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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Tom Nowell<br><b>Sent:</b> Monday, February 27, 2012 4:35 AM<br><b>To:</b> extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Jaw-dropping CWRU Alzheimer's breakthrough?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:black'>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</span><span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:black'> They have the mighty power of mammalian evolution on their side, and the human body is amazing at detoxifying all sorts of crap</span><span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:black'>The acceptable risk levels allowed for pharmaceuticals are very small, and many medicines are rejected each year for small levels of risk</span><span style='color:#1F497D'>… Tom<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>