These comments are oddly common, but I've never understood the value of simply repeating the definition of uncertainty words like "may." Who is being informed here?
Not every correlation deserves to be published in the press. If you think about it, it is weird that they even make articles out of statements that only "may" be true.
It is a matter of thresholds, of consequential bets over provisional non-trivial assessments, and of journalistic duty (taking note - the idea is not from the analyst but from sources; journalists take note that sources made statements).
Analysts work speculatively. And the results of the speculation are not trivial when supported by strong elements.
I think it means just that, which is why I used TL;DR? The article points out the correlation between mafia prevalence and lack of fentanyl overdoses and some speculation on whether those two things are connected.
From what I understand this uses overdose numbers. They should also not be assumed to be comparable across countries (recording practices vary widely), but if they tell the same story as wastewater monitoring there may be something to it.
"For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, 'I have powders; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing.' So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia."
When AI can write screenplays like this one, then it's game over.
Soon after John Stewart Mill we assessed that markets are not perfect.
Accelerations in the different directions of bounded incentives create as-if Brownian motions, - not the stability towards optimality of a perfect organic model.
Or: what you write is rational, but people are easily not... The supply side should disappear from the market when irrational, but changes are slow..
You just need to keep your customers alive long enough.
70% of food in the supermarket is ultra processed. But as long as people make it to 65 years old they are still good customers. That is still 50 years of sales.
For big pharma it is great business! Life long debiliating condition, that requires medication to manage... acceptable risk to customers is around 5% yearly mortality rate!
This was the way it worked up here (in QC) with the 81s. If you sold shit that could draw attention to you, your organization or suppliers, you were swiftly taught not to. They had decent quality control, but as their grip slipped so did quality. Now we get fentanyl overdoses weekly.
Who these days are more a front org for the CCP/triads who seem to be running much of the criminal underworld in Canada with their network of smuggling and money laundering.
My theory is that the CCP/triads leveraged drug addiction within the HA and killed anyone that objected, and everyone else got rich...
There's been a criminal civil war raging between HAs and every other smaller org that wants to expand (look at Blood Family Mafia specifically, Arab Power as well). HAs have lost some feathers in pretty gruesome ways. They're all older and neglected to replenish the ranks in order to preserve prestige. Street gangs didn't. If I'm competing in that world, I'm funding the underdogs until leadership trembles, then we make a deal. I believe we're at that point now. All those groups - including the Sicilians - have all been slowly invalidated and Angels are appearing more stable/powerful these days (even though we just outlawed their colours - but even that gives them prestige).
I'll be honest, this was helpful for me even as someone who lives about 2km from the Quebec border. I was uncertain as you don't often see it in the Hacker News context.
I'm afraid some crime syndicates have found out they can just steal it from hospitals, some 80 vials went missing from the ospedale israelitico in Rome during the summer and there are already reports of an increase of users in the outskirts of the city..
I always assumed this was an america-only drug that no one actually does or at least not to the excess that it's claimed by the publications using it for the normal fear journalism purposes.
Or, they may not. TL;DR correlation is not causation.
Found the mafia. ;)
These comments are oddly common, but I've never understood the value of simply repeating the definition of uncertainty words like "may." Who is being informed here?
Not every correlation deserves to be published in the press. If you think about it, it is weird that they even make articles out of statements that only "may" be true.
It is a matter of thresholds, of consequential bets over provisional non-trivial assessments, and of journalistic duty (taking note - the idea is not from the analyst but from sources; journalists take note that sources made statements).
Analysts work speculatively. And the results of the speculation are not trivial when supported by strong elements.
What do you think may means
edit: What do you think other people think that may means
I think it means just that, which is why I used TL;DR? The article points out the correlation between mafia prevalence and lack of fentanyl overdoses and some speculation on whether those two things are connected.
Not any speculation but educated guesses from knowledgeable people.
TL;DR: ‘Correlation is not causation’ does not mean ‘correlation tells us nothing about causation.’
There is one "access free" paragraph in the page... "Police are coming to the conclusion".
Did wastewater drug monitoring for a while, and the annoying bit was fentanyl metabolites sitting near the detection limit, so absence isn't proof.
Was that because there wasn't much fentanyl use or because fentanyl metabolites are somehow harder to detect?
I assume drugs that are potent in tiny quantities leave less metabolites.
From what I understand this uses overdose numbers. They should also not be assumed to be comparable across countries (recording practices vary widely), but if they tell the same story as wastewater monitoring there may be something to it.
Does wastewater drug monitoring account / offset for constipation caused by drug use?
There isn't anything to measure if the poop is unable to leave the end-user.
"For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, 'I have powders; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing.' So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia."
When AI can write screenplays like this one, then it's game over.
the internet is full of let-me-tell-you-a-quick-story like this one. so AI can and nothing is over, ma dude. nothing will ever be over.
Expand? This is part of plot to The Godfather. Not what you'd call exotic, I'd think?
Feels like they caught up to internet archive being used to circumvent paywalls. Unfortunate.
Can anybody share a non-paywalled link?
I'm no expert, but I've always thought that adding much more risk to the lives of your customers unnecessarily is not good for business.
Soon after John Stewart Mill we assessed that markets are not perfect.
Accelerations in the different directions of bounded incentives create as-if Brownian motions, - not the stability towards optimality of a perfect organic model.
Or: what you write is rational, but people are easily not... The supply side should disappear from the market when irrational, but changes are slow..
Did we? Because while seemingly obvious nowadays it is not a settled matter in orthodox econ academia.
When the risk is the benefit things get weird
They still traffic heroin though, which is not stellar for customer's life expectancy.
Tell this to junk food manufacturers...
Junk food dont have a chance to kill a person on first try or high chances to kill them withih a year or so.
If its cheap enough to be worth letting a few customers churn, then profits will be positive
Might want to look at the cigarette industry
Kills you very late, gives all the time to reap.
Curiously, this is still relevant to my comment nearby about "slow effect models" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49842956 ).
You just need to keep your customers alive long enough.
70% of food in the supermarket is ultra processed. But as long as people make it to 65 years old they are still good customers. That is still 50 years of sales.
And: shaking the scene in a way that will attracts too much attention, including crackdowns, is very bad for business.
The rest of the economics behind fentanyl are great for drug producers vs heroin though, so it probably doesn't matter?
For big pharma it is great business! Life long debiliating condition, that requires medication to manage... acceptable risk to customers is around 5% yearly mortality rate!
Helthy people do not contribute to big pharma!
This was the way it worked up here (in QC) with the 81s. If you sold shit that could draw attention to you, your organization or suppliers, you were swiftly taught not to. They had decent quality control, but as their grip slipped so did quality. Now we get fentanyl overdoses weekly.
81 = Hells Angels
Who these days are more a front org for the CCP/triads who seem to be running much of the criminal underworld in Canada with their network of smuggling and money laundering.
My theory is that the CCP/triads leveraged drug addiction within the HA and killed anyone that objected, and everyone else got rich...
There's been a criminal civil war raging between HAs and every other smaller org that wants to expand (look at Blood Family Mafia specifically, Arab Power as well). HAs have lost some feathers in pretty gruesome ways. They're all older and neglected to replenish the ranks in order to preserve prestige. Street gangs didn't. If I'm competing in that world, I'm funding the underdogs until leadership trembles, then we make a deal. I believe we're at that point now. All those groups - including the Sicilians - have all been slowly invalidated and Angels are appearing more stable/powerful these days (even though we just outlawed their colours - but even that gives them prestige).
I googled so y'all don't have to: "QC" means Quebec. 81 means Hell's Angels as per sister comment.
I'll be honest, this was helpful for me even as someone who lives about 2km from the Quebec border. I was uncertain as you don't often see it in the Hacker News context.
We gotta take back the letter Q man, it's either us or Qatar and I don't see them campaigning
Why not goverment "is keeping fentanyl out of italy"?
If you would sell unaproved medication during covid, you would get several years in prison.
Why someone who sells unapproved medication without prescription, gets released and can keep selling this stuff? Medication thst kills people!!!
I'm afraid some crime syndicates have found out they can just steal it from hospitals, some 80 vials went missing from the ospedale israelitico in Rome during the summer and there are already reports of an increase of users in the outskirts of the city..
And who is keeping it out of the other European countries?
I always assumed this was an america-only drug that no one actually does or at least not to the excess that it's claimed by the publications using it for the normal fear journalism purposes.
From what I’ve read online Ndrangheta are much more powerful than the mafia in Italy.