I want to see more autonomous driving news here and everywhere, because I think people are sleeping on it, but this isn't new it's a series of sloppily integrated dark patterns in a trenchcoat.
Not an expert, but the standout thing about ketamine in particular is that it targets an entirely different neurotransmitter pathway than almost all traditional anxiety and depression meds. Traditionally, people treating serious depression or anxiety rotate through a variety of drugs that all hit same small set of neurotransmitters and settle on the one that works the best/sucks the least.
This is why people get excited about ketamine and psychedelics as therapeutics. Otherwise, we're just sitting around waiting for the next round of "new" drugs that manipulate the same pathways as all the old drugs (and carry much of the same risks).
Addiction to any given substance is highly variable from person to person, and there's a lot of data to back that up.
I recall a friend describing their struggle to quit caffeine, which I mocked at first, until I realized it sounded exactly like my brutal struggle to quit nicotine. Yet, plenty of people quit cigarettes effortlessly. Nicotine is one of the most variable, but caffeine, alcohol and cocaine vary widely too. I imagine we'd find this is the case for most substances if we had the data. In a sane world, we'd give every kid their addiction predisposition profile when they turn 13.
The hardest part of quitting anything is changing the behavioral habits that came with it.
For smoking, I bet you have the urge after a meal to smoke. Maybe you’re triggered when you drive long distances to “calm the nerves”. The issue is those triggers, those behaviors, need to be unlearned before you can attempt to quit. That’s why it’s easy for people who haven’t developed those behavioral habits and hard a hell for those who have. Former smoker myself so I totally get it. I can give that up, but caffeine - coffee? I’ll die with a cup on the counter half full.
The literature on this is clear cut. People absorb, metabolize and experience drugs differently, which has a big impact on how addiction takes hold. It's obviously not the only factor! But it's a big one and somewhat quantifiable.
Personally, I wasn't a "trigger" smoker, I was an "every chance I got smoker". I assume my nicotine metabolism is higher than average, which is linked to frequency of consumption and hence propensity for addiction. I also assume I have fast caffeine metabolism since I consume it at all hours with no consequence, but unlike nicotine that's linked to a lower propensity for addiction, which matches my experience.
In terms of access to drugs, the differences between countries is incoherent, not really a "good vs bad" situation. A lot of it has to do with the different ways nations fumble their endless (yet fruitless) attempts to limit abuse and recreational use.
But in terms of cost, the US system is bad. If we as a nation want to invest in drug development, we should do so. Instead we ask grandma and grandpa and the chronically ill to flip the bill. Hard to think of a worse approach.
I save my shopping list for Puerto Vallarta where I'll buy a small amount of benzos instead of battling it out with a US doctor for a prescription. But don't try that in Guadalajara - it's in the same state but the restrictions are far stricter.
And if you're a fan of Benadryl (diphenhydramine), don't expect to buy it in Latin America. It virtually doesn't exist.
It's about growth potential. Boeing has all the excitement of a utility company, just with bigger publicity problems. SpaceX has the potential to forge whole new industries. If you're bullish on space tourism or asteroid mining, SpaceX is the best bet on the table right now.
> China's building two, so that advantage will be fleeting
Monopoly may be fleeting. Advantage, no.
Again, we're looking at a decade plus of SpaceX having a decided advantage in putting mass in orbit. That could mean more capability, more capacity, faster deployment of new technology or even more margin (since you can go cheap on station keeping).
China will match Starlink in ~5 years and will push adoption hard through it's Belt and Road initiative, just as it has with it's (admittedly superior) GPS system. Starlink may become the de facto option in the Western world, but it won't have a chance at a global monopoly.
China is currently building TWO competing starlink-type systems. Given the trajectory of China in recent years, I no longer say "nobody is anywhere close to competing with..." about pretty much anything.
China's constellations are roughly where Starlink was in early 2020, except that their launch costs remain much higher. Yes, they move fast, but SpaceX is one of the few US companies I'd bet on to compete with them.
Also, I wonder how receptive the world will be to Chinese ISPs given their history of internet censorship at home.
SpaceX is ultimately still an American company operating at American scale vs PRC. Last year spaceX had fleet of 18 F9s doing more than 50% of global launches, 80% including starlink. SpaceX stans fixate over 50% and 80%, but ignore that 18 rocket cores is rookie numbers. 7/145 US space launches in 2024 was Non SpaceX. That means US in aggregate build ~25 rockets (i think less since some SpaceX are older cores). Versus PRC 68, about ~80 tyhis year (missing keep missing goal of 100). So we can already see there's a 4-5x difference in total launch vehicles production. When/if PRC sorts out reusables, they get both cadence x volume, and no telling how far they can extend the gap, if anything like auto, fast enough that they can overtake SpaceX in historic payload within a few years. Assuming payload enough demand, which I doubt... outside space weaponization arms race.
I think the world, well mainly govs, many of whom who are already running Huawei network gear would appreciate PRC willingness to accomodate local filtering (censorship) rules with how world is trending towards cyber soveignty.
That said, I can see SpaceX being elevated to Boeing tier strategic asset to compete, assuming Musk badblood doesn't interfere.
SpaceX is absolutely capable of building 80 rockets, if they needed to. Don't forget that they built 132 F9 second stages last year, plus thousands of satellites and millions of user terminals. But they don't need to build 80 first stages because their first stages are getting reused 30 times. Why would they waste time building first stages they don't need? China needs to build 80 full rockets because theirs explode after each use.
Meanwhile the Starship factory is looking like it will be quite productive once the design is locked down.
Upperstage stage 1/6 weight with simple merlin engine. SpaceX might need to build 80 first stages if PRC reusable ends up building 80 first stages that's also reusable 30 times. Whether SpaceX can actually build and operate 80 first stages (very likely), and their associated second stages (more questionable) or realistically 100, or 200, we don't actually know, but we know basically in any mature industry PRC can outscale US capabilities, sometimes dramatically, i.e. 200-300x in shipbuilding.
The point is once PRC figures out reusables and operates a 100/200/300 fleet of reusables, is SpaceX which is more or less entire American space industrial base able to match. Or it it going to go the way of EV or any other PRC high capacity industry where US can't.
Even NYC is having a soundstage boom. It's not just about cutting costs, it's also about being free to go where the talent and resources are, instead of being chained to LA.
Nearly everyone we know has lived their entire lives in a world obsessed with reducing trade barriers, and grew up with a minimal general education on economics or geopolitics. So to assume anything more then a small subset of the population could talk coherently for 5 minutes on the topic of tariffs is, to me, absurd. Just look at how the general public responded to a surge in inflation after a couple decades of abnormally low rates. It's like asking someone if the Fed should raise or lower interest rates. It's not that people shouldn't have opinions on these things, just that most people don't care and among those who do, few have more than a TV-news level of understanding.
Right, like imagine if the Fed gave you some sort of preferential access and sweetheart low rates. Then you could borrow money from them at a low rate, lend it out at a higher rate, and profit from the difference. It would be like some sort of modern day alchemy: Creating money from thin air.
Of course, if you become very large and there are widespread delinquencies that threaten your solvency, your chums at the Fed will happily give you infinite liquidity for collateral at sweetheart valuations. Or maybe they'll just start buying up debt in market operations to put you in the black again.
Now, getting this kind of special treatment while mom and pop get foreclosed on their ARM and evicted seems a bit unfair. And, with the help of onerous zoning and permitting codes, it would tend to inflate house prices, with the perverse effect of forcing people to take your loans in order to own a home before your scheme inflates their prices even more--effectively becoming a private tax on home purchases.
That's why we've made this obviously corrupt business illegal.
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