Interestingly, this is a situation created by previous Conservative governments. When the national rail system was privatized, lots of smaller individual train operating companies were created, each with a franchise to run different lines. They are incentivized not to cooperate with each other, because taking over another franchise, if another operator fails, doubles the size of your business.
So the employers were divided and the highly unionized employees were united, which meant that they did extremely well in negotiations. The membership overall are extremely loyal to their union leadership, because of how successful they've been in maintaining conditions and improving wages.
Yeah, that was a weird time in the uk. The tories sort of ran out of basic competence, even to rig the system to fit them. But then they went on "governing" for a few more years. See also "Black Wednesday" and other similar faff.
Perhaps the drivers should be paid a sum of money which closer reflects how much marginal value they add to the city, and this would convince them not to strike.
You put your finger on the real issue with the London Underground - the maintenance needs which are onerous and prevent the trains from running overnight on most nights.
But this still isn't the whole story. The Chinese-American population is bigger and more diverse than the Indian-American or Pakistani-American one. There are lots of families in all these groups where the generation that immigrated to the US was well-educated and professional. Even if that generation had to work extremely hard to get a foothold in the new country, the children benefited both from the high education level of the parents, and from the hard-working/aspirational mentality of the recent immigrant, and (she argues) from the traditionalist approaches to discipline and education which the parents brought with them.
These are the people whom Amy Chua is talking to and about.
The average Chinese-American income reflects relatively fewer of these highly successful immigrants, because there are many more Chinese-Americans who arrived in the US poor and with few options. That doesn't disprove what she said.
She has since written some extremely questionable things about race and identity, and been credibly accused of grooming her law students to be sexually harassed both by her own husband and by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The exact point is that because taxation does not consider this income, the vast majority of the money made by very rich people takes this form. Pro Publica's point is not that these people are breaking the law, but that the tax system should be different.
You would be very lucky to spend more than a minute in Hampstead Heath without another human being in view, at least at most times and in most parts of the park.
Take a full dose. Go outside to take a walk. Get arrested. Realize in lockdown that all societal control is just an illusion and an ego trip by those who think they need to pretend to exert power, and that nothing can hold down your divine, free essence as a living god.
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."
And wake up in a hospital weeks later realizing you got a bad batch because these drugs aren't legal so there's no quality control and now you're on the fast track to early dementia.
The worst I've heard of someone on acid is a terrifying 8 hours, but nothing beyond temporary distress, and nothing life threatening. AFAIA its so cheap to make that there's no profit incentive to cut it with anything else
Very possible for it to be contaminated without intent. I have friends who unintentionally consumed PCP-laced acid, ended up running through razor wire, woke up in the hospital.
This is simultaneously everything right and everything wrong with America: an entrepreneurial solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.
There are highly potent synthetics which are passed off as LSD, where unlike LSD, taking a small multiple of a single dose can be physically dangerous.
I've also heard of (hell experienced once) worse from pure LSD than a terrifying 8 hours. It's worthy of great respect and caution, and I don't recommend it to anyone on that basis.
Which isn't to say no one should take it, just that it won't be because I urged them to.
I'm not speaking from naivete here. The main point is that it's temporary. And 'hell experience' can be a useful one, especially with guidance. The sensible thing to do, for a first-timer, is to have a trip-sitter.
A more qualified person on this topic is James Fadiman, who recently sat down with Sam Harris to talk specifically about his clinical studies of dosing with psychedelics.
> There are highly potent synthetics which are passed off as LSD, where unlike LSD, taking a small multiple of a single dose can be physically dangerous.
The only cheaper thing I've seen floating around the darkweb is NBOMe. Can you be explicit about what you're alluding to here?
> I'm not speaking from naivete here. The main point is that it's temporary.
Perhaps not, but you're not speaking from all the experience in the world either, and you're understating the dangers.
I personally know someone who jumped off a parking structure on LSD, and I know another person who had ongoing mental problems triggered by LSD psychosis, where "temporary" included a bout of hospitalization and moving home to live in his Mom's basement for awhile, while he got his shit together.
And please don't say that suicide and psychosis happen to people when they aren't on LSD as well, or handwave about "don't take it if you might have latent psychosis". I know more people who use ecstasy than take LSD, and I've never heard of someone killing themselves on it; and how, exactly, is someone supposed to know they have latent psychotic tendencies before a heavy acid trip triggers them?
LSD is an incredibly powerful substance, which should be treated with respect, caution, and even a bit of fear. Obviously it can be worth it, the median LSD experience is life-changing in a positive direction, but in my humble opinion 2CB and psilocybin have a lot to offer while being less dangerous. 2CB doesn't appear to be psychotogenic at all, and psiloc(yb)in lasts 1/3rd as long, is less stimulating, and an hour of psychic trauma (which lasts a subjective lifetime) is less risky than six hours of psychic trauma (each of which lasts a subjective lifetime).
Of course, among my friends, the second worst outcome was nine years in prison. LSD shouldn't be illegal, and it has a lot to offer the world. But just like people should know that downhill skiing risks breaking your neck, no one should go into a relationship with LSD thinking that a 'temporary' bad time is the worst thing that can happen. It isn't.
Yes, I was referring to 2CBFly-NBOMe and 25I-NBOMe. There may be others by now, but if so I'm not aware of them. Point being that "LSD is not physically dangerous" needs to include the warning that not everything someone puts on a blotter is LSD, and some of those things can kill you in a very unpleasant way.
I've been to a bunch of MAPS conferences and met Jim, so since I don't like Sam Harris I'll pass on that particular podcast.
Thanks for detailing your specific criticisms, seems like you've some valid points. I can't say that I've been privy to any of the stories about psychosis, but if your anecdotes are personally verified (and you clearly know your shit) then I must be somewhat swayed by your experience. As an aside, I also think people should be cautious about psychosis from cannabis, based on my own witness of it ruining lives. Do you have any knowledge specifically about NBOMe?
As for Sam Harris, he says a bunch of unseemly things so I also understand your distaste for him. He does take a strong interest in psychedelics and meditation however, which are both interests of mine.
If you go through the trouble of making your own like Albert Hofmann did, sure. You're not going to though, are you? So you're putting your biggest asset in the hands of criminals of unknown intent. Good luck with that...
But I support your right to smoke, snort, or inject whatever you want. I'm getting older now and my brain is starting to slow down so I really appreciate your opting in to annihilating the advantage of youth.
Why do you presume me to be unwise? I think a better rhetorical strategy is not to be snarky, it telling of an underlying resentment, but doesn't change anyone's mind. samatman's response though a little heated, answered with knowledge and real world experience and has somewhat changed my perspective. I can't say my anecdotal experiences match theirs
I've done OK avoiding the brainfarts of thought leaders and other fools so far. But I grew up surprisingly deep inside drug culture with 2 drug-dealing siblings and their drug-dealing shenanigans.
Yet I believe there's nothing wrong with recreational drug use. But I know people firsthand that were messed up by bad batches, one permanently. Also, I find people who espouse fast paths to enlightenment are frequently closet psychotics. I avoid them too.
YMMV but my lightcone, my choices, no?
"If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." - Lin Chi
Perhaps interventions in diet, exercise and sleep and 'talking cures' such as therapy are both required for a real improvement in mental health.
So there are lots of people who claim that effort spent on general health did not solve any of their mental health issues, and others who claim that therapy was useless because they still had the same bad sleep and diet patterns and generally felt physically crappy.
Lots of people take psychedelic drugs, or other drugs such as cannabis and MDMA, and would claim that they are much much more successful at improving mental health than psychiatric medication.
This includes people who have to get hold of them illegally.
So the employers were divided and the highly unionized employees were united, which meant that they did extremely well in negotiations. The membership overall are extremely loyal to their union leadership, because of how successful they've been in maintaining conditions and improving wages.