"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> says:

Timothy C. May writes:

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At 1:14 PM 7/7/96, Simon Spero wrote:

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On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

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When the mother (a single mother, as this is California) drops her son off with my friend (also single, of course), she includes several "Ritalin" capsules with instructions on how to dose her son with this depressant/behavior modification drug.

Er... Tim... Ritalin is an amphetamine.

Whatever. It acts as a calmant/tranquilizer/depressant on many.

Only those who have ADD, which you claim doesn't exist.

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(As with many drugs, there are apparently paradoxical effects. Alcohol is a downer for some, and upper for others.)

Alcohol is a CNS depressant for all. Lowering inhibitions tends to make people relax and "party", but it doesn't have particularly paradoxical effects.

.pm

Sorry, but that's wrong. There must be some understanding of what's actually going on. Brain is not just a simple linear device. It's complex. And that goes to Tim's original point: Society is made by humans with brains that are complex but which try to use simple models to understand reality. Let me show with your own example. Alcohol *is* a depressant. But it doesn't act equally on all the CNS. It acts faster on one part of it whose role is to depress all the rest of the CNS. So, first alcohol depresses a depressor and therefore acts as a stimulant. If you maintain your levels of alcohol there the rest of your brain will be above its threshold and keep stimulated. Only if you pass that threshold the rest of the brain will be depressed. That's what alcohol drinking cultures like mine call "knowing how to drink". But then we don't know about taking cocaine (like some centroamerican cultures do) for instance. Same happens when you take other drugs (in their own context). It's only when you simplify or make a generalization that it gets dangerous. And same goes for society. If you have a society that teachs people how to drink you'll have less problems than one that doesn't. Or that teachs how to eat coca leaves avoiding the pure drug. Or that teaches you that curare is OK eaten -as it is- but letal in the blood (which allows survival for many tribes). That's were Tim's argument comes into cypherpunkish arena. If you teach people that it is easier to calm down hyperactive people, or solve all problems by increasing mind control and surveillance you can't complain of a police state. OTOH if you can teach people were to stop (as with alcohol) and that simple models just don't work you'll be on the road to a better system. I agree there is people that can benefit from drugs. But being a MD PhD myself too, I also know that the amount that really needs them is a minuscule proportion. Most times it is just a convenience for doctors, family, fathers or society. Though good doctors agree it would be better if they could avoid the drugs at all in most cases of mental disease. Same happens with surveillance: we benefit from some control to stop those few, exceptional, deep criminals that are better stopped in advance, but we don't really need as much as we have. There are better solutions, but it's far more convenient for power-holders to increase surveillance than to really address the underlying problems. But, IMHO, as long as we keep allowing many people to use simple and "convenience" models to quickly fix symptomps instead of addressing the real problem (like, e.g. making a greater effort in the education of their children), we are stating the basis for a future, more restrictive, controlling and "convenience" system. We need both, to educate people on a more responsible course of action, and develop tools to stop or make more difficult or less convenient the easy and fast solution of increasing surveillance instead of addressing the underlying problem. And that's where cryptography comes to help equate the balance and increases presure on power-holders into worrying more by decreasing the convenience of surveillance. That is, all in my most very humble opinion. jr