[ExI] Jaw-dropping CWRU Alzheimer's breakthrough?

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tom Nowell
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 4:35 AM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] Jaw-dropping CWRU Alzheimer's breakthrough?

 

>.Spike asked how come stoners take colossal risks putting god knows what
junk into themselves and get a free pass. Well, the simple answer is they're
not actually taking that big a risk.

 

 

Thanks Tom!  That is exactly what I suspected.  Our litigious society goes
to heck and gone chasing tiny risks, when huge risks result from inaction.
I propose a class of medications in which we apply the shocking caveat that
the patient accepts her own risk, because we do not know everything.  The
stoners REALLY ARE a special class of people, I say with all due respect and
humility, for they accept their own risk, in the sense they don't sue anyone
if their dope is insufficiently pure and safe.  Of course they load their
cost and risk onto us in other ways, but they don't sue.

 

 

>. They have the mighty power of mammalian evolution on their side, and the
human body is amazing at detoxifying all sorts of crap.

 

Ja, again, this is what I concluded independently.  If I devour 10 mg of
reagent grade bexarotene, I am getting at most a tenth of a milligram of
impurities, less than one six-hundreth the mass of a typical grain of table
salt, and I know what most of that is.  I can accept that risk.  The ethanol
should slay any bio-beasts, and both known catalysts are harmless and
kittens.

 

 

>.The acceptable risk levels allowed for pharmaceuticals are very small, and
many medicines are rejected each year for small levels of risk. Tom

 

Ja, I think we have painted ourselves into a corner because of how our
societies handle risk.  We have a system which encourages lawsuits from
those unlucky few who suffer from the consequences of small risks.  I
propose a system whereby we acknowledge that we own our own risk, then ask a
pool of cluemeisters, like you dear readers, to estimate how we can hurt
ourselves, then make an educated guess, then should we choose to proceed, we
own our own damn risk.

 

spike

 

 

 

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