or did he take drugs bc his life was shit? why did you decide to establish this direction of causality?

Maybe most reasonably experienced adults know that drugs screw your life up.

That sounds like the opposite of survivorship bias. You don't hear about the ones that didn't screw their lives up.

Yeah. I don't see them either. There are probably very well-organized people out there with a crack habit. The ones I see are the dead-eyed fuckups on the street spreading misery to themselves and their surroundings.

But it cuts both ways. There's a phrase "high-functioning alcoholic", meaning someone who still holds down a job, wears respectable clothes and all that. I grew up with a drunk: "high-functioning alcoholic" just means the worms are well concealed inside the can.

The ones that don't screw their lives up pull back considerably and realize quickly how dangerous drugs are.

Especially at high doses for long periods of time, which is how Hunter S. Thompson got his name.

This assumes that drug abuse / addiciton is rational, which it almost certainly is not.

Did you know him personally to be able to make that judgement. To me it sounds like lying on his taxes destroyed his life, or to be more charitable to him, the government destroyed his life

> it probably worked out okay for him.

He just committed suicide.

And if you don’t believe he did I’m not sure that makes a case for it working out okay for him either.