We watched "All Quiet on the Western Front" this weekend.

In the past I might have felt sympathy for the main character: a young German boy joining the army for a glorious battle for his country.

Ultimately, he became a petty thief and had no principles.

The corollaries with the current Russian soldiers in #Ukraine are too striking to ignore.

@JohnFugelsang I think they are promoting Happy Endings more than the Merry experience of getting there.

Pop up bar in San Francisco.

DALL-E
"a painting of a benevolent hero set in the distant future in the style of hr giger "
#AIArt

@Stonekettle
And include a hand-written apology.

I thought this was an interesting limitation of OpenAI's chatbot (which is extremely useful)

Maybe they don't want it to get too smart?

This is the latest version of my model of what makes a city "Vibrant".

I started this because I'm planning to model all of the problems.

In order to understand the problems it is necessary to understand the best-practices first. Then the problems are inserted next to the best-practices.

In this diagram the darker connections denote critical dependencies.
The lighter connections are merely positive influences.

If you have seen this done elsewhere, please let me know.

@FreyaMeansLady
Awesome!
Thanks for the link.

"The opposite
of Addiction
is Connection"

@peterquirk
This is an absolutely FANTASTIC website! Thanks for introducing it to me.

@th3j35t3r
You've become an architype.
The gods were architypes.

@th3j35t3r
I'm relieved when a band has something to sing about besides love and being on the road.

This is a part of the model I'm building. I've highlighted the "direct" sources of positive influence that drug addition impacts. Everything above them are subsequently effected.
Community-Happiness impacts the greatest objective of a City: Vibrancy.

@peterquirk
Thanks!
This is a powerful quote in the first article: "The costs associated with drug and alcohol use total nearly $600 billion in lost revenue, health care, legal fees, and damages each year. "

I'd like to know how that is broken down by demographics. So many of the overtly-addicted in San Francisco will never contribute, economically, to society ever again. But they are still a cost.

Others are compromising their ability to contribute. I suspect those are a larger population

@SmileAndNod
Yes. I agree.
I'm trying to assess this a level or to more abstracted from the person. This may sound heartless, but I'm trying to find arguments for politicians and economists to justify investing into programs to "fix" this.

Appealing to the heart or the conditions of an individual only impacts a few. We need a broader argument.

I might summarize your insights into: the person is less of an asset to the community and economy, and probably a liability.

@ElCapitan
I DMed you just now.
Welcome back!

@Ron
Thanks for sharing so much.

I suspect that somewhere in the recesses of our minds the effect of drugs is sitting right next to happiness. They are too close to easily discern.
Maybe we know that we need to be happy to survive? If we cannot become happy we find that the drug gets close enough for satisfaction. But, not happiness, so we degrade.

@Daren
Sounds like there is a need to define the Meaning of Life in that journey.

@Islagran
(I just deleted a toot that misread your post)
The issue that is the target of the soothing must already be detrimental to the person's productivity and happiness.
I suppose your position could be used to argue that without drugs some people would be less productive?

@Daren
Thanks.
I keep asking myself the heartless question "so what?"

I think the answer with your insights is that if we are dealing with underlying issues we're sub-optimal in many other aspects of our life.
We lower the happiness of those around us.
We are less productive at our jobs.
We have less ambition.
The addiction increases the impact/scale of these outward effects.

@Ron
Wow. Thanks for sharing.
I'm thinking that "happiness" is a fundamental need in order for us to progress in life. If we're not progressing, we're not helping the community. Then, if we care about the community (which includes family) we're even more sad about the impact we are having.
Addiction seems to hit hard on the happiness we can feel.