking very young eg. teenagers) take up smoking, drugs, alcohol, etc for very stupid reasons (to look cool, experimentation, boredom, rebellion), but realise too late that the addiction has long term consequences.
Secondly, it's impossible to judge whether your decision will impact others. Mostly, others will be badly affected and in ways that weren't anticipated.

So, whether we like it or not, we NEED laws to try to protect people as best we can. In my rather long lifetime, I've seen many people regret the decisions they made when they were young, I've seen the results of bad decisions, and often it is not pretty.

True but should the laws be laws based on the profit they can make or should we be more scientific in terms of what should be legal and what should not?

And where do you draw the line?
700.000 people died last year from conventional medicine.
Less people died from heart diseases or cancer for example.
If you take 10 aspirine´s it will be your last headache...

Alcohol kills millions of people every year.
Even more millions die from alcohol related incidents.
Cigarettes kill millions every year, not just directly but indirectly because you have been exposed by the smoke from a smoker.

Alcohol is legal because regular peeps can control it and see it as something good when used properly.
Should we ban it because a minority of the drinkers can´t control it?

You make it seem very black/white when it´s really isn´t.

 

[Chronus]

Warren didn't say a word about banning anything.

He referred to laws that protect people as best as (we, society) can.

But ultimately, if a substance is known to cause heavy addiction and problems to 5% of the population (rather generous percentage, obviously; in truth, the numbers are much higher) should we feel fine just because it doesn't affect us and only that minority? It doesn't sound like a proper evolution to a society.

Inevitably, such discussions always end up at a crossroads: do we live by the "wild wild west" motto of every man for himself and to heck with laws? Or do we agree that:
a) as a species we need to make sure we evolve harmoniously
b) we as a species must survive, and the only way is to make sure we do not self destruct

Full, uncompromising individualism will lead humanity to a black alley and then we shall be no more.

There must enough laws to prevent this, but not too much as to prevent freedom, creativity and free will (free will being the responsible use of one's rights, including body).

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Warren didn't say a word about banning anything.

He referred to laws that protect people as best as (we, society) can.

But ultimately, if a substance is known to cause heavy addiction and problems to 5% of the population (rather generous percentage, obviously; in truth, the numbers are much higher) should we feel fine just because it doesn't affect us and only that minority? It doesn't sound like a proper evolution to a society.

I never said he did either. He was talking about the laws.
So my question was should the laws be based on profits or actual science?

Caffeine and Nicotine are pretty high addiction wise.
Remove either from them for a couple of hours and see them go mad.

Should it be legal? If yes, should for example Cannabis be legal?
It haven´t killed a single person on this planet.

If you look at Cannabis vs Alcohol there´s absolutely no logic behind why one of them is legal while the other is not.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Full, uncompromising individualism will lead humanity to a black alley and then we shall be no more.

There must enough laws to prevent this, but not too much as to prevent freedom, creativity and free will (free will being the responsible use of one's rights, including body).

This is what i mean. How should the laws be based?

Based on death rates?
Based on how much the government can tax it?
Based on if a company can patent it?
etc etc.

Or simply, because someone says so?

Please understand im not arguing against anyone, i just think that "we should have laws, but not too many to prevent freedom" says nothing at all.
It´s basically just a collection of words that means nothing essentially. Nothing that you can work of.

 

[Chronus]

I never said he did either. He was talking about the laws.

Didn't you imply it, at least? I'd say so.

So my question was should the laws be based on profits or actual science?

A rather good question with an obvious answer.

But your question was:

Should we ban it because a minority of the drinkers can´t control it?

The answer to that was given in my previous post (though Warren may think differently).

The answer to the profits vs science based laws: science, always. What other answer could there be?

There is however a problem. One you know full well exists, as we have been discussing such issues in another thread.

Take global warming. My former professors involved in geophysics say global warming as caused by man alone is nonsensical. I have read reputable professors, scientists say the same thing.

However, we went from a "oil sponsored scientists contradict Global Warming" to a "politicians & big companies sponsored scientists say Global Warming exists".

On one hand, "science" says GW is not real. On the other hand, "science" says GW is real.

Can we trust science to tell us the truth?

So, again, not a black and white issue. But, ultimately, profits should never determine what is right and what is wrong. Problem is, for all intents and purposes, profit does not "seemingly" determine this - profit acts through other channels and not fully exposed. Which means, as long as we have the news media we have, the frontiers between profit and science, good science and bad science, will always be blurred. So, how do we decide?

Easy: we should always take the most humanitarian course. Always.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Didn't you imply it, at least? I'd say so.

Actually i started it all off with the word: true.

A rather good question with an obvious answer.

So Alcohol should be banned or should other substances be made legal?
Where do you stand, again, where do you draw the line of dangerous, and not dangerous?

But your question was:

No my question was actually this,
"So my question was should the laws be based on profits or actual science?"
Next one was,
"And where do you draw the line?"

The answer to the profits vs science based laws: science, always. What other answer could there be?

Agree. But where do you draw the line? Scientifically speaking?
Deaths? then we would have to ban a whole lot of things.

There is however a problem. One you know full well exists, as we have been discussing such issues in another thread.

Take global warming. My former professors involved in geophysics say global warming as caused by man alone is nonsensical. I have read reputable professors, scientists say the same thing.

However, we went from a "oil sponsored scientists contradict Global Warming" to a "politicians & big companies sponsored scientists say Global Warming exists".

On one hand, "science" says GW is not real. On the other hand, "science" says GW is real.

Can we trust science to tell us the truth?

Yes and no it seems. We should be able to fully trust science but with the way it´s funded there is inevitable that you won´t always be able to do that because someone has the ability to strangle the research etc.

So, again, not a black and white issue. But, ultimately, profits should never determine what is right and what is wrong. Problem is, for all intents and purposes, profit does not "seemingly" determine this - profit acts through other channels and not fully exposed. Which means, as long as we have the news media we have, the frontiers between profit and science, good science and bad science, will always be blurred. So, how do we decide?

Easy: we should always take the most humanitarian course. Always.

And the humanitarian course is what?
As you say it´s not black and white.

this is the reason i´m asking, because saying "take the most humanitarian course" is as complex as everything else.

Again, where do you draw the line? Scientifically speaking.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

The most black and white are these:

Legalize everything.

Ban everything.

For the first you would have to come up with solutions and new types of help for people that do get addicted to whatever drug they now fancy, like Alcohol or Cocaine.

For the latter you would still have to come up with solutions like the above because people still get addicted to it even though it´s illegal.
But you are dragged with a war on drugs.

Millions die because drugs are illegal, billions are being spent fighting it because you create a market for criminal gangs.

If you legalize everything you will have more cases of addiction for every single drug.
If you ban everything you will create black markets which leads to billions being spent fighting it and millions dying because they are in that industry.

-
For me the most simple solution for me would be to legalize everything, yes everything.
But under heavy government control.

they can tax the living crap out of it if they want but you would effectively kill the criminal aspect of drug dealing.
Hundreds of thousands of people would not be thrown in jail because they smoked a joint or similar.

I think that money they burn chasing Columbians in the forrest could be spent on education instead or prevention or whatever.

then you have the ultimate question of, "what causes people to do drugs?"

That´s where the issue starts really. One would be poverty and a shitty life in general.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

And to move away from drugs to something more accepted in society.

Family A, the son in the family is a dare devil, he runs Isle of Man, many of his friends have died, he likes to base jump as well.

His mom is probably terrified every day thinking about the activities her son is doing.
He then dies. And the family is now devastated at it.

Should we ban it because he was a bit selfish and did what he loved?
there´s as much of an addiction to do crazy **** as there is to smoke cigs or drink alcohol.

Some people can´t imagine their life without a daily dose of Adrenaline, a drug made inside the body for the sole purpose of survival.
And some people don´t like Adrenaline at all, most people get scared by it and don´t generally like the feeling it gives.

So as i said, nothing is really black and white.
We can all make general assumptions that sounds nice but in reality none of it is something we can work on.