Hi Telmo,
Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition
politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic.
And formal logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only
by professional logicians.
Sorry if this is off-topic, but I would love to know about your
formal argument against Marijuana illegality and prohibition politics.
For example, when most lies on cannabis are defeated, prohibitionists
claim it is a gateway drug. It would lead to the consumption of
stronger drugs. If asked to justify, they say propositions like that:
78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis.
This is a confusion between A => B and B => A, or A included in B with
B included in A.
To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of
substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B
among A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You
could as well say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the
heroin consumers have begun with water.
I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by
salvia divinorum". It relates the case of a guy who get an heart
attack when smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as
above (together with the non genuine idea of using a sample with only
one element).
The same error are done, even by "expert" in the relation made between
cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence.
Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers
having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be
more though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the
quantity of car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the
quantity of smokers of cannabis among those who have a car accident.
It is always a confusion between A included in B and B included in A.
That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely
associative neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error,
as implication is a not so intuitive concept.
Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a
gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted
to tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the
legality of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or
later' the 'truth' about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco
is killer one in the world.
To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive
product to enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led
to any problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available
only in underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could
add addictive product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just
may advertise you on other drugs. So prohibition of cannabis, or
anything, leads to gateway effect.
The evidence are on the side that cannabis and salvia are among the
safest and most efficacious known medication. In the Netherlands and
in France, some study seems to show that driving under cannabis
reduced the frequency of car accident. It has been known 20 years ago
in the USA that it can cure some cancers, and this has been only
recently confirmed on both mouse and humans that it does so. I can
give hundreds of reference/links on this.
Today many lies and many correct reasoning and genuine information can
be found by just surfing on YouTube.
See this video (among many), on the legalization of cannabis
illustrating the error, and its correction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlXULsBdS0&feature=related
Now, at a deeper level, the whole prohibition may be seen as a logical
error, from a self-referential logical perspective. But I have to be
cautious, for not falling myself in the trap I will try to describe.
Recall that G describe the communicable or provable part of the
correct self-referential machine, and G* \minus G, describes the true
but non communicable/provable part. Some times (notably in "Conscience
et Mécanisme") I call the elements of G* minus G, the Protagorean
virtues. Plato said that Protagoras asked once if such virtue can be
taught. Those 'Protagorean virtues", that is those elements belonging
to G* minus G, obeys to the following logical equation: Bx -> ~x. If
you try to make them necessary by finite combinatorial structure,
being proof, laws, literal texts, teaching, etc. you get the opposite
or the negation of what you tried to communicate. Alan Watts, in his
book "the wisdom of insecurity" argues that security has such
property: to constrain or solidify security leads to insecurity.
Happiness is like that, and almost all qualitative positive moral
things are like that in my opinion. Many institution falls in the trap
to make necessary such values, and destroys their cause in the
process. Love, which is always the love of the good, or good-love, is
the most typical one: you cannot force anyone one to love anyone or
anything.
Now, if you accept that more generally appreciation, which is always
"good-appreciation", for food or products is such a Protagorean
virtue, then "Not appreciating a product" will belong to G* minus G,
and cannot be enforced without leading to the contrary of its cause.
In the present case prohibition of a drug makes it proliferate wildly,
uncontrollably, and the same for the number of consumers of that drug.
Actually prohibition, like in the 1930 alcohol prohibition, even
creates new and dangerous or hazardous drug, like crack cocaine, K2,
etc.
So we have many confirmation of this. France and USA have the more
severe laws against cannabis, and they are the countries with the
highest relative proportion of cannabis smokers. The Netherlands have
quasi-legalized and regulate cannabis, and they have the least use of
cannabis in its population (not including the 'tourists').
Concerning prohibition, I think it is just a gangster tool for
creating vast fluxes of black money capable of corrupting all the
upper sphere of the democracies. Some cartel have black economies
bigger that the national economy of many countries. Prohibition is
just *black* money addiction. The situation get worse by the
ineluctable interplay of big black economy and honest economies
leading to grey money making harder to stop prohibition and
corruption. Like I said in a comment on YouTube: prohibition sucks
from Al Capone to Al Qaeda.
The lobian error is that prohibition at the start deprive its target
of its responsibility. Eventually it dissolves irresponsibility in a
unsustainable economical pyramidal power which can only crash. Better
to stop that asap!
It is here that I am flying near the Löbian trap myself. Please note
that I am not saying :
- correct+Lobianity is incompatible with prohibition and we are
correct and lobian, so we have to stop prohibition.
That would be notably saying "we are correct and lobian", which no
correct lobian machine can say!
What I am saying is that correct+Lobianity is incompatible with
prohibition and we have to stop prohibition (because of its observable
failure and its invalid justification!) so we are perhaps or could
tend to be correct and lobian.
The good news is that those who actually do that "war on drugs"
growingly get the points; like in this videos and many others:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEdzZaXwf8o
Actually the following videos illustrate many of this lobian
catastophe in the war on drugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6t1EM4Onao
Those are clever or intelligent cops and judge in the sense that not
only they realize their error, but they recognize it publicly.
A last more funny video, figuring more innocent cops, just to remind
you that cannabis and salvia, although very safe, are entheogen. The
main use consists in "dying": that's the point, and it might be a
little scary if you are not prepared:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZb5wi_jsU&feature=related
:)
Best regards,
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
