Hm. My conception of HR seems completely orthogonal to yours. It *enables* liberty and autonomy. But the way you're
describing it, "do-gooder", "interfere", "spirals", "homeostasis", etc., it
sounds like an attempt to *manipulate* the users.
It's nothing like that. By taking my street drug to someone who knows how to test it, I'm ensuring
that my *intention* is satisfied. "I don't want to take a bunch of strychnine. I want to take
a bunch of LSD." HR is assisting the drug user in their use of drugs, not attempting to stop
the drug user from using drugs. It's similar with other drugs like heroin. "I don't want to
overdose. I want to get high." HR helps ensure your dosage is appropriate to your *intent*.
Yes, of course the teatotalers and prohibitionists need to be persuaded to do
something other than the stupidity of the drug war. So, to appeal to those
do-gooder types, we can explain that a *side effect* of HR is that those who
don't actually intend to get high, they're just trapped in some bad attractor,
they will be helped out of that attractor. But don't confuse the side effect
with the purpose.
On 1/7/22 09:10, Steve Smith wrote:
On 1/7/22 7:01 AM, glen wrote:
...<Harm Reduction>... And perhaps it's a manifestation of whatever core physiology it is that binds the [ma|pa]ternal-individual perspectives into a triangle. HR seems to cut a comfortable, practical slice through the mess, much like what I imagine a steely-yet-kind affect would look like.
I do have an affinity for the Harm Reduction conception to a degree, and see how it can break the
"downward spiral" that I think is implied here (I feel bad; I take risks/drugs to feel
better; I get caught/judged; I feel bad;....etc). Someone once told me "you are always
either spiraling up or spiraling down in this world, it is the choices you make at any given
instant which you are doing". Even homeostasis ideation leaves room for a mix of up/down
spiraling within some limits. I don't have a lot of experience with drug (or other harsh)
recovery up close, but I have known a lot of mild addicts... people whose
drug/alcohol/sex/spending/exercise addictions *seem* to interfere with their quality of life and
have tried (only mildly) to bump them onto new trajectories. I would say all of them were in some
kind of dynamic homeostasis that had worked for them for years if not decades, and who was I to
interfere with their patterns which were by some measure, actually working.
I haven't. But I'd *like* to buy some street drugs and take it to, say, a rave and have
the HR team test it just to get a feel for that process from the user's perspective. I
think I can project how it might feel to be on the HR team. But I really don't have any
idea how the users feel about it. One of my neighbors back in Oregon, I'm speculating,
would have thought the HR team was part of the "deep state" ... or spies for
the DEA. But I've known many drug users who are more rational than she was.
The major proponents of HR that I know of tend to be do-gooders who believe they are
"saving people". That is not to say that they don't have some successes, and
that the spirit is a good one, but to the extent I have had people (try to) interfere in
my life, it is generally unwelcome (until I am ready, whatever that means). I think the
fact (not the aspiration) of HR can mean that many individuals who might have spiraled
right out the bottom have the opportunity to reverse their spirals and spin back
upwards... ideally through a different mechanism (finding something besides the addiction
that is hurting them to climb back up with?). I think HR is more important to the
non-subject of the HR in that it removes us (somewhat) from the judgement that whomever
is being *harmed* *deserves* to suffer, and I think for the most part, that makes us
better citizens... to relieve our own judgements at least in one or two contexts.
I had heard the phrase "there, but by the grace of God, go I" many times, and dismissed
it as religious gobbledeygook until a very non-religious friend said that about a homeless person
on the street in a time and circumstance when I was able to recognize the "grace" in what
he was saying.
- Steve
On 1/6/22 09:41, Steve Smith wrote:
Your use of Gaze worked for me, but I also understand Marcus' reaction to it. I'm sure others would as well... Gaze as you intended it and the rest of us received it is naturally a multi-spectral phenomenon... some of us have notches in our Gaze, as you suggested Q-shaman and Rittenhouse in their own Reflective Gaze perhaps. I had not heard the reference to the nanny/daddy/libertarian triangle before but it fits how I do think about the tensions, up to and including my own internal apprehensions and intentions which sometimes have my mind/soul running a little bit like a Wankel engine... each combustion chamber taking it's turn (positive or negative pressure) on each of the three extrema you describe. It seems like there is a meta-pattern in there, a first derivative of those quantities that can get a resonance set up, driving us forward (or backward). In reflection on my ambitious youth, I think I was driven by that triad... 1) Wanting the freedom to
explore/experience with abandon; 2) Wishing someone would clear my path, pick up my broken toys and cut the crusts from my avocado toast; 3) Wishing someone would bitch-slap the people who were getting in my way or not cooperating and maybe give me a hearty slap on the back anytime I did something bold.
I also like your invocation of the Steely Affect Judge in these cases. I have my own
distrust/judgement of the "<Adversarial> Criminal Justice System", mostly from
having worked as a PI for a few years (in my ambitious youth) but the few members of those
professions (judges, lawyers, LEOs) that I developed a lot of respect for were those that
seemed to have a truly humanist center AND the Steely Affect you suggest. Unfortunately those
were as Unicorn as the apocryphal Benevolent Dictator and the GoodGuyWithGun... I left the
biz because (partly) I didn't see a righteous niche for me (or anyone?) in that game.
<aside> As an antidote to those judgements/kneejerks of mine, I *was* very
pleased to see how hard the judge, prosecutor, and ultimately Governor of Colorado
worked with the recent Manslaughter Case where the sentences for the trucker were
required by law to be consecutive, leading to a 100+ year sentence for something that
I think ended up being reduced to order 10 years. I wanted to see more of that kind
of unity (vs adversarality) in cases like Floyd, Rittenhouse, Aubery, etc...
I have only begun to follow politics closely in the past 6 years or so but was not
surprised to find how few *statesmen* we had among our elected officials. Among those
who seem to have truly dedicated their life to trying to make this nation (or any given
state or locale) a better place for all who live in the jurisdiction, many have a very
different idea from me of what "better place" would look like, but at least
they seem to engagable on the topic.
--
glen
Theorem 3. There exists a double master function.
.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
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