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Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

I am actually sympathetic to your position, though I don't do illicit drugs (or any drugs). But, you would need to up your game if you really want to argue your case on HN. I can think of several good arguments, better than "Why do you care if I get high when I get home?", but this is probably the absolute worst place to have that discussion. You would also need to do a better job of picking your battles. I think neither of us did a good job with that in this case.

Best.

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>But, you would need to up your game if you really want to argue your case on HN. I can think of several good arguments, better than "Why do you care if I get high when I get home?"

There IS no better argument. Pardon my language, but I think a large proportion of the HN community especially agrees with the sentiment of STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY BUSINESS. If what I am doing has no or marginal negative effect on others, as a free human being with rights to self actualization, personal fulfillment, and self-determination, no one has any right tell me what I can and cannot do with myself.

The drug war is fundamentally about the restriction of human rights and invasion of privacy.

>The drug war is fundamentally about the restriction of human rights and invasion of privacy.

The drug war discussions will eventually end up with the argument about whether one has complete autonomy over their body, which isn't the case, because suicide is still illegal. Hell, even euthanasia is so far away from being legal in most of the US.

Humans are social creatures. If you wish to participate in society -- and you basically have no choice these days, because there seems to be no place on earth where you can completely get away from society -- you have to accept constraints on yourself. Laws that work well put a lot of thought into trying to balance the rights of the group with the rights of the individual. Erring too far in one direction or the other winds up being inherently problematic for all parties. You can't have a healthy group if none of the individuals are healthy, and you can't have a healthy individual if the group as a whole is a sick system.

I can think of lots of better arguments than "stay the hell out of my business." But this thread does not look to me like fertile ground for trying to get into any of that.

You don't do any drugs at all? I find that hard to believe So no caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, aspirin etc? No vaccinations. So everything is non drugs at all?

What about all the drugs in your food like meat, do you not eat meat?

You can't say you don't do any drugs. You will say well of course I do X drug, but that's not really a drug like all those others.

Guilty as charged. I eat meat and I consume caffeine.

I even do so consciously and intentionally "for medicinal purposes." I even blog about that fact, which gets largely ignored by the world, never mind that it is obviously revolutionary. However, like Rodney Dangerfield, I get no respect.

But, I have never smoked, I rarely drink alcohol and it has been a lot of years since I took either prescription drugs or OTC drugs or even had a vaccine. (Now cue the folks who will accuse me of being an evil piece of shit anti-vaxxer.)

It's great to hear that you don't do any drugs at all. I'm assuming you don't drink coffee/tea, wine/beer, smoke, or take any pharmaceutical medications. Congratulations on not being a hypocrite! You are in the proud 0.0001% of people who follow this strict code.

For the rest of us mere mortals, I suppose we will have to continue taking our medications.

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