MA Ballots Everywhere. Looking for your suggestions!
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klevertree
Oct 1, 2024, 12:13:44 PM10/1/24
to Boston Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten Meetup
Hi all,
I wrote a guide to the MA November 2024 elections. I've opened it up for suggestions in a Google Doc. Hopefully we can find something that we can submit to Scott for his ballots everywhere.
I know Taymon Beal at the Autumnfell house wants to do an in-person discussion of the ballot, so I figure we can start with this document, have a conversation in the comments, and then hash everything out and come up with a final version in person.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bRk3ROQndk_5h7FXWCm2mGH3mWqcb_4TTOTGWDHGWZU/edit?usp=sharing
Best,
Trevor Klee
I wrote a guide to the MA November 2024 elections. I've opened it up for suggestions in a Google Doc. Hopefully we can find something that we can submit to Scott for his ballots everywhere.
I know Taymon Beal at the Autumnfell house wants to do an in-person discussion of the ballot, so I figure we can start with this document, have a conversation in the comments, and then hash everything out and come up with a final version in person.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bRk3ROQndk_5h7FXWCm2mGH3mWqcb_4TTOTGWDHGWZU/edit?usp=sharing
Best,
Trevor Klee
Trevor Klee
Oct 8, 2024, 2:06:58 PM10/8/24
to Boston Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten Meetup
Hey all,
Thanks for your comments so far! I'm not sure if you saw, but Scott just sent out the announcement for the Ballots Everywhere meetup in Boston. I'm hoping to get one more round of comments in to this MA Ballot guide before the meetup.
I'll compile all the comments, revise the document and note points of disagreement (i.e. "John Smith thinks this, but Sally Doe thinks this") or consensus, and then we can have a starting point for the in-person meetup.
Link again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bRk3ROQndk_5h7FXWCm2mGH3mWqcb_4TTOTGWDHGWZU/edit?usp=sharing
I'll compile all the comments, revise the document and note points of disagreement (i.e. "John Smith thinks this, but Sally Doe thinks this") or consensus, and then we can have a starting point for the in-person meetup.
Link again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bRk3ROQndk_5h7FXWCm2mGH3mWqcb_4TTOTGWDHGWZU/edit?usp=sharing
Best,
Trevor
Trevor
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duck_master
Oct 15, 2024, 10:19:50 AM10/15/24
to Boston Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten Meetup, klevertree
Hi all,
For what it's worth, since I think it might be weird to have everyone just comment on one person's opinion, I created another Google Doc where you can just put what you support in a table. Here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TZRzNRvhD0k5qRXCHJFae9yorqxv2uTtCTxgx1eZPEo/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.ne9uk2n7nioa
I'm planning on coming!
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Brendan Mooney
Oct 17, 2024, 9:52:33 PM10/17/24
to Boston Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten Meetup
Hey everyone,
Costs and benefits
The discussion in Trevor's document (thanks for making that, Trevor!) seems to bring out a kind of cost-benefit thinking, which does seem like one good way to look at this.
The cost-benefit analysis seems to me itself premised on the idea that use of psychedelics would actually increase if this ballot measure passed. That inference doesn't seem trivial to me, but it does seem right. For anyone considering using these drugs at the moment, one obvious reason not to is their legal status, and the drugs are presumably somewhat harder to access now than they'd be under the Question 4 proposal. Both of those facts would tend to make use go up after passage of the law, and nothing comes to my mind that would tend to have the opposite effect. (But maybe I'm missing something. Compare, for example, more highly addictive drugs, where legalization could incentivize people to seek treatment for addiction, reducing the number of addicts and to that extent driving drug use down.)
So what exactly are the costs in question? From what I've seen, here's a plausible list: Causing or exacerbating psychosis, heart problems up to and including death (from ibogaine in particular), more drug-impaired driving, accidental ingestion of psychedelics by children and pets, and people generally doing stupid and dangerous stuff while on drugs.
And what are the benefits? The majority report in the Information for Voters booklet (page 38) points out three categories: Treatment of psychiatric disorders, improvement of general well-being (which I take it can be quite significant and lasting, not just improving a night of partying), and spiritual benefits. (To be fair, in context, they take this breadth of different purposes as a flaw in the proposal.) One surprising upside of legalizing some of these drugs could be an actual decrease in the use of the most dangerous drugs: Ibogaine is supposed to be a shockingly effective treatment for heroin addiction. So, for all it might kill you, it also might save your life.
Other approaches
But another obvious way to look at this question is from a libertarian or anti-paternalist point of view, from which the costs and benefits are largely irrelevant. Even if the drugs prove harmful to people on balance, the thought goes, people should still be free to use them. Compare cigarettes: I'm quite certain that cigarettes are net bad for people who use them, but it's not at all clear to me that they should be illegal. Of course, this line of thinking applies most naturally to consequences to the drug users themselves (like people giving themselves psychotic episodes) rather than consequences to others (like people driving under the influence and smashing into other cars).
Yet another way of looking at the issue is against the backdrop of the general question of drug legalization. One argument for drug legalization generally that seems to apply here is that, holding fixed the amount of drug use, black market access and underground use are worse than open access and use at home or in a regulated facility. With the former, people may be more hesitant to call for medical help in case of emergency, you probably can't be as sure that the substance the supplier gave you is what you asked for, and I'm guessing that set and setting get (if anything) worse -- since people may get scared of legal consequences during a trip and may keep their drug use at a greater distance from people they trust.
Looking at it from these other perspectives, I get a pretty strong urge to vote yes on this one. (And, for what it's worth, I'm not a drug fan. They basically don't get any more straight-edge than me. I've never consumed anything people typically call "drugs", including illegal substances, marijuana, cigarettes, more than a sip of alcohol -- or even coffee!)
Arguments against
I think the best argument against the proposal is that the costs currently outweigh the benefits, which can be combined with the observation that voting down this proposal now doesn't mean forsaking all the benefits forever. Arguably, there is a much better cost-benefit balance that can be struck by only legalizing strictly medical uses of psychedelics, the legalization of which will likely come in time. Use by prescription or under medical supervision would limit several of the listed costs, maybe most notably cardiotoxicity and psychosis. I take it that something like this view is what motivates the doctors who testified in opposition to the proposal according to the Information for Voters booklet.
A related idea, as long as we're looking forward to a future of medicalized psychedelics, is that even if the benefits outweigh the costs at the moment, legalizing now will rock the boat too much and possibly set back medical research. It could do this just by proving an unpopular measure that sours people on psychedelics generally (see, for example, how Oregon is rolling back its decriminalization of psychedelics largely because public opinion has turned against its decriminalization of other drugs) and perhaps by allowing the proposed regulated facilities to become too closely associated with medical facilities (as mentioned on pages 3 and 5 of the Tufts guide to Question 4). And, of course, even if medical research is destined to prove that psychedelics are not medically useful, it's better to have that research done sooner. Either way, we'd be locking ourselves into a suboptimal cost-benefit balance by delaying needed research.
My argument for
I can't make it to the event, but in the interest of doing something relatively unobtrusive but impactful, I thought I'd write out some thoughts on Question 4 (the psychedelics one) -- because this question is, by a significant margin, the one running closest to 50-50 in a recent poll. What follows are my thoughts on Question 4. I come out in favor, but hopefully it's fair to both sides and not riddled with falsehoods.
-- Brendan
Costs and benefits
The discussion in Trevor's document (thanks for making that, Trevor!) seems to bring out a kind of cost-benefit thinking, which does seem like one good way to look at this.
The cost-benefit analysis seems to me itself premised on the idea that use of psychedelics would actually increase if this ballot measure passed. That inference doesn't seem trivial to me, but it does seem right. For anyone considering using these drugs at the moment, one obvious reason not to is their legal status, and the drugs are presumably somewhat harder to access now than they'd be under the Question 4 proposal. Both of those facts would tend to make use go up after passage of the law, and nothing comes to my mind that would tend to have the opposite effect. (But maybe I'm missing something. Compare, for example, more highly addictive drugs, where legalization could incentivize people to seek treatment for addiction, reducing the number of addicts and to that extent driving drug use down.)
So what exactly are the costs in question? From what I've seen, here's a plausible list: Causing or exacerbating psychosis, heart problems up to and including death (from ibogaine in particular), more drug-impaired driving, accidental ingestion of psychedelics by children and pets, and people generally doing stupid and dangerous stuff while on drugs.
And what are the benefits? The majority report in the Information for Voters booklet (page 38) points out three categories: Treatment of psychiatric disorders, improvement of general well-being (which I take it can be quite significant and lasting, not just improving a night of partying), and spiritual benefits. (To be fair, in context, they take this breadth of different purposes as a flaw in the proposal.) One surprising upside of legalizing some of these drugs could be an actual decrease in the use of the most dangerous drugs: Ibogaine is supposed to be a shockingly effective treatment for heroin addiction. So, for all it might kill you, it also might save your life.
Other approaches
But another obvious way to look at this question is from a libertarian or anti-paternalist point of view, from which the costs and benefits are largely irrelevant. Even if the drugs prove harmful to people on balance, the thought goes, people should still be free to use them. Compare cigarettes: I'm quite certain that cigarettes are net bad for people who use them, but it's not at all clear to me that they should be illegal. Of course, this line of thinking applies most naturally to consequences to the drug users themselves (like people giving themselves psychotic episodes) rather than consequences to others (like people driving under the influence and smashing into other cars).
Yet another way of looking at the issue is against the backdrop of the general question of drug legalization. One argument for drug legalization generally that seems to apply here is that, holding fixed the amount of drug use, black market access and underground use are worse than open access and use at home or in a regulated facility. With the former, people may be more hesitant to call for medical help in case of emergency, you probably can't be as sure that the substance the supplier gave you is what you asked for, and I'm guessing that set and setting get (if anything) worse -- since people may get scared of legal consequences during a trip and may keep their drug use at a greater distance from people they trust.
Looking at it from these other perspectives, I get a pretty strong urge to vote yes on this one. (And, for what it's worth, I'm not a drug fan. They basically don't get any more straight-edge than me. I've never consumed anything people typically call "drugs", including illegal substances, marijuana, cigarettes, more than a sip of alcohol -- or even coffee!)
Arguments against
I think the best argument against the proposal is that the costs currently outweigh the benefits, which can be combined with the observation that voting down this proposal now doesn't mean forsaking all the benefits forever. Arguably, there is a much better cost-benefit balance that can be struck by only legalizing strictly medical uses of psychedelics, the legalization of which will likely come in time. Use by prescription or under medical supervision would limit several of the listed costs, maybe most notably cardiotoxicity and psychosis. I take it that something like this view is what motivates the doctors who testified in opposition to the proposal according to the Information for Voters booklet.
A related idea, as long as we're looking forward to a future of medicalized psychedelics, is that even if the benefits outweigh the costs at the moment, legalizing now will rock the boat too much and possibly set back medical research. It could do this just by proving an unpopular measure that sours people on psychedelics generally (see, for example, how Oregon is rolling back its decriminalization of psychedelics largely because public opinion has turned against its decriminalization of other drugs) and perhaps by allowing the proposed regulated facilities to become too closely associated with medical facilities (as mentioned on pages 3 and 5 of the Tufts guide to Question 4). And, of course, even if medical research is destined to prove that psychedelics are not medically useful, it's better to have that research done sooner. Either way, we'd be locking ourselves into a suboptimal cost-benefit balance by delaying needed research.
My argument for
But this last argument is too speculative for my tastes. And as for the previous argument, given all the considerations I've laid out, I'm not at all convinced that the costs do outweigh the benefits. At a minimum, I don't think the costs swamp the benefits. And in a case like that, I'm inclined to let the anti-paternalist point of view be the deciding factor: Legalizing this stuff won't be catastrophic, so let's just give people this extra measure of freedom to make their own choices. The proposal comes complete with a whole regulatory commission to help ensure people choose responsibly.
Trevor Klee
Oct 19, 2024, 11:29:25 AM10/19/24
to Boston Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten Meetup
Hi all,
Lots of good discussion on the doc so far. In advance of the event, I wanted to quickly summarize the opinions so far and then provide some suggestions for how the event should be organized.
Lots of good discussion on the doc so far. In advance of the event, I wanted to quickly summarize the opinions so far and then provide some suggestions for how the event should be organized.
Hopefully we can agree on this/discuss this at the beginning of the meetup.
Summary of doc + discussion (bolded for recommendation)
1. Warren/Deaton. Warren has a lot of problems, especially in terms of her recent advocacy of government intervention in private industry. But Deaton's pro-crypto stance is the main thing that distinguishes him from Warren (also maybe a stronger stance on migrants), and it doesn't seem like a strong enough reason to vote for him.
2. Lynch/Burke. Burke seems obviously worse.
3. Ianella. Ianella isn't good but he's running uncontested.
4. Edwards/Tamas. Edwards is a not great leftist politician, Tamas is a not particularly bright Republican mom. Edwards is the best of two bad options.
5. Moran/Owens. Moran is pretty good, Owens seems nuts.
6. Curtatone/Tauro. Curtatone is sketchy, but Tauro is literally a convicted felon and slumlord. Curtatone is the better of bad options.
7. Sullivan, Hennigan, Powers, Cartwright. Uncontested.
8. Everett/Bah. Everett seems ok, and there's literally no info about Bah.
1. Should we audit the legislature? Yes, MA legislature is unusually opaque and inefficient.
2. Should we eliminate MCAS graduation requirement? Maybe. Teachers and school board say yes because prepping for MCAS is waste of time. I think no because it prevents bad schools from passing terrible students into the world. We should discuss.
3. Should we let Uber/Lyft drivers unionize? No. A labor monopoly would be especially bad in transportation networks.
4. Should we allow for psychedelic legalization and recreational sales? Maybe, leaning towards yes. Commenters on the doc are generally pro freedom of choice in this issue. I think it's too risky, but I'm outnumbered here. We should discuss.
5. Should we establish a minimum wage for tipped workers and pool tips for back of house? No, it's probably not going to help who it's supposed to help and it's too detrimental for small businesses. It also hasn't really worked in other places it's been tried.
Suggestions for discussions
I think we should start by taking a quick poll on each of the issues off the bat. For those we are in accordance on, we can just recommend yes and then draw on what's in the document above for a recommendation.
If any new issues/disagreements come up, we should discuss them. In any case, we should definitely have 15-20 minute discussions on Warren/Deaton, question 2, and question 4. Once the discussion has gone as far as it can go, we should vote.
If the vote is 90-100% in favor of one side, let's write a unanimous recommendation. If it's 60-90% in favor of one side, we can write a majority opinion and dissenting opinion. If it's 40-60% in favor of one side, we can write two competing recommendations.
Best,
Trevor
Trevor
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