Belief is social. If you’re surrounded by people that all believe a thing, you’re more likely to also believe. If challenged on something that threatens group membership, your brain reacts like it’s a physical threat. Group membership is that important. Facts matter far less.
I don’t think anyone is in favor of relaxing DUI laws.
If it remains a black market good, that precludes a lot of safety and regulation. Humans love drugs. If I was writing a sci-fi setting, drugs would probably be the Human Special Thing. They’re not going away. Focus on harm reduction. And as far as harm from drugs go, marijuana is pretty low on the danger factor.
One, those are famous works that used characters they didn’t create. Just off the top of my head. Also The Aeneid, which I haven’t read but the internet is telling me is basically Ascended Fanfiction.
Two, you don’t really seem to have an informed opinion on this topic. Which is, like, fine. Most of us don’t know most things. But maybe consider there’s good reasons many people are disagreeing with you.
I buy a new phone when my current one breaks. So like every five years.
Lots of people are bad with money or don’t prioritize the same things I do. I try not to worry about this. I worry about other unimportant shit like why do people roll for stats in DND 5e.
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics. In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
It’s written at a higher than 6th grade target, so it might be a challenge for anyone who’s not used to that. Please give it a good faith effort to read.
Thinking about it, the low literacy rate in the US might be an aggravating factor. Something like half of US adults cannot read at a 6th grade level. That’s going to hurt their ability to deal with complex topics.
I vaguely remember a friend in middle school telling me about how The Weird Kid stuck his head under the stall wall and into my friend’s stall while shitting was happening. I don’t even remember what The Weird Kid allegedly said. Something like “HEY BEN WHATCHA DOIN?” probably. My friend panicked and kicked him in the face, and I don’t think any adults were informed.
Lady I used to sit next to at work didn’t use an ad blocker. She also would have like the “do you want to install this plugin?” thing open in her ide for weeks. I don’t know how she did it. She’s a software developer so she’s reasonably tech literate. It just didn’t bother her enough to think about doing something about it.
it’s not my responsibility to bail them out of their problems.
Counter argument: Yes it is. As much as any responsibility exists at all, you have a responsibility to your fellow people.
“Well it’s not my responsibility” leads to a shittier world. And since you apparently have a degree and no debt, you can spare the energy to be better.
Have you by chance read Dante’s Divine Comedy? Or Milton’s Paradise Lost? Just to name two works that are widely considered Fucking Classic off the top of my head. Do you have much background in literature?