this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
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I read the first paragraph of this article and I already think it sucks. If heroin was fully legalized, zero restrictions, we’d be much better off than the current situation we have right now with the war on drugs, fentanyl analogs, and xylazine. Full stop.
Second paragraph:
This is already happening. Who is this author and why is he so ignorant of the past few decades of opiate problems in the US? There is not a significant fundamental difference between heroin and any other opiate/opioid. I say this as someone who has experimented with many types of them.
Based on this I’m not gonna read the rest of the article because he’s already demonstrated a head-up-ass perspective.
Paul Krugman is a nobel-prize winning economist who used to have a column in the NY Times. He has a relatively impressive record of predicting terrible things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman
And while I certainly don't want to push back on the difference between heroin and other opium derivatives, it's worth noting that legally speaking they're both exactly as illegal when not used as prescribed for the treatment of pain or disease.
It's not a blog post about heroin or opiates, though, so quibbling over the imperfections of his analogy is kinda missing the point. Please give it another read if you have a few minutes; the analogy is fairly apt, though very depressing as an American.
Aka totally discredited.
The "nobel in econ" is as much of a fraud as econ in general.
Anybody who knows this goofball knows not to listen to his crap.
An ad hominum attack and a distinction without a difference is a hell of a response to "who is this guy".
Do you want to show the class where on your wallet the Keynesian model of economics touched you? (Or do you perhaps have a "Krugman sucks and you shouldn't listen to him" link you'd like to share?)
Since you went for an Appeal to Authority as the very first paragraph of your comment, a response that trashes that person's authoritative credentials is logic in the very context you created and thus not an Ad Hominum.
Without that first paragraph on your post you would've been right to claim Ad Hominum.
You didnt attack any of his actual credentials, though. You just said that he should be dismissed because he wrote for a particular newspaper and the award he was given by the Swiss government was not one of the awards given by the Swiss government funded by the gift of a 19th century arms merchant.
If you want to rebut my statement that Krugman "has a pretty good track record", please do so! But you didn't, and haven't, and instead asserted your own biases as fact.
Which is obviously your right to do but, again, is a really weird response to a "who is this guy" post.
Mate, I'm not the person who answered your original comment.
I just saw you making claims about somebody else making fallacious statements when in fact it was you who started with a big fat fallacy and then bitched and moaned about how they were the ones being fallacious when somebody else countered it by pointing out that at least one of the points of "evidence" that you yourself presented for Mr. Krugman's "pretty good track record" (whatever the fuck such vague and ill-defined expression means) was in fact a Swedish Central Bank Prize For Economics In Honor Of Alfred Nobel, which is commonly misportrayed as a genuine Nobel Prize - even by Krugman himself - when it is no such thing.
Of all the things to use to claim somebody has a "pretty good track record", him having something he himself calls a Nobel Prize which is not in fact a Nobel Prize actually weakens that point rather than strengthens it, as it casts suspicion on his honesty.
As it so happens for a while I had a lot of exposure to Mr. Krugman's opinions - on and after the 2008 Crash, when I in fact worked in the same Industry as he did - and in my opinion he was often full of shit and all over the place, at least back then, and a pretty good illustration of the caricatural Economist "who has predicted 10 of the last 2 downturns". One could say that he likes to throw shit at the wall, wait to see what sticks and then claim he was a genius for spotting it.
I'll repeat myself: had you not started with an Appeal To Authority in your original post and absent all those words of praise for the person making that point, just let the logic of the point speak for itself, you would have been better off.
A mere casual endorsement is not an appeal to authority. If you don't like the guy that's fine, but it's not a logical fallacy to, for example, describe a late night comedian as "a kinda funny guy.". (A logical fallacy would require that someone assume Krugman is RIGHT because of his record, not that he's merely worth reading )
How is dismissing someone because of where they worked NOT an ad hominem attack?
How is splitting hairs over which awards given by the swedish government are and aren't "nobel prizes" NOT a distinction without a difference?