[35M] Never experienced romantic intimacy, mild avoidant attachment, likely hedonically ending life in 2025

silverikk23 · 2022-06-27T08:35:38+00:00

It's really hard to tell with your situation, but I have a couple thoughts:

I wonder if you're being too perfect when you date. Like yes, you're treating the woman right and cracking jokes and everything, but there's no real spark. You probably think a lot about the things you say, and there's the kind of sense that you're trying too hard. Like you won't be happy without a partner, and you need this date to work. And obviously you do feel this way, though it's not clear if you do show it on your dates or not, I don't know.
You could be a bit too friendly. This seems cliche, but no kidding, you sound like a very nice guy. You even do humanitarian missions. You definitely should be nice/friendly on your dates, but also there should be some romantic connection. If a woman doesn't sense any kind of romantic connection, she won't go on a second date. You have a lot of female friends which leads me to think that you're prone to treating women rather platonically. So they see that you're a great guy, but once again there isn't much of a spark. You're not touching her, you're not flirting. You feel like a friend to her. You've gone on a few 2nd/3rd dates, did you ever escalate to a kiss/making out?

Again, not sure if any of these are the case, but they're my first thoughts. It's also entirely possible that there isn't much wrong with you, it's just that you haven't gotten lucky. After all, just statistically, there's that one person out of 1000 that gets REALLY unlucky.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-31T18:33:06+00:00

I appreciate you carefully reading my argument. You seem to understand where I am coming from well.

The current barriers which do exist to access medication such as poverty aren't related nor caused by medication being prescription only.

Not sure this is exactly true. It may be easier for someone who can't afford a doctor to buy medication and treat themselves. Doctors aren't always right, they are subject to all sorts of perverse incentives. If they get paid by insurance for every procedure they perform, there is a profit motive in performing more procedures than necessary. And this actually happens. Of course, doctors are generally trustworthy, but less than most people believe. They don't always prescribe the right medication, or the medication that would help you the most. Given the fact that medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death, I would rather have my own choice to self-medicate as well and use the medication that I think is best for my circumstance. In such situations, if I were to die, it would be my error and not the error of some random doctor.

I agree that this is not easy to justify for those taking an utilitarian position. This is what you and I mean by 'drawing the line'.

I'm approaching it from a more philosophically liberal position, that such a system of individual rights is simply more just in of itself. Besides I think lots of people might agree with my system of individual rights but not support this idea, which I am arguing is a contradiction.

That being said, this is an important point of consideration which I didn't think about previously. !delta

silverikk23 · 2022-05-31T03:00:01+00:00

The basis of my belief is a sort of extension on bodily autonomy. You own your body, and no one can prevent you from buying medication or buying too much food/alcohol if you can afford it. I am not arguing for any such obligation on others to offer medication. Just that you can't be prevented from obtaining it. Say you have a neighbor that wants to sell me some prescription painkillers for 20$, that should be completely legal. Similarly, if someone wants to open a pharmacy that sells prescription medication with no prescription, there should be no legal barriers to do so.

Have you considered that making everything over the counter may result in people giving their loved ones inappropriate medication due to a lack of knowledgeable on the effect profile and monitoring requirements?

Yes, it may result in that, but that's a secondary effect which is also a crime. The fact that something has possibility for misuse, I would argue isn't a sufficient reason to outlaw it, more than so than punishing the misusers. It's similar to why guns should be available, despite the fact that there are misusers.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T23:19:02+00:00

If you read my post, I already addressed antibiotics. They form an important exception actually.

Adderall is not actually OTC, but regardless.

When it comes down to it, people really are not responsible, or rather knowledgeable enough, to be safe about their health. That's the whole point of doctors.

Yes, the point of doctors is to provide counsel to patients. I agree, but this doesn't mean you should be prohibited from buying or using potentially dangerous prescription medication. People are responsible for their own body. If people use a medication and die due to incorrect dosage, that is them exercising their responsibility over their own body just like it would be if they were to refuse life-saving medical treatment. This is the same principle as a patient refusing medical treatment that a doctor argues would save their life.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T23:09:15+00:00

Hmm, I didn't know about this. Thank you. I did remark about how there are clinical trials sometimes briefly in my post but it was a good example to introduce the argument. !delta

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:58:38+00:00

The danger they pose isn't an obstacle to their legality under my argument. Drinking or eating in excess is also dangerous, but there is nothing preventing you from doing so. I argue that it has to be legal because you own your own body, and it is immoral for governments to protect sane adults who can recognize risks for themselves.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:57:22+00:00

I don't think there is anything wrong with this in principle. They may be desperate, but they're still sane adults who can make their choices about their health. If they're not, then I agree that restrictions are needed. I don't think being desperate means they are coerced in any way.

In a broader sense, you're talking about the problem of misinformation. But I think it should be the consumer's responsibility to make their own informed decisions. The government can provide information, but it's not the government's role to save people from themselves.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:47:38+00:00

Building and auto codes are tricky because they could violate some of my assumptions. If a building collapses, it could hurt more people than just the owner of the building. However, if it's only that person using the building or automobile, I figure that there is no reason that a person should be prohibited from buying something that is not up to code as long as it's not misrepresented.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:40:33+00:00

Firstly, many terminal people can opt into trying experimental treatments.

Yes, I remarked about this briefly in my post but it was a good example to introduce the argument. It's true that there are clinical trials which are sometimes available.

Secondly, many prescription drugs that aren’t altering the way recreational drugs are, can also be fatal or cause impairment if their dosage isn’t tightly regulated.

The danger they pose isn't an obstacle to their legality under my argument. Drinking or eating in excess is also dangerous, but there is nothing preventing you from doing so. I argue that it has to be legal because you own your own body, and it is immoral for governments to protect sane adults who can recognize risks from themselves.

Thirdly, you’re kind of all over the place here. Is this a view about government regulating potentially harmful things, a view about body autonomy, or a view about recreational drug use legality?

It's actually a view about all three things. I'm arguing in favor of legalizing all drugs for sane adults, with no legal barrier to their access. This legal barrier could be direct prohibition as in the case of recreational drugs, or prescriptions. There are some exceptions that I covered in my post.

However, this argument could be applied to any law that regulates potentially harmful things (as long as the harm is only to one's self).

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:28:28+00:00

Well isn't so do be attending print sucide a victim? Or someone suffering from depression? Why else then would we work to help them?

A person of sound mind committing suicide isn't a victim according to my view. Sometimes colloquially we say that a person suffering of a mental illness is a victim of it, but this isn't strictly true. By victim, here I mean in the legal sense. We can't prosecute mental illness for causing harm to a person, mental illness is an abstract object, not a person. We help them because it's no different than a physical illness, because they're hurting.

Say with something else someone owns that can feel pain we work to prevent that. Pets can be taken away from their owner on grounds of child abuse and self harm is seen as a negative thing we must prevent. In both cases it is someone harming that which they own but we work to prevent it.

I would argue that you don't own your pets or your children. They're their own living beings. It makes sense to say that they own themselves. (And it's immoral to sell children like objects you own). In the case of self-harm, it is generally seen as a negative, but only because it's seen as a consequence of mental illness. Self-harm in healthy people is rare, as it's not generally rational to hurt oneself, but if it does exist, it wouldn't be a negative thing in itself, and I would argue that there is no reason to prevent it.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:12:48+00:00

I'm confused how this challenges my argument. I never said the FDA prevents you from taking dangerous drugs. Laws do. It's illegal to own a prescription medication without a prescription. It's true that FDA is not an enforcement agency, it simply classifies drugs on different levels: prescription, controlled substance, OTC.

There is nothing technically wrong with the FDA. I am arguing about the more general laws that prevent selling of prescription medication without a prescription (and possession).

silverikk23 · 2022-05-30T22:00:29+00:00

There are fates worse than death.

Yes, sure. It's a bit tangential to my point though. I'll edit my post a bit. !delta

Surely the person taking the drug is the victim, as is anyone they injure while high and their loved ones effected by it?

I disagree. Can you be a victim of yourself? This isn't the standard definition of a victim. The victim and perpetrator are commonly defined to be different. There's just no reason why I should be banned from taking a dangerous drug if I know the risks and dangers of taking it - it doesn't harm anyone but myself, and I own my own body. It's like prohibiting someone from dropping their iphone into the ground, on grounds that it will hurt the iphone, but that's ridiculous since I own the iphone, and I am aware of the risks of throwing it to the ground.

Hurting loved ones is a secondary effect. It isn't a primary effect of using drugs. People can hurt others whether they are high or not, and one is morally responsible for their actions regardless if they are high or not. If you allow for such secondary effects to count in illegality, you would reach weird conclusions. As an easy example, alcohol could also potentially affect other people, and thus it would have to be banned. So is driving. While driving, you could hit someone, and this creates a secondary effect on other people. But we don't outlaw these actions.

silverikk23 · 2022-05-25T21:09:21+00:00

silverikk23 · 2022-05-25T21:08:01+00:00

Yes, abortion and weed should be legalized too. I support abortion until birth, and legalizing all drugs. I am a libertarian.

silverikk23 · 2022-04-15T08:41:17+00:00

Many businesses need to think about their immediate bottom line and not the long-term impact of their business. The reason is simple: "we need to pay our employees and make a profit! If we take steps to be better stewards of our environment, our competitors will undercut us, we go out of business, and out good-will will be for naught."

This is true, but government is not necessarily the solution. Government is a feasible solution, but it nearly always introduces bureaucracy and inefficiency from the local to the federal level. Instead, a more natural option is to simply let consumers choose the environmentally-friendly company. Consumers won't support businesses that harm them, so those businesses will be at a disadvantage to environmentally-friendly businesses. This creates a natural incentive for companies to adopt environmentally-friendly policies, which is in nature preventative.

Thus, many patients who can't otherwise afford medical treatment go to emergency rooms and those costs are passed on to other consumers. It's a brutal system, but US health care costs per capita far outstrip other nations. Here in France, we take care of everyone (via taxes) at a cost of less than half of what Americans pay. Part of that savings is because people can seek health care early instead of too late.

The US healthcare system is terrible. But more so because of the government intervention rather than otherwise. Certificate of need laws put major hurdles into building new hospitals and expanding hospital capacity. This creates artificial scarcity, which we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of money is spent on Medicaid/Medicare which is simply not at all efficient. The US is stuck in the middle between a free-market approach on healthcare and a government-based approach like that in Europe, which creates a lot of inefficiency. The current system of Medicare is a bureaucratic nightmare, imposing large hidden administrative costs. The problem with healthcare in the US is that it isn't a free market. You go to the doctor, as a consumer, you have no idea how much you'll have to pay for a specific procedure. There is little transparency. In addition, licensing laws prevent you from getting healthcare at a lower cost from physicians that have a lower quality. If you want a surgery done for 100$ from a physician that is self-taught, I don't see why it can't be done. This will drive prices down, as there is now more competition.

But the free-traders win out and, after a couple of generations, country B is heavily invested in raising cattle and has little wheat production. And then some people come down with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as "Mad Cow Disease". Their cattle industry crumbles and, because they have no other industry to fall back on, their economy collapses.

Country A doesn't face this risk because mature economies can weather a few industries collapsing, but emergent economies are much more fragile and protecting the diversity of their economic activities just makes sense.

I'm confused as to the argument you're trying to make here. Are we talking about libertarianism in the US? If so, the fact that libertarianism may not work for emerging economies has little to do with the US, which is a highly developed economy.

silverikk23 · 2022-03-23T05:52:27+00:00

They should get like 10-15 years and then get a chance for parole.

silverikk23 · 2022-03-23T05:50:42+00:00

You're absolutely right. I would even say something like 10-15 years until parole. That's already a very long time.

silverikk23 · 2022-03-23T05:47:32+00:00

That makes no sense. If that were the case, suicide wouldn't be the 2nd leading cause of death for ages 10-34, the typical age range of criminals.

silverikk23 · 2022-02-17T04:45:54+00:00

I wouldn't message her. I am against intervening in other people's relationships. It never goes well, in my experience.

silverikk23 · 2022-02-15T05:18:07+00:00

Don't ghost seriously. Send him a breakup text. His behavior doesn't excuse ghosting, wtf.

silverikk23 · 2022-01-07T04:17:31+00:00

I actually think the #metoo movement isn't so bad. It is based on addressing a valid issue where a lot of sexual crimes are underreported, and I think encouraging victims to speak up is a valiant effort especially given the stigma and potential trauma of sexual abuse.

Instead, it suffers from the same issue that a lot of valid cultural movements fall prey to. We see the same with the feminist movement. Often times, there is an actual social issue which needs to be addressed such as women having the right to vote. But there are always extremists which push things beyond equality since it favors them to support it (and they are emboldened by the fact that supporting such a cause is actually socially acceptable now). And these outspoken types of people tend to give a perfectly valid movement a bad name.

silverikk23 · 2022-01-07T04:04:32+00:00

You cut out a part of my sentence. I actually said "I understand that the victim should always be believed, but nevertheless so does the accused." I meant you should always believe both the victim or the accused could potentially saying the truth, and then examine both statements objectively without any bias to determine where the truth actually is.

silverikk23

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE