I’m used to old.lemmy.world, don’t see how to copy my comment URL, but see my reply on AR-15s. I think you’ll find it hits (heh) home.

The AR-15 thing is funny to me. Notice whenever an AR-15 is used in a shooting it’s BIG NEWS? Now think back on the guy in Maine who killed a bunch of people. (God damned was that guy screaming for help. Reg flags flying high.) Took me 3-days to find a news report on the gun used. It was an AR-10, basically the same as an AR-15. ducks as gun nuts throw rotten tomatoes.

But they didn’t report that because no one gives a shit about an AR-10. Very few have heard of one, not newsworthy. Now consider the public’s opinion of AR-15’s, the Toyota Corolla of guns. Not the best at anything, certainly not killing humans, but reliable, simple, inexpensive, customizable, AHH!

Anyway, I know I’m off topic. Merely puzzled as to why our billionaire media overlords would want public opinion turned against a simple, easy, cheap(ish), reliable rifle. One ponders what they would do if we built working guillotines…

Great article OP! First time I’d heard Wikipedia was in decline. I can’t see it ever going away.

My wife works fraud at the largest credit union on the planet. She knows jack about computers and AI and would be asking me about this if she had heard anything at work.

Thanks! Off to try now, but it’ll take a couple of days to gather results, and I’m not being scientific about it, going on feels.

Kratom didn’t kill him, not by itself, not leaf capsules. Want to hear from an actual addict?

You got great answers as to the opioid effects, but I’ll lay out my experience. No idea if this is typical as I’ve never known anyone else to use it. I can only speak to the ground plant-leaf capsules, nothing purified, synthetic, whatever is out there.

I’ve done about everything but angel dust and heroin, and kratom is truly strange. For me, it’s psychologically addictive, zero withdrawal symptoms if I quit cold turkey. The worst part is being annoyed at lethargy. More on that later.

There are three sorts: Red, green and white. I gather the difference is in the leaf’s vein color. Never tried red but it’s said to be calming with the same analgesic effect. Green gives me speed and pain killing, makes me nauseous, puked on it, damned near quit. White gives me both and I feel great. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Kratom is an excellent pain killer. I often work on projects all night, physical stuff, wake up in the morning with aches and pains I didn’t know I had. I’d hate for it to become illegal because I know a great many people need it for pain control. I don’t have to have it, but I’d cry for the people it helps.

The energy boost is great! And that’s where my addiction comes in. Using too much writes a check your body can’t cash. Gotta pay for that. I don’t mean a hangover, but I have to sleep extra to recover. OR, I could just take more! See how that works? It’s a spiral but takes a long time to be an issue. I’ve been on it for almost 5 years. In any case, it beats the hell out of caffeine for me. I can get almost no end of energy out of kratom where caffeine leaves me feeling like shit after too much. And I’m not going to get monster headaches if I quite kratom, like I used to with coffee.

Strange enough, that speedy boost doesn’t kill my appetite. No idea why this is. I can’t eat on crack or coke or even old-fashioned white crosses, but I can hog down high on kratom if I’m physically active. Another strange thing about the speed, I can sleep on it. Doesn’t make sense, but I can be wired up, lay down, grab my novel and crash out. Caffeine’s 5-hour half-life comes back to haunt me at times. Not so with kratom.

One other note on addiction: The more ya take, the more ya gotta take. OTOH, if I lay off even a day or two, my tolerance mostly resets. After 5-7 days, my tolerance level is gone.

Perhaps your friend was using kratom to get over the effects of some other drug? That would be my suspicion, but this comment is all about my personal experience, YMMV.

Not my best writeup, but I hit the high (heh) points. Questions?

EDIT: Forgot to mention an important part that may be relevant to your friend’s case. Got my first ever bad liver report a couple of years ago. Doc knows I’m an alcoholic, checks me yearly, always GTG. Since starting kratom I got some bad numbers back one time. Quit for two weeks and she congratulated me for laying off the beer. Yeah. 😜 More like I wasn’t wired up and drinking so much, secondary effects and such. Hence why I wonder if your friend wasn’t self-medicating in some way.

Mostly agreed, but I can get pretty fucking high on kratom, am so now. It’s not morphine “high”, but it gets me speedy and kills all aches and pains.

synthetic Kratom

Why would anyone make that?! It’s a dried plant lead in a capsule, and relatively cheap. Want more dose? Take more.

Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember a similar article. Anyway, I’m an addict and wouldn’t touch synthetic even if I couldn’t get regular leaf.

Contrast was the same, dark theme, white text on black. Don’t have any form of dyslexia far as I know. Only human I knew that read more and faster than I was dad, who funny enough, had reverse dyslexia. LOL, that man literally couldn’t write his own name on a bank check. “Robert” came out “Rqqqewt”, but he could plow 4-5 short novels on a Saturday afternoon and discuss the contents.

As to aging and such, keep in mind, the issue went away on another site and seems to be WAY better on regular lemmy.world. Old.lemmy.world has a different font. But how does that affect my writing?! Weird, if true.

I’ll experiment with default browser faults! I really only want to change old.lemmy so I can test. It’s an interesting problem to be sure.

But I want their tax money first. :)

Wage theft generally doesn’t come with jail time for individual cases, but employees should know their rights. I worked IT for a payroll company and we were serious as a heart attack on the subject.

For example, if I call the board and say my employer made me work 300 hours of unpaid overtime last year, I get that money if the employer can’t show signed timecards for every instance of my claim. This is automatic, does not require legal representation, guilty until proven innocent. And then your payroll company spikes your rate and worker’s comp insurance may even get involved. (WC insurance rates look at more than injuries. If they sense you’re a scummy employer, lots of turnover for example, up go your rates.)

So yeah, the punishment should be jail for egregious cases, but we already have laws people don’t know about or take advantage of.

Poltergeist, no question, slept with the lights on for 2-weeks behind that shit.

My neighbor friend’s dad took me and her the day before 5th-grade started. That man levitated out his seat when that giant skull leaned out of the closet. My little brain: “oh shit oh shit oh shit the adult is scared…” To his credit, the movie was PG because PG-13 didn’t exist in 1982. But still, c’mon Dave!

Didn’t sleep, couldn’t eat the cafeteria slop, it was 105F, heat stroked out in the hall crawling back from lunch recess. It was a very memorable day.

Pretty sure conservatives dropped this shit sometime after Reagan. Their policies show they still think it works, but they haven’t been dumb enough to keep that slogan going.

White Men Can’t Jump may cover both bases as well. :)

Anyone who thinks a million dollars is a large number shouldn’t be participating in economic discussions. :)

We can no longer retire comfortably with a lousy $1M. After you pay taxes on your return and subtract inflation, you’re hovering around most state’s minimum wage.

Now you have to prove intent, notoriously difficult without a recording or confession. Most of the problem here lies with lack of legal representation, which is the prime difference in the rich and poor in the first place.

Good god. Just levy a 100% tax on personal wealth over $1B. Devil’s in the details though. As with your plan people would find ways to hide their money.

Line by line:

This would basically kill all financial activity, even mom and pops who are, ya know, incorporated.

Guilty until proven innocent? We going there?

This part will never get corrupted. 🙄 It’s still workable and better than nothing!

Oh I like this part. Not seeing any downsides.

Victims generally are compensated. The main issue here is state and federal laws limiting damages using outdated thinking and/or static dollar amounts.

Again, we already do this, but it seems too many slide anyway.

We already have laws. One call the the state labor board and that employer is fucked. No one knows this so no one does it.