[ExI] fax machines and chatgpt

[Keith Henson]

On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 10:23 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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> Addiction is very complicated.  It is a bit like OCD except the compulsion changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude compared to washing your hands or arranging items.

It's plant chemicals that act on the same brain reward circuit
receptors that endorphins act on.  The reward system evolved for very
good reasons and is behind almost everything humans do.  Drugs are not
the only thing that can hijack the reward system.  Cults do it as well
as I described in my Sex, Drugs and Cults paper.  My breakthrough was
from hearing a former cult member describe her time in the cult in a
tone of voice identical to that of someone describing shooting up.

> I have personal first-hand experience being an opiate addict.

I have (for medical reasons) taken enough opiates to have all the
withdrawal symptoms.  I was on them for about a year.  When I didn't
need them, I just quit. No merit in this, just biochemistry/genes.
Used the leftovers intermittently for at least 5 years.  Seriously
annoyed at how hard opiates are to get because they work so well for
me for pain.

> Feel free to ask whatever questions you want--free therapy for me

It is.  People get attention and that releases endorphins and dopamine
(think opiates and cocaine).  The various step programs provide
attention which replaces the effects of various drugs with something
more normal.

Wish you the best.


Keith

> On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 6:24 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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>> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
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>> >…I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change.  If their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are.
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>> >…Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any treatment at all?  Spike?
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>> bill w
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>> I don’t know.  I am far from an authority on that Billw.  I now go into SF only to take a group of scouts hiking thru from the BART station to the wharf to catch a ferry to Angel Island, and even then, I keep everyone close and by sturdiest lads outboard.
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>> You offered heroin as a strong addictive, but from what I hear, fentanyl is as bad to make new addicts and it is waaaaay less expensive, practically free now, the supply steady and inexhaustible.  I suspect it will put heroin out of business soon.  No need to grow all those poppies when fentanyl can be made in a lab with commonly-available constituents.  This cannot be controlled: fentanyl does not need to be made in Mexico.
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>> I don’t know much about the brand of mental illness not related to addiction.  I know less than Sam Cooke on that.
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>> I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed everyone, but not in the cities.  They pose a threat to the non-addicted mentally stable homeful.  The homeless, mentally ill and the addicts will need to be exported to safe housing way the heck out such as Termo California.  There is water there, plenty of room to set up Quonset huts by the thousands.  The cities have not been good for the mentally ill and addicts.
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>> spike
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