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It's in Atlas Shrugged, Dagny loved her morning coffee and naturally smoked (lots of age specific context. i.e. in The Fountainhead a particularly annoying hostess is described as "she doesn't like women who smoke") Also beer is gulped down by Howard Roark after a hard day's work with his newly found found; other references to casually violating laws of prohibition are found in the beginning of the novel. Dagny and Hank enjoy the mild buzz of the wine (several references) during their one romantic dinner, as well as the evening drink she offers Hank Rearden while living together. However Dagny's brother is found a wreck in his bedroom surrounded by empty bottles of, I believe, Whiskey. So, never forgetting the context in which it was written (post Prohibition pre Dyonisius decade), AS shows (as a very marginal theme) the two facets of Recreational Drugs, in this case alcohol. It can either be used to enhance life enjoyment or (ab)used to evade life altogether (sometimes by the crushing force of external circumstances such as was the end of Leo Kovalenski) Productive-enhancement drugs such as caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, are also referenced both in her novels as well as in her life. The story says that she quit two of those drugs as soon as she was presented with the evidence of their destructive power, even so, it was a value judgement not a dogmatic conditioning or appeal to authority. Finally, medical drugs (!) like pain killers I believe she wrote about the right to euthanasia as being necessary for the right to life (she wrote that not being allowed to die if one wants to is just as immoral as being forced to die if one wants to live), obviously this extends to quality and length of life being determined by oneself and not society.

Ok, so I glossed over a bit of equilibrium mechanics because I'm not teaching a class on chemistry. But the point is that with two reactions (or the same reaction in different directions) occuring at some set of rates (which are functionally dependant on concentration) you end up with an equilibrium concentration, a stable concentration. Which we don't have. Which means that the reaction rates are changing. The reason the equilibria concentration is important is because of the known qualitative causal link between those concentrations and temperature. Fair point. I'll retract that. I'm sorry, I should have been clear on this. There most certainly is a causal relationship between [CO2] and temperature. The question is not whether [CO2] causes temperature changes, it's whether the current temperature changes are primarilly caused by an increase in [CO2]. Or if its mainly noise, or whatever. But [CO2] is undoubtedly a component of it. You may be saying the same thing here. We DO know that changes in [CO2] are at least partially caused by humans. Mainly through combustion (increased generation of CO2) and deforestation (decreased consumption of CO2), which leads to an increased equilibria concentration of [CO2], which, btw, we haven't reached yet. Its true that other sources are contributing to it as well, like release of methane from clatherates that is oxidized to CO2. But I would need to be shown some evidence that non-human/non-controllable sources are primary sources. And we DO know that changes in [CO2] cause temperature changes. But yeah you're right we aren't sure of the magnitude of affect we have actually had. That's true, CO2 has a log effect on temperature, so it's not a great example chemical to use for the whole global warming conversation (not all of them have a log effect), but on the other hand it is generally pretty stable, which means its an easier example to use for the chemical rate/chemical equilibria conversation above. CH4, for instance, has a feedback effect due to oxidation in the troposphere which both removes ozones/hydroxyls and adds CO2 and H20, which can then increase temperature and increase CH4 generation through arctic clatherate release. That adds a lot of levels of complexity to the situation. In fact almost half of CH4s effect on temperature change is based on these indirect feedback effects. If you feel up to getting into a really crunchy article on the subject read this: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-06.pdf Methane is really one of the scarier of the atmospheric gases, or at least potentially scary. The thing that concerns me are the issues with the arctic clatherates. ---------------- Anyways all of that was really just showing that the qualitative nature of the argument is sound. No one is going to argue that an increase in [CO2] or [CH4] will decrease global temperature. The quantitative nature of the argument is trickier. But consider this. You are in a car. There is a dangerous object in front of you and it is coming closer. You know your car is moving forward, but you don't know how fast it is moving. What do you do?

This conversation, THIS right here, is why I asked the question of whether or not it is unethical to not have a strong understanding of science. I see sooooooo many posts in here saying "I'm no scientist BUT" or "I'm no climatologist BUT". If you do not understand the science behind this, then you are at the whim of "experts", and the sad fact of the matter is that this is SUCH a complicated issue that even climatologists will come to different conclusions. And to be clear, I'm not saying I have a better understanding myself or that I am not at the whim of the conclusions of experts. I consider myself pretty strong at chemistry, spectroscopy, and physical chemistry/thermodynamics, which are all key issues at play here, but one of the main things that knowledge gives me is an understanding that this is an insanely complex topic that is going to be very difficult to sort out even by the most knowledgeable of us. Politicians exploit this confusion and take a stance on whatever side, knowing that they can find evidence to back it up, and then they can shift the argument away from the science and towards the "who has the most reliable experts." Instead of a scientific investigation it becomes a game of appeals to authority, argumentum ad populum, and other logical fallacies. Rand's own statement, linked on the front page, is a complete logical fallacy (disturbingly so), dismissing the conclusions, not by understanding the argument, but by attacking the arguer. --------------------- But here's a couple things that I DO know. The earth exists in a very complex series of chemical equilibria. One of the simplest is CO2/O2. Humans/animals/combustion etc suck up O2 and make CO2, plants suck up CO2 and spit out Oxygen. Based on the generation/conversion rates of each chemical you will reach a chemical equilibrium, which will be seen in the concentrations in different systems in the world. Right now it is CLEAR that O2->CO2 is happening at a faster rate than CO2 -> O2. So what does an increased concentration of CO2 mean? This is where the spectroscopy comes in. Light is the ONLY source of energy for the planet earth (geothermal is an energy store, but it doesn't create energy). CO2 absorbs light in a different way than O2 does. This means that changes in the relative concentrations of CO2 and O2 will change the way that the earth gets energy. How much of what kind of energy gets through the atmosphere? None of this is conjecture or political or anything like that. Its basic chemistry/physics. Then you get to the "greenhouse effect", which is the interpretation of the effects a change in chemical equilibrium of certain chemicals will have on the lower atmospheric temperatures. Basically, more CO2 means more absorbed heat. How much heat, exactly, is questionable, but the greenhouse effect is, qualitatively if not quantitatively, certain. This is also not conjecture, political diatribe, or anything like that. Its basic chemistry/physics. Then you have the recent temperature changes. Ignore the causal link between CO2/O2 concentrations and just look at the temperature change. In the short term, it is definitely changing. This is not conjecture, political diatribe etc etc. Its simple data logging. --------------- But here's where it gets tricky as all get out, and this is where the whole argument happens. \ Is the temperature rise noise or real? We don't really have enough data to know that. Is the greenhouse effect quantitatively strong enough to cause these kinds of temperature changes this rapidly? We don't have enough data, or even the proper models, to know that for sure. And even then, if the temperature change is real, will it even have a significant effect on the world? This one goes back and forth and back and forth. Part of the issue in the last question is the ideal gas law. If temperature increases, so does pressure. Vice versa the opposite way. In a closed system this is true permanently. But there really aren't closed systems at play here. Is it more like a hot air balloon or a pot of boiling water then? Here the pressure will temporarilly increase but the expansion of the system or the transfer of the heat will equilibrate either the pressure or the temperature back down. Maybe the same applies to the earth? I dunno. But the way that temperature and pressure operate on the global climate is the key to our dangers. Will increased temperature cause more disparate pressure systems, and therefore more hurricanes etc? I have no freaking clue, and I wouldn't trust more than a handful of people on the planet to really know the answer, or even the real question, there. --------------- So you have a lot of unknowns. But based PURELY on the knowns, mentioned above, you can understand that CO2/O2 (and methane and other stuff of course) equilibria is incredibly important. And you can tell that we are generating it a LOT faster now. So why the hell not address that? I mean, yeah, maybe its not an issue right now, but no matter what it will be one day. And I'm not arguing that you slash industry to the bone, far from it. The only way to solve this problem is through industry. But I am arguing that you have to at least acknowledge the basic science at play here. Ignore the politics, understand the science you are able to, and act from that. And stop listening to Fox news/Pacifica to get your expert opinion.

The following essayspeaks for itself, but I'll just preface: I'm new to this forum and this is my first post. I started chatting on a Libertarian Forum a few weeks ago and quickly found that even the supposedly pro-freedom Libertarians are suckers for all the fallacies that plague the "common" people, that is non-Objectivists. So here I am, looking for a rational groupd with which to discuss stuff and things. BTW, the essay is Copyrighted, please note. An Essay on Illegal Drugs By Brandon Cropper Theme: The illegalization of drugs creates more problems than it solves. Many people say the War on Drugs is an abject failure. With over a million people in jail, drug use is as widespread as it has ever been. If the lives ruined by imprisonment and being marked for life as a felon are counted as casualties, the War on Drugs has had as many casualties as all other wars in American history COMBINED. (Civil War: 500,000, WWI: 120,000, WWII: 300,000, Korea: 57,000, Vietnam: 37,000, total: 1,014,000.) It is my purpose in this essay to show that the government prohibition of drugs causes many more problems than it solves. But this should be kept in mind by the reader: the following examples and arguments are the practical end of the War on Drugs. On the theoretical end it is unjustifiable for the government to regulate drugs because the government exists in order to protect individual rights. Protecting citizens from their own self-destructive behavior is beyond the province of a government of justice, and enters the province of a government of tyrannical and coercive nature. The rights to life, liberty and property alone justify the argument that the government has no business prohibiting drugs. However, many pragmatic Americans today believe that if the government can do some good in society by controlling drugs, it is justified in violating our rights and liberties. This essay is intended to show that government control of drugs does only harm to society. Any educated adult is familiar with the law of supply and demand. It is an elementary truth that for a given commodity in demand, when its supply diminishes, the price goes up. When its supply is copious and plentiful, the price will fall. This basic economic fact has an insidious effect in the Drug Wars: when the government “succeeds” in capturing a shipment, or reducing the supply of drugs, the price goes up. This increases incentive for people to commit ever more dastardly crimes to obtain the drugs which are diminished in quantity but not diminished in demand. As drugs become more expensive, possession of them becomes an ever-greater status symbol. The crime associated with obtaining and distributing drugs is blamed for as much as 75% or more of the American crime rate. That is, if drugs were legal our crime rate would fall by up to 75%! This is often countered with the argument that if drugs were legal and widely available, crime would be even more rampant because “everyone would be high all the time.” Such an argument reveals two things: a blatant ignorance of history, because anyone who knows about Prohibition knows it caused crime to skyrocket, not fall; and a belief that our society is under a permanent, violent siege, an evil scourge of drug use, the effects of which our wise government is so benevolently mitigating. The exact point here is that government control of drugs increases their use and damage. These facts are horrifying in themselves, but a closer look at the nature of crime created by drugs prohibition reveals an even more tragic side of the story. A great deal of crime today goes unreported because of the involvement of drugs. For example, a drug dealer may have his house broken into and ransacked by people looking for drugs. The break-in will likely not be reported because of the dealer’s distaste for officers of the law, whose primary goal is to send him to prison. The robbers are well aware of this fact, and use it to their advantage, stealing anything of value from cd’s to cash to guns to jewelry and so on. The drug dealer who has sustained the loss gets little sympathy from the public, and the police, ostensibly in existence to protect citizen’s rights, cannot be called to the scene for the very reason that they would quickly arrest (violate) the drug dealer. Few people would take such injustice sitting down, and a person inured to the effects of extralegal justice would be likely to seek revenge on his own. The drug dealer then robs, shoots or kills the people who robbed him, with the result that the crime escalates from a mere monetary issue all the way to a violent death for the very simple reason that the cops are as much an enemy as the people who started the cycle by robbing the dealer. This extralegal justice is known as vigilanteism. It is created by the rapacious government law that exists allegedly to protect citizens from crime and violence. By creating a need for vigilante justice, drug laws CREATE crime and escalate its violence. There is yet another disastrous effect of drug prohibition: adulterated substances, or drug purity. It is a universal practice in drug dealing to “cut” or dilute the purity of drugs in order to increase the amount the dealer is able to sell, inflating his profits. The buyer may use the drugs, which are diluted fairly uniformly, without incident for weeks or months. Then a shipment or package comes through which is of higher purity than has been available for months or longer, or perhaps a new and inexperienced dealer sells some stuff without cutting it appropriately, with the result that users who had been accustomed to a certain dose now need much smaller amounts for the same high. But they don’t know that until they try the stuff. The result: inadvertent overdose, leading to hospitalization and often death. Overdose is a danger inherent in using illegal drugs, but it is accompanied by other disturbing effects: when users hear of a death by “OD” rather than being afraid of the currently available substance, they actually desire it, seeking it more ardently because “That’s good stuff, pure man!” The death of a fellow-user attracts them to the source like flies to honey. Another effect of adulteration is that a dealer can actually murder his customers if he sees fit, for example a customer seems to be putting him in danger by visiting too often, or committing crimes too visibly, so he sells the user some extremely pure stuff without telling him. Result: OD. Of course such murderers are immune to prosecution because of drug prohibition. Lastly, when an overdose occurs, the victim is frequently left to die, not out of callousness of other users, but because by bringing him to a hospital or calling an ambulance they place themselves at risk of imprisonment for involvement with the drug racket. The vast majority of “OD Deaths” would not occur if drugs were legal. (Certainly some still would occur, just as occasional deaths from alcohol poisoning occur.) The final and most prevalent effect of drug prohibition is the creation of a status symbol out of otherwise mundane substances. Everyone knows that Coke-A-Cola had cocaine in it originally. Back then, the local pharmacy or apothecary had supplies of the drug in various forms. It is obvious that the drug was not at that time a status symbol. When it becomes illegal, this is no longer the case. Suddenly, the guy with a fat bag of coke is the Man at the party. All the girls want to get with him tonight, all the guys admire him, want to be him. Whatever the cool guy does, others emulate. This effect is highly visible in the drug culture today: although it is known and accepted that a person dealing large quantities will sooner or later be jailed, he is admired and esteemed while “at the top.” Whole styles and fads are based on the possessions of wealthy drug dealers, some present examples being a big Cadillac, lots of “bling” (diamonds and gold), beautiful women hanging on each arm, a chrome pistol, and tattoos. A jail record is also a mark of prestige. Such is the effect of illegalizing drugs. Whole new markets are created out of what was before an inane ingredient in soda pop. Today we put caffeine in soda. If it were illegalized, people would be paying $100 a gram and shooting it into their veins in no time. People would be shot, killed, robbed, raped for the new equivalent of vivarin. It is possible to turn heroin back into the boring drug called Laudanum in the 1800’s. Its possible to put coke back into soda, and get it off the streets and out of the hands of gun-wielding thugs, who are all-too-often our own children. LEGALIZE. For the sake of rights, freedom and justice, legalize all drugs completely. For the sake of our children, for the sake of the good, for the sake of our wallets, for the sake of our liberty, LEGALIZE! The End Copyright 2006, Brandon Cropper brandonjesse (at) hotmail (dot) com