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Too Much of a Good Thing: A Cautionary Tale

City Journal
June 26, 2019
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Among the arguments for legalizing marijuana is that the black market for pot will disappear, thereby ending a destructive battle in the war on drugs and conserving valuable police resources. In Oregon, however, pot’s oversupply has delivered the opposite: a thriving underground market forcing legal growers to compete with cartels and illegal grow-ops, with everyone scrambling to move product in a saturated market. In City Journal, Steven Malanga examines some of the unintended consequences of Oregon’s liberalized pot laws. Should Canadian authorities expect the same?

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Keeping the AI Apocalypse at Bay

Writing in City Journal, Judge Glock examines legal efforts to control AI and dismisses the current fixation on suing for specific harms, such as bad advice. “The idea that we should treat Big Tech, including AI companies, like we treated Big Tobacco, is exactly the wrong idea,” he observes. A better approach is to assess product liability based on which parties can perform the task at the cheapest cost, as is the case with the regulation of medical equipment. This “has the benefit of putting the onus on companies themselves to game out dangerous scenarios and prevent them,” he advises. For more on AI, see this C2C article.

Moscow’s Bayonet

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Euthanasia Clouds the Western Mind

The American Mind’s John Petrakis notes that France’s recent approval of medically-assisted euthanasia means that nearly the entire Western world has now legalized the procedure, with only the UK and post-Communist European states holding out. “This development is best understood as an expression of the radically skeptical postmodern spirit,” Petrakis observes. “By annihilating the conviction that human life is valuable and worth preserving, euthanasia…ultimately lead[s] to the negation of the human being.” The West, in other words, is erasing itself. For more on Canada’s experience with MAID, see this C2C article.

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Keeping the AI Apocalypse at Bay

Writing in City Journal, Judge Glock examines legal efforts to control AI and dismisses the current fixation on suing for specific harms, such as bad advice. “The idea that we should treat Big Tech, including AI companies, like we treated Big Tobacco, is exactly the wrong idea,” he observes. A better approach is to assess product liability based on which parties can perform the task at the cheapest cost, as is the case with the regulation of medical equipment. This “has the benefit of putting the onus on companies themselves to game out dangerous scenarios and prevent them,” he advises. For more on AI, see this C2C article.

Moscow’s Bayonet

U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis (ret’d) explains in Jewish World Review how Russian President Vladimir Putin still poses an existential threat to NATO, despite Russia’s current preoccupation with its war in Ukraine. Over the next few years, he warns, an aggressive Putin is likely to attempt a variety of covert or special forces operations in the Baltics, including in Latvia where Canada has 3,000 troops stationed. “If the Russians probe with a bayonet and encounter mush, they will likely keep going. If they find steel, they will withdraw,” he predicts. For more on Putin’s implications for Canada, see this C2C article.

Euthanasia Clouds the Western Mind

The American Mind’s John Petrakis notes that France’s recent approval of medically-assisted euthanasia means that nearly the entire Western world has now legalized the procedure, with only the UK and post-Communist European states holding out. “This development is best understood as an expression of the radically skeptical postmodern spirit,” Petrakis observes. “By annihilating the conviction that human life is valuable and worth preserving, euthanasia…ultimately lead[s] to the negation of the human being.” The West, in other words, is erasing itself. For more on Canada’s experience with MAID, see this C2C article.

Bad Mom? Bad Wife?

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