If you were put in charge of trimming Earth's human population down to 3 billion or so, what would your criteria be for who stays and who goes?

Clayburn · 2012-05-24T16:15:55.027867+00:00

Rape has always been used a weapon of war, because it's effective. It destroys people and communities, which is really great when that's what you're aiming for. You neglect to mention that historically Britain, Germany, the United States, India, France, Japan, China, Russia, Serbia, and many other countries and ethnic groups have engaged in military-endorsed war rape.

Sub-Saharan Africa is still wading shoulder-deep through the legacy of colonialism. One of the bi-products of being colonized and then decolonized is warlords and ethnic conflict (see: India and Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Ireland, Indonesia, Egypt, Serbia, etc.). Largely impoverished and disenfranchised nations who suddenly have their governments dismantled tend to have some problems. It's not just African countries.

Canuhandleit · 2 days

Do you have a source for your California statistic? California has a slightly lower rate of binge drinking, but their liquor board is also very different to ours. Some states without liquor monopolies have very rates of alcoholism and binge drinking, like Wisconsin and Arizona. There's no way for us to tell if the relationship is causal based on our own internet research. It's best to defer to government or (even better, because it's slightly less likely to carry a bias) academic research that can better explore the correlatory relationship between high risk behavior and alcohol availability.

I don't think that making liquor available in a given location between x and n hours constitutes prohibition, especially since the actual prohibition act made the manufacture and consumption of alcohol illegal.

I actually said, verbatim, that we consider alcohol a right. That doesn't mean that high-volume alcohol is a right.

Canuhandleit · 2 days

Yeah, I hear you, but part of enjoying a privilege is that it's not always easy to get. It's nice for things to be convenient, but our need for convenience doesn't always outweigh public health concerns. Again, I don't doubt that you and your wife consume liquor responsibly. I'm just saying that we have public health policy, and liquor monopolization, exist to reduce harms to others who may not be in a position to protect themselves. Obviously, what we really need is public education and better treatment programs. However, we don't exactly have all our ducks in a row there, so sometimes other measures, which may inconvenience those of us who are not at risk have to be taken to protect those who are.

If you look at my previous comments, I've linked to studies suggesting that regions without liquor monopolies are not, in fact, doing quite as well as those with liquor monopolies. Again, I-1183 itself acknowledges that, with a 50% increase in the availability of hard liquor, extra precautions will have to be taken to prevent the distribution of liquor to minors and people who are already too drunk. The liquor board has had to develop a new training program for grocery store employees, which we're all paying to deploy, in an effort to curb these effects.

Basically, I just don't think that "but having to go to the liquor store is inconvenient for me" is an effective argument when we're talking about how we voted on a state-wide ballot initiative. Voting isn't about making your life negligibly easier. It's about evaluating the pros and cons and coming to a reasonable conclusion. The only two arguments for demonopolization I've seen here are "I don't like government" and "I just want liquor", and frankly, the "I don't like government" argument is the only one that actually has any conviction behind it. Also, you know you can buy liquor online, right? And they can ship it to your home or your workplace?

GhostOfJon · 2 days

Yeah, he's a total sweetie. It breaks my heart to see people making fun of him.

Canuhandleit · 2 days

I know, not saying I'm down with tobacco. Just saying it doesn't put those around them at risk the way that alcohol does.

Canuhandleit · 2 days

The initiative's opposition group was also endorsed by:

-Washington State Public Health Association

-Washington State Medical Association

-Washington State Nurses Association

-International Community Health Services

-SeaMar Community Health Clinics.

-United Food & Commercial Workers Local 141 (nurses)

-SEIU Local 1199 (nurses)

-Alcohol Justice, formerly the Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog

I don't know if the Public Health Association is secretly scheming with beer lobbyists.

GhostOfJon · 2 days

His name is Boe Odyssey and he's super nice. You should say hi to him next time you see him.

Canuhandleit · 3 days

Hey, you're right. Sorry if you think I came off anecdoty. I do think that growing up in Seattle provides good perspective on how we handle our booze, though.

Anyway, when I-1183 was first on the ballot, I didn't know how to vote on it. I was like, "Oh hey, securing my right to party? Hell yeah" but my dad was firmly opposed to it, so I did a lot of research. For example, state liquor monopolies reduce the risk of underage drunk driving fatalities. Removing an alcohol monopoly increases alcohol related harm and morbidity in general.

Two of the top three donors to I-1833 were out of state retail chains.

Basically, alcohol is not a need, it's a "want". We have access to safe (meaning: produced under a set of standards and quality-regulated) alcohol, which is more than a lot of people have. But anyone who's ever known an alcoholic knows what a bad fucking thing alcohol can be. We should have access to it, but that access should be appropriately regulated, because it is drug. That's all.

Also, I don't doubt that most of /r/seattle have perfectly healthy judgement. But teenagers and actual alcoholics don't, and sometimes you gotta look out for the little guy. And also, help make sure that the little guy doesn't crash into 7-11 while you're buying Sun Chips.

Canuhandleit · 3 days

You guys think I'm going all prohibition on your asses. It is my personal opinion that the drinking age should be lowered to 16. I think that families should begin introducing their teenagers to alcohol around this age, so that they can get used to a thing that is very much a part of our culture.

However, neither of these things are in effect, and for that reason, we should be cognizant of the effects that simultaneously refusing to adequately educate and accumulate children to alcohol while providing easy access to hard alcohol will have.

Canuhandleit · 3 days

I argued with the actual initiative and with State projections of outcomes based on the initiative.

Canuhandleit · 3 days

Yeah, cigarettes don't really make people crash their cars into trees or beat the shit out of other people.

edit: also, I can enjoy liquor in my home too. That was the point. I can buy it at the liquor store. Hell, I can buy a bunch at the liquor store and the airport and stock up, so I can get more when I know I'm running low. Liquor's fine. Personally, I love scotch. I just think it kills people who can't handle it (and sometimes the people around them), so having a few prohibitory steps to acquiring it isn't such a bad thing. We've kind of grown accustomed to alcohol as a right, and that's fine. It enables us to like our coworkers, and get into longterm relationships after some sloppy drunken making out with someone we've been awkwardly "hanging out" with for two weeks. But hard liquor gets people drunk quick enough to turn them into absolute nutters, so keeping it on a "you can have this if you go out of your way to get this, and also if you are over 21 and not totally scared of that dude with the Liquor Control Board shirt" shelf just seems like a logical idea.

Did you even read the initiative, though? It really is deplorable.

FreudianWhip · 3 days

Oh wow. This made me laugh so hard I cried. The "other dogs" bit is like the icing on this catshit cake.

I recently went with my mom to adopt a cat from the Seattle Animal Shelter, and if that place was a human, it would have cats spilling out of its ears. She ended up getting this nice little obese thing named Molly, who loves spooning and is terrified of birds.

Please, someone here adopt Tubbs. He looks like a wonderful cat and/or dog.

Canuhandleit · 3 days

So I know this is going to be a wildly unpopular opinion, but I'm not particularly stoked for liquor in grocery stores. I drink moderately, go out on Fridays, have a drink with dinner at restaurants, and enjoy the occasional beer or beers at home. If I ever wanted liquor (say, an expensive bottle of scotch or some vodka for a party), I'd go to the appropriate place to get it (in this case, the duty free shop or the liquor store). This has never been a problem for me (although growing up here, I've never known anything else).

One big problem for me, however, was getting liquor as a teenager. We'd stand outside shops all the time and ask people to buy us Steel Reserve, but we never went to near the liquor store, because we were scared shitless of the state liquor board. The few times we did get liquor it was because someone was feeling ballsy enough to steal from their parents liquor cabinet, or someone's brother was home from college and agreed to buy us Jose Cuervo at a 300% mark-up. The liquor nights always ended up really poorly.

Beer is so great in so many ways. It takes longer to get drunk, you have more time to realize you're getting drunk, and if you've had limited experience with booze, it helps ease you into "This is what it's like to get hammered". A fourteen-year-old girl takes three shots of tequila in five minutes and then she has to go to the hospital.

Anyway, I know teens still get liquor, but we've only made it a hell of a lot easier. Also, I feel that if I were unable to cope with having to go to the liquor store down the street from my house, or the other one down the street from my office, this would probably mean that I had a serious drinking problem.

The state liquor board generated $425 million on liquor in 2011. According to proponents of I-1183, the initiative is projected to generate an additional $200 million over 6 years, but it's also costing 900 liquor board employees their jobs. Costco sank $22.7 million into the campaign for the initiative, and while you could argue that Costco selling liquor is a boon to our economy, stores based out of state (Kroger stores, Safeway, etc) are pretty much just profiteering on us wanting to get fucked up.

The initiative itself is fishy as fuck. It acknowledges that it doesn't actually solve any existing problems, but provides for the implementation of costly oversight and regulation on all the problems that it will inevitably cause.

I dunno. I'm not gonna run into Albertson's and start smashing bottles the day they go on sale, but really... I think the passage of I-1183 was just a heavily funded long-con. Also, this is like the third post here with roughly the exact same photo. I could walk one block and buy a double gin and tonic right now if I wanted to. It's not all that exciting.

defrndr · 3 days

Oh no, it was.

defrndr · 3 days

Um... I was talking about the comment.

defrndr · 3 days

He does say in his response:

Lastly, I am a comedian, and I speak in hyperbole.

edit: TrueReddit, breaking reddiquette by downvoting something they disagree with. The irony.

element2 · 4 days

Yeah she's a great lady. Saw her at my friend's wedding last summer, and she told us she was working in Point Defiance doing battle reenactments. Just because I can't art doesn't mean I gotta hate those who can and do.

element2 · 5 days

She's not FROM here, but she's been here for a while. Moved from Florida in 2006 or something. My friend had a show with her when she first got here, in which she just read horrible lists of things while her cousin aimlessly banged on a typewriter behind her. I couldn't stand her for a long time, but despite this kind of stuff, she's perfectly nice.

She sets up her typewriter at Sunday markets and things, and you can pay her for an on-the-spot poem.

She stayed with another one of my friends in San Francisco a few years ago, and traveling with her was a guy called "Goat", who hadn't worn shoes in over 8 years.

WeForgotTheHarpoons · 7 days

I once had a flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver with an all-female crew. When the captain introduced herself and her lady co-pilot, I felt a surge of pride, and had nothing but absolute trust and esteem in the both of them. Best 14-hour-flight ever.

arrenlex · 11 days

Wonderful guy. Sometimes he'd get impish. One Friday I watched him pad up, shoesless, behind one of our IT guys, spryly hop up onto a low shelf, snatch the IT's guy's hat, and then run off between our desks waving the hat in victory. A pleasure to work with (wasn't on his team, though, so I can't speak to that)

arrenlex · 11 days

So apparently a guy I used to work with was on the team that developed the 56k protocol (in other words, HE INVENTED THAT NOISE). He's an incredibly interesting man. Probably in his late '50s and biked into work in hi-vis every day.

He sat across from me for a while, and there were these rubber banana slugs that the person who'd sat there previously had left on my monitor. We originally agreed to share them and put them on the low wall between our desks, but after about a week, I noticed that he was taking them down onto his desk during the day, then put them back when he went home at night. Eventually he just stopped putting them back, but I realized that when he left, he'd cover them with microfiber cloths, like little blankies.

Most of us in the office entered our teens with 56k, so it was clear that we always secretly blamed him for all the times that PSSSHHHHHKKKKzzzttttttBADINGBADINGBADING...BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRCHWRRRRRRR got us in trouble.

Dupen · 14 days

I did this for a long, long time. Either the couch, or a slab of memory foam on the ground. I was gonna get one of these but my boyfriend got all pissy about it. Now I have a bed frame and a mattress and I find it alienating.

Dupen · 14 days

You know, there's a little place called Mary Ann's Hammocks. The nice thing about that place is Mary Ann gets in the hammock with you... I'm just kidding.

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