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Definitely agree on the Hubble Space Telescope! Total hero.

I see no reason to worry about people possessing demons as long as the demons get their shots and are kept on a leash. legalizing demon possession would allow sensible regulations.

Can you provide examples? I'm having trouble thinking of anything that is based on frequency alone. Laser light can be illegal if it is beamed towards aircraft. Radio waves can be illegal if they are transmitted with high enough energy to disrupt a licensed frequency, or if they carry information that is not compatible with the frequencies' license.. but otherwise they are still legal. I can have an FM transmitter in my car to play my phone legally because it is too low power to cause interference.

What frequency of light is illegal just in itself, regardless of power, information content, or target?

These are awesome! Really helpful to shift conversations towards harm reduction.

We need a social context for how and when to take them (beyond "let's partee!"). If you look at cultures with a long history of psychedelic practice, the use tends to be very ritualized, with a lot of specific context as to when they are taken, how often, and for what purposes. There is also substantial effort taken to integrate the experiences.

If you just take a bunch of stuff at a party and believe everything you experience is literally true, sure you are in a risky position. We need to push people towards communally-meaningful experiences with integration afterwards, and away from just blasting their minds into space willy-nilly.

We can't do this while they are illegal though. Keeping them illegal encourages the worst kinds of uses, with no oversight or integration or cultural meaning.

I was thinking of the state's congress. However you are right that's not what it is called. I'm so used to thinking of the federal system I misremembered the term. Thanks for clearing it up.

It is important not to lump all drugs together. Personally, I think heroin and amphetamines are extremely dangerous and would hope people stop taking them. Addicting children to amphetamines as part of treating ADHD is very worrying to me.

Drugs like ibogaine in particular, and LSD and psilocybin to a lesser degree, on the other hand, have shown great efficacy in helping people overcome addictions. So by greater access to psychedelic therapy we could massively reduce the impact of the drugs that are causing harm.

Furthermore, it is very difficult to overdose on most psyechedelics as most people don't want to trip again right away after an experience, and also that the amount you need for an experience is often orders of magnitude lower than the dangerous amount (for instance you can have a significant trip on 100 micrograms of LSD, an overwhelming experience on 300 micrograms, but it would take many grams to be fatal).

This is a good argument in general but unfortunately it depends on tax structures and other external forces. For instance, cannabis is legal in many states now yet cartels still distribute it at huge profits simply because the taxes are exorbitant and also that there are weird rules about who can buy how much when (example: prior to adult use laws I still purchased cannabis illegally even though I technically could have gotten a medical license because it was so complex to get one). So while I firmly believe the answer is yes, there is still a balancing act that needs to happen.

There have been a -lot- [0] of MDMA studies at this point, for PTSD and other issues. In particular a common finding is that the efficacy of MDMA+Therapy 1 year post-treatment is far higher than therapy alone (significant reduction in relapse of symptoms as well as severity of symptoms). I encourage you to look at the variety of studies conducted and their different designs and controls and not base your judgement on a single study (this is good advice for any medical research, not only MDMA, as well).

[0] https://maps.org/research/mdma

Great points. Worth noting that Tylenol is extremely hepatotoxic in quite low doses (relative to the therapeutic dose). Several grams can kill you.

Native Americans already have a legal way to use peyote in the context of spiritual practice.

More likely if we all call our congresspeople and let them know that we want it passed.

I generally agree with you, but I think decriminalizing is not only good first step, but does itself allow for a small amount of quality control. For instance if MDMA is decriminalized, but PMA (something you very much would prefer not to ingest but is nevertheless sometimes sold as MDMA) is not, then people holding PMA would still be at legal risk. Over time this should tilt the scales in favor of the decriminalized substances over counterfeits.

thats a super catchy name!

implementation issues such as, wanting to maximize profits at the expense of workers.

Currently public offices are allocated by vote to people who have absolutely no idea what the job entails, yet are seeking power. So picking people randomly by lot does seem superior to me vs. picking people who want power.

Maybe we could make it even better by, instead of picking people at random, picking them by pools of capability. So for instance the person in charge of the water supply could be chosen by sortition of plumbers.

Athens -- a city built by slaves with riches obtained by military conquest, for the exclusive benefit of men. A poor model to emulate; we can do better.

Nevertheless, I think Sortition is a very interesting approach we should consider implementing.

https://letsownpge.org has some answers to these issues.

Directly quoting people is not character attacking them:

Here's a screenshot of what Tim Boyd (the mayor I quoted) said, in his own words: https://twitter.com/Holiday1326/status/1361808806515253248

and here's Rick Perry in his own words: https://www.republicanleader.gov/whats-up-in-texas/

I'm not in any way mischaracterizing what these people say and therefore it is not a character attack.

You may disagree with my conclusions, and you might even be justified saying my conclusions don't belong on this site, but you can't just imply I'm lying or simply trying to make people look bad.

Capitalism working as intended was the main driver of the Texas power shortage. Texas' grid was explicitly designed to profit off of shortages, which is why it has always been kept separate. Former governor Rick Perry said Texans would rather have no power than have federal regulation of their grid. The mayor of Colorado City Texas said the government owes the people nothing and that the strong will survive and the weak will perish.

Until we have socialism, exploitation and abuse of the poor will continue.

Could do it the same way JS did it, with const and let keywords. Breaks nothing.

on iOS: turn that off with Settings > Mail > Load remote images

do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?

yeah the domain tells me everything i need to know--not interested in this particular device and hope they fail. someone better should do the same thing.

This is awesome! Do you have plans/a timeline for keyboard/mouse input?

wow. these are human beings you are talking about, not animals. busing people out is incredibly dehumanizing, and is widely acknowledged as a violation of human rights. it destroys these peoples support networks and ability to receive aid.

if you are unable to give them money you can at least acknowledge their common humanity and treat them as a person, and not a problem to be fixed.

--edit-- HN is not letting me reply right now so to answer your question i'm putting it here: i live in the SF Bay Area, which is far more dense than Portland. I work with a lot of unhoused people. I volunteer to feed them, distribute blankets to them, and make an effort to let them see how people still care for them. Do some of them ramble incoherently? Sure, a few, but frankly, not much more than the average Fox news viewer.

> No matter what I do, these people are allowed to exist where I live, but I don't consider them part of my community at all.

this makes me sad to hear. who would disallow them to exist? and how would that disallowing happen? how would things change if you did consider them part of your community? maybe your interactions would be different if your attitude and energy changed?