CharonY

While it will not accomplish abolition, it does not mean that it will have no impact on the overall dependency rate. Data is not quite consistent and it will depend on a number of factors (including the drug itself). However, removing stigma and punishment from drug use seems to have increased the rate of folks seeking rehabilitation in many areas. I am not sure if current evidence points to a net change in addicts, as for example decriminalization also increase the rate of honest self-reporting. Nonetheless, there are potential ways where legalization/decrimininalization can influence dependency rates to some degree.

Who are you calling old?

It depends on the distribution chain, the common use and dangers of misuse. For some drugs, open distribution could act as an amplifier due to their addictive properties and high relapse. But if we were to use alcohol and its abuse as an acceptable baseline (partially because prohibition was a) not popular and b) difficult to enforce and c) came with associated crime) then one could reasonably also advocate access to certain drugs for recreational use. However, at minimum It should be accompanied by policies that minimize self and other harm. Including ban on its use while operating machinery, use in certain places (similar to smoking ban) as well as educational campaigns on use and danger. For some highly addictive drugs more regulations should be put in place. Note that there is a market for legal distribution of opiates en masse, backed by industry. While fatalities have skyrocketed in recent years, they are still lower than alcohol and tobacco-associated deaths. In fact, the top three preventable causes of death in the USA are (in order) tobacco smoking, obesity and alcohol. Drug abuse ranks far lower in that scheme (though may have increased in recent years). If the question is why folks are more comfortable with alcohol/tobacco, the answer is quite simple. Folks are more used to it. If everyone is smoking or drinking, then there is no stigma in its use and with some precautions (e.g. drunk driving) folks are comfortable around these drugs. It is certainly not because folks did an extensive risk-assessment. However, perception changes over time. Whereas smoking was ubiquitous not too long ago, the numbers of smoker and places you are allowed to smoke have plummeted. Moreover, smoking has now a certain stigma as exposure to second-hand smoke has been shown to be harmful and folks may be admonished for smoking, especially around children. I believe that to date there is no policy that clearly and irrevocably removes drug abuse. Punishment clearly does not work and legalization has not shown to systematically reduce drug abuse, either (though it does not seem to increase). However, unchecked legal access can produce issues, as the opiate crisis has shown. The latter is fueled to a large degree by the us and abuse of legal painkillers. However, policies and societal changes and pressures have shown to be effective to regulate abuse (to some degree) and to minimize harm. Examples could include the reduction of tobacco smokers, for example. However, they are unlikely to eradicate them. Thus my view on drug policies is not about combating abuse in itself, unless one has found a means that actually works. Rather, it is about minimizing effects on public health and security. In that regard categorization of drugs plays a secondary role. With regard to controlled long-term substance abuse (and let's face it, regular alcohol use falls into a similar category), even for highly addictive substances such as heroin it is not quite straightforward. There are studies that have looked at hidden users for example. The reason is that controlled long-term abusers do not necessarily show up in the usual statistics as they do not self-declare to avoid stigma yet can control their drug use to avoid extreme health effects (like heavy drinkers before the cumulative damage of alcohol becomes apparent). Take the study on a Scottish group (Shewan & Dalgarno Brit J Health Psych, 2010). While the average use of heroin was 7 years, there were few drug-related incidences. This cohort seems to be better educated, have a more controlled substance abuse and was clearly distinguishable from cohorts in treatment. There is an increasing awareness that dependence is not necessarily just the exposure to a substance, but it also involves the circumstances of the individual. Similarly how some folks can cease drinking, whereas others become addicted.

Distribution is still restricted there, from what I understand. Nonetheless I think part of the discussion seems to be based on the assumption that certain drugs are fundamentally (biologically) harmful than others. Thus, legislation is or should address that as a means to protect public health. The counter-argument do this are that evidence point to criminalizing drug abuse does not ameliorate the situation. Moreover, as the discussion with soft and hard drugs has been shown, it is not based on medical effects, either. Specifically alcohol seems to be seen as harmless (and ironically is a prime example how abolitionist movements did not work). Yet if scaled systematically it is on par with lots of other drugs typically seen as "hard" in common parlance. This does not come to a surprise to folks who work on physiological effects on drugs. Likewise, the dangers of tobacco are vastly underestimated, simply because we are used to it.' There have been efforts to use multiple criteria (which include harm to individual and harm to society) and according to one of the most cited study in the UK (Nutt et al. 2010 Lancet). The most damaging drug overall was alcohol, scoring higher than heroin or Crack cocaine. Of course one could surmise that the societal effects were driven by availability, but even on the harm to the individual user scale alcohol scores just behind Heroin, Crack Cocaine and metaphetamine. Drugs scoring lower than alcohol on the individual scale included cocaine and amphetamine. Tobacco scored close to cocaine and amphetamines. Tobaccos is a special case as it is generally not associated with overdose situations. However, if we include the increase in lung cancer, it suddenly becomes on of the deadlier drugs. Sure, it is less dramatic but lethal nonetheless. If we look deeper into the type of harm, alcohol and tobacco are drugs with some of the highest drug specific damages. When we look into drug specific mortality (which excludes e.g. violence), alcohol scores lower than heroin but higher than (crack) cocaine, methamphetamine etc. Especially the comparison between crack cocaine and cocaine is interesting. On the biological side, there is little difference in the damage they do bodily (mortality and damage are very similar). But on the overall damage scale crack cocaine causes more damage on the individual as well as societal level. A part of these different outcomes is based on the different policies surrounding those drugs, which, in my mind indicates that the additional punishment for crack cocaine is net harmful.In other words, the perception of what is considered a relatively safe drug (tobacco, alcohol) with actual medical data is quite different. Pretty much the only clear overlap are probably mushrooms. Of course, one could weigh different parts of the equation differently. E.g. focusing more on withdrawal, or availability of treatment options and so on. However, it does show our given perception not data driven but based on certain narratives that we built ourselves surrounding certain drugs. I found this argument, as well as your earlier approach to playing devil's advocate highly problematic as you tend to leave out so much nuance as to make the argument worthless. I have addressed what the difference between "feel good" and addiction or compulsive behaviour and that those require different approaches. Heroin itself was, for several reasons perhaps not the best example John could have picked. But what is clear is that alcohol is far from a safe drug. Yet we deal with it in a certain way that we find acceptable. It is certainly not based on the objective harm done to the individual. However, as a parent the answer should clearly be: don't give alcohol to them or any other drugs. If that is not possible than disapprove of dosages that can cause short or long-term damage. Clearly we do that for certain drugs. But for others we seem to be fine(ish) with the toll on public health. What you are advocating here, MigL is a full-on emotional response and I do not consider that a good foundation for policy-making. While I am far from being an expert in this area, it seems pretty clear to me that punishing users has almost only negative effects. The Portugal model (personal use is allowed, there is support to kick addiction, distribution and production is still prohibited) is not perfect and does not really eliminate drug abuse. However, it has also not lead to a surge of addiction. More importantly, indicators associated with drug addiction have improved. While certainly not perfect, it certainly seems a bit better than the decade old punishment route, which just made matters worse. @Koti, some of the references regarding cannabis and tobacco: Budney et al. 2008, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment; Vandrey et al. 2008 Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Also note as per your earlier comment: there are no perfect policies. Every policy ever made is an empirical experiment. However, holding fast on wrong assumptions or not implementing changes once it becomes evident that they do more harm then good makes bad policies.

It is not about accounting, but about efficacy. Addiction is a different beast from merely "feel good" as any addiction can tell you. Actual kleptomania does not go away with punishment. Yet therapy can at least assist in controlling impulse disorders. Punishment may make society feel better. In those cases it just does nothing to improve outcome. While John already clearly expressed it, I just want to reiterate that there is no scientifically consistent classification of hard vs soft drugs. Moreover public perception of harm is quite different to actual biological and medical effects.

Off the top of my head there were two with Vandrey as first author, which had a very small cohort. A larger group was queried in a follow up. I will have to search a bit to find the precise references, though. Let's put it the other way round. Assume that we just punish any drug use severely. Does this drive down addiction rates? Empirical evidence shows that it is not the case. Rather, addicts just end up in jail, become poorer and once leaving institutions have massive relapse rates. In other words, punishing drug use does not reduce drug users, but in fact adds harm to a harmful situation. So what would change if we treat it as a medical rather than a legal problem? The focus here is to reduce drug related damages. Key is that possession for personal does not carry a criminal penalty in itself. For example, drug addicts would be targeted with rehabilitation rather than with criminal penalties. Trafficking and production could still be illegal (which probably would be considered decriminalization rather than legalization? not sure about the legal implications). Providing needle exchange and dispensaries have shown to limit deaths and spread of diseases. In Germany, for example it has been ruled that drug addiction or possession for personal use is not considered a crime and drug injection rooms were established. Likewise, treatment of addicts are covered by health insurance. Portugal has taken broader steps for decriminalization and at least for certain risk groups saw health benefits in terms of reduced HIV infections and drug-related deaths.

Well, in comparison it may very well be relatively irrelevant. But it is a difference to having no effect. Even (relatively) mild symptoms can hamper efforts to get rid of an addiction, for example. From limited studies cannabis withdrawal mimics the symptoms of tobacco withdrawal.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not think that a punishment scheme will help to resolve the issue. The justification of hard vs soft drugs (and associated punishment) is more of a distraction than anything else in my mind. It should be treated as any other public health issue and legislature should reflect that. Withdrawal symptoms or anything related to that only provides the illusion of objectivity. This only provides law makers with the possibility to take a hard stance against X, without actually resolving the issue itself. These are indeed withdrawal symptoms and as you mentioned are transient and the inconvenience is fairly minor. Nonetheless, they can be traced and are considered clinically relevant. IIRC these tests (while quite often in use already) tend to give out false positives. Though to be fair, roadside alcohol tests are not that accurate, either.

The issue is of course that it is a) only looking at a part of the equation and b) it is highly dependent on the individual and as such c) there is no objective way to measure. For example, where do you draw the line of lethality of withdrawal. Do suicide attempts count? What about if death only occurs in patients with heart conditions? Or if death only occurs due to the type of detox treatments? What if the actual symptoms are only lethal when not managed properly? In that regard one could classify alcohol as hard drug, as withdrawals has a higher rate of death (ca. 6%), whereas with opiate withdrawal death is extremely rare. Some may think that opiate withdrawal is deadly, but whilst extremely uncomfortable deaths typically are caused by mistreatment (there reports, but no hard numbers that overdosing on replacement drugs may have caused complications) or not taking care of symptoms (e.g. not drinking enough). Thus merely based on withdrawal symptoms opiate should be considered soft or at least softer than alcohol. In fact, death due to withdrawal are often caused by secondary effects as e.g choking or water loss (due to vomiting and diarrhea, for example). And if you add things like devastation or harm to society things get even more complicated. Then the issue of hard vs soft has to take prevalence into account, impairment during use (e.g. drunk driving) etc. Especially social aspects are a horrible measure. Crack is such an example, where it is considered a worse drug than cocaine (which is virtually the same psychoactive substance). However, since it was judged that the former has a worse impact on the population it carried a higher punishment (and according to some studies, the fact that in the US it was mostly aimed at African Americans, also played a more or less covert role). So again, what is the measurable value that you would like to use to classify the substances? Activity per mg? Addictive properties? Prevalence in use? How to quantify these values? How to quantify something as vague as social impact? While things may seem trivial, they are clearly not. Too often societal impact appears fairly straightforward for issues and certain policies seem to make intuitive sense. Only way later, when we collect data do we realize that the assumptions were too simple and/or biased resulting in failures such as the war on drugs.

Perhaps it helps to recognize that these terms mean different things in different contexts and as John pointed out, the one used here is mostly a legal-political distinction. If you look into scientific literature you will find that these distinction are also blurry there. For example, in some studies "hardness" is defined as likelihood of addiction, in which case nicotine, and alcohol would rank among the hard drugs and LSD and ecstasy among the soft drugs. Often, you won't even find a definition, rather the direct use of the legal terms. If you want to add cheeseburgers to the mix, you'd have to show me the type and amount of involved psychoactive substances. The point however, is that it is not a good way to decide on legalization, especially as the legal definitions are often vague and based on historic reasons (e.g. classifying drugs associated with certain ethnicity as hard, whereas categorizing more familiar ones as soft). To OP: the fact that criminalizing drugs has not help to curb their abuse and puts users into legal jeopardy on top of health issues does seem to indicate that legal actions are useless to address this issue. Revamping drug abuse as health problem is more likely to save lives by the fact that drug users can actually try to get help without facing the risk of legal challenge, for example.

I think the issue in your reasoning (or at least the way you convey your reasoning) is that you keep elaborating on a singular element out of several contributing factors. While you acknowledge it yourself, you then revert focus to the singular element again. From a broader viewpoint the question you would have ask yourself is what the relative contribution of these elements (including women's right, access to family planning, access to food and housing, socio-economic development, religion etc.). What you keep pulling out is that religion explains the high birth right in a number of Muslim countries, then when confronted with deviation, you handwave it away due to "other factors" and thereby ignore that these other factors may actually play the bigger role. It is pretty much acknowledged that in many (typically patriarchal) religions, reproductive rights of women are restricted. Likewise, there is an overlap with conservative world views, who tend also to be more religious. As such it does not come as a surprise that e.g. devout Catholics and Muslims have higher birth rates on average. Yet, it clearly is not the major driver as, again, if it was, the other factors (such as socio-economic development) should have less or no effect on birth rates in Muslim countries. Yet in a number of countries social policies had a massive effect in a short amount of time, while religiosity did not change appreciatively. Also, I just realized that I should not waste my time in repeating arguments and actually get some work done.

Just out of curiosity, it seems that in the USA between 2014-2016 there were ~1,300 road rage incidences in the USA involving guns, resulting in 354 people wounded and 136 killed. Also according to UK Highway Code, the only item that are specifically named with respect to distracted driving are electronics (phones, natsav etc.). However the a) the rules explicitly apply even when queuing or waiting at a stop (i.e. anytime other than being fully parked) and b) the police can decide whether they think you have been distracted. I.e. even if not explicitly stated police could in theory pull you over for anything that they suspect that you are distracted by, even if it is not regular enforced such as the use electronics.

I am open to the idea that the current administration has not resulted in a significant change in white nationalist/supremacist activities, especially as it will take a while longer to have data on that. A few years down the road we will know more. I was referring specifically to the the way the White House has expressed their policies. There are legal restrictions that would forbid them to specifically target folks based on ethnicity. However, certain aspects, such as the forced separation of children does disproportionately affect Hispanic folks. Based on what the administration has said (including contrasting shit hole countries with Norwegian immigrants, calling travel restrictions Muslim bans etc.), it is hard to imagine that it was not by design. Knowing that certain powerful factions in the White House are clearly racist makes it hard to imagine that it will go unnoticed in the population. The question, as I mentioned is whether it will result in a meaningful net change in openly classifiable extremist actions and group memberships. After all, aside from personal ideologies, these openly enacted policies (during the Obama administration deportations were for example not openly celebrated) are clearly a signal for the Republican base. Even if those views are prevalent and they find themselves vindicated, it may not result in any quantifiable change. Unless, of course, white nationalist ideologies are actually on their way out (which could be questionable). This then shows that it is going to stick around for a while longer. I suspect we are looking at slightly different segments of the population. I am including the otherwise "normal", perhaps conservative part who feel uneasy about the increasing amount of diversity in the neighbourhood, which is even more difficult to quantify than outright hate groups. In this context looking at the Obama administration is quite interesting. As you mentioned several hate groups seemed to have peaked during his presidency. In fact, it appears that having a (half-) black president mobilized resistance on that fringe. One could argue that the same is happening with regard to black nationalist groups. One difference one could see is that Obama triggered outrage by virtue of his skin colour. Trump by his rhetoric and inner circle.

Eh, I disagree that this a new thing. Road rage was always prevalent, for example. What has increased are cases where firearm use gets involved.

If your buffers are clean DNA should be stable for at least a year at -20.

There is little, if anything that does not evolve during sufficiently long time frames.

I think it is dependent on whether you are holding something for an extended time like during eating, vs. picking up a mug, sip and put it back. If the latter was forbidden, half the folks in Arizona or similar dry areas would die of dehydration during their commute. If you really only have one hand free for the drive I think it could be considered distracted driving.

Well, for that there are a couple of indicators. First, is the increase in political clout. There are folks in the White House that are close (or actual) white nationalists who actually enact policies aimed at limiting influx of non-whites. Plus the lack of condemnation of white supremacists when they actually killed someone or the way the President reacted when he got endorsed by the KKK. These factors do not necessarily increase the numbers of white nationalists, but it certainly mainstreams their ideas. An additional indicator is that there a handful of GOP candidates that are openly supremacists or of similar ilk. While they generally do not have much support, the fact that they are in the mix can be seen as a signal. Now, the issue of actual rise in white nationalism on the population side is more difficult to assess. It is one thing of having organization with declared goals, but there are also the diffuse groups and individuals who knowingly or not sympathize with the same ideologies. Finding good data set for a baseline and finding evidence for significant change is going to be difficult no matter what, due to the diffuse characters of associated ideologies and the short time frame of the current administration. At the same time, belonging to a hate group sends an open signal of ones ideology and while certain folks sympathize with certain aspects of white nationalism (or just good old xenophobia) actively joining a group may be a bridge too far. Likely, many of the same folk would agree that racism is a bad thing and joining such groups unless they manage to polish their sheen of respectability would be an issue. But you mentioned social media. Here, it is important to note that social media are not only used to propagate the rise of hate groups, but it is also becoming the major platform to recruit and perpetuate these ideologies. Similar, in fact, to Islamic radicalism, which increasingly uses these platforms to radicalize folks. If you look at current lit, you will find that researchers struggle to get a grips on e.g. the "alt-right" movement (a term, which incidentally was coined by white supremacists to normalize their stance it kind of worked). But since much of it is internet-based, it is difficult to assess the scope. More work has been done in terms of their tactics, but some studies indicate an increase in reach. But since it is a relatively new movement, but also bleeds over from fringe conservatives, it is difficult to establish a quantitative trend. That being said, according to various polls starting 2017 only ca. 5-10% of respondents share all core values including a strong sense of white identity and white solidarity coupled with a sense of white victimization (as expressed in slogans of concerning white genocide/ fear of replacement) with these white nationalist/identity movements. My suspicion is simply that a part of the population always had ideologies that at least partially align with white nationalist ideals. A certain amount of xenophobia is present in virtually all societies. What I think has changed (and again, it is pure speculation) are two things. On the one hand the normalization of certain rhetoric emboldens some to be more open with regards to certain attitudes as they may not be seen as racist as they used to be. This increase in open hostility is not new and happens periodically, especially when there is a crisis (or perceived crisis) of sorts. Typically these worries are masked as economic worries, but when e.g. politicians are openly using a certain verbiage (in congress folks like Steve King come to mind) and face no blowback, the racial elements tend to become more apparent. On the other hand, there are counter movements that expose or try to expose (with different levels of aptitude) some hitherto accepted norms as racist or at least controversial. For example, while controversial in some areas the conclusions offered in The Bell Curve was still often mentioned or taught in class with little skepticism as facts some 20 years ago. The pushback nowadays is not exclusively due to newer findings but also because of an increased sense that the original studies used biased selection and ignored confounding factors to build a narrative. Or because nowadays there is a sense that folks are not only in poverty and/or crime because of poor personal choices, but because they were in an environment where good choices were harder to come by. I.e. instead of punishment, social and economic policies and interventions were found to have a deeper impact on crime rates. The latter serves as a threat of the former worldview and at least seemingly leads to more conflict, amplified by social media, which can lead to a general impression of an increase of extremism. Another interesting element is that extremists, even on different sides tend to have similar interests. I remember reports where there was a weird level of support from neo-nazis to black separationist, for example. The reason being that both groups eventually want segregation.

I think unless you pose a risk (i.e. driving erratically) taking a sip from from a mug or similar would not be punished anywhere in the EU, including Germany (though correct me if I am wrong). If you try to pull out a charcuterie board, it may be different, though. Edit: crossposted, yes, if you get into an accident and they find out that you were having a coffee/snack , it can count against you. If you drive normally but sip on a cup they won't pull you over like they would if you were texting.

What do you mean? DNA storage? Depends on application. You can freeze dry or speedvac them for long-term storage or just use appropriate buffers and keep them at -80 pretty much for years.

It is more that there are conditions that may be associated with larger adenoma growth (e.g. genetic factors). Those prone to increased growth are also seem to be at higher risk for cancer (even if the growth is removed).

Just as a side-point, but the National Marine Fisheries Service published last year that the Northern Pacific sardine population is reduced by 95% since 2006. Considering that it is an important prey fish, connected food webs are also in peril. Populations of the European pilchard seem not to be as well monitored (and are mostly based on landing numbers).

I don't think it is that straightforward. It is more likely that a larger growth is already associated with conditions that increase cancer risk. For example, studies have shown that in patients with ademoma removal the risk of subsequent cancer is higher for those who had high-risk adenomas. I.e. the presence of the mass itself is not necessarily the main cause or source of subsequent cancer formation.

So, there are several ways to interpret the data. One is that these groups have always been around and there has been no significant change in the last 18 years. I.e. they are part and parcel of society that sticks around and festers and only come to prominence with media interest. While the reports may come and go, this ideology is going to be a part of society. The issue with that is that in the graph the only the number of groups are plotted, but not membership. This is an issue if one wants to extract overall trends as these groups can have anything between a dozen and several thousand members. Many of the groups are not stable and splinter into several, often rivaling groups, thus inflating the numbers of groups, without increasing membership. Difficulties in assessing membership is especially problematic as some of the newer movements (including the self-named "alt-right") are social media based. Groups such as these are also often diffuse and bleed into mainstream, as they like to give themselves a flair of respectability. That all being said, there is of course the issue in a) how persistent certain ideologies (e.g. racial anxiety) are in the broader society and b) what is the influence of folks with this type of ideology in a political context. a) has been show quite consistently to be a major driver in many strongly conservative voters. This is also seen outside of the USA (as seen in the surge of populist right-wing movements across Europe). b) is the part where white nationalist movements distinguish themselves from e.g. black nationalist movements. The former do have support (directly or indirectly) from various levels of political power. Most recently, this also includes the white house (with folks like Bannon and Miller at minimum). I will also add as a general comment (not aimed at anyone in particular) that I do have problems with terms like "PC" and "SJW" as they are just on the right side of nebulous so that can be used as a apparent counterweight to ethno-nationalists movements. However, while the latter can be classified according to their ideology (in which racial/cultural purity is a main factor and society is seen largely as a zero-sum game), I still have no idea what an SJW is (aside from an IRC meme). Unfortunately, while especially SJW has started as a joke, it seems to have become more common in use and I really have trouble figuring out what it means specifically now. If folks are concerned about social justice, are they SJWs? Weirdly, most folks when asked neutrally about those issues, one would find a sizeable proportion of folks that agree that inequality should be addressed. Are those all SJWs? Or only those that are loud on the matter, but also uneducated (i.e. first-year know-it-all students?). It is a bit like the issue with racism and what it entails. I found some old polls (I believe Gallup) where folks were asked their attitude regarding racism in USA. Through the decades a firm majority was against racism or had a negative view of it. This includes polls through the 60s and 70s. However, connected polls do see a sharp difference from that to matters that today would be considered racist (e.g. being in favour of segregation). What it means is that while the attitude to racism (and perhaps social justice/equality) perhaps has not changed a whole lot. However, especially in recent times there is a broader discussion in terms of what social justice and racism actually is and what it entails. For example, the classic attitude was that the USA is in essence a egalitarian (and perhaps meritocratic) society. Thus not doing well is all down to personal abilities and choices. Since certain minorities were doing especially worse, there must be something inherent to them (does not matter whether one calls it cultural or genetic, the important bit is that it is inherent) that causes this disparity. Policies were built upon this assumption (including e.g. mandatory minimum punishments). Now, with the data of all these policies we do see that these assumptions were not only wrong, but also devastated already struggling communities. From there, social sciences have investigated these social mechanisms in more detail and it has shaken the view of many with a particular view on society to the core. Folks do not consider themselves racist when they think that black folks take too many handouts. After all, it is not a race thing, it is just that those folks just do not work hard enough. Also, it is not that they call for actions against blacks or use racial slurs (for the most part). Now, folks are telling them that this is actually inaccurate and that among many factors, policies that limit generational wealth is a driver. Or that being tough on crime resulted in disproportionate policing of poor communities etc. Rather than re-evaluate ones own viewpoint, which frankly few of use like to do, it is easier to start blaming society, media etc. to distort the nature of things. Now with Trump and other populists, those folks get re-assured that they were right all along. Really, there is no racism (especially in policies) or at least the press exaggerates it. Racism is really only there if you feel a hatred and commit active discrimination. Engaging in a worldview that excludes a proportion of the population just does not cut it anymore. I think the surge is ultimately in those folks. Not really racist in terms of race hatred, or having a clear-cut segregated vision or racial superiority. Rather, it is the odd feeling of having more and more "other" folks in an otherwise nice neighbourhood. The fact annoyance on the fact that the cashier has a weird accent. The feeling that drugs are more prevalent and it is probably those black folks doing it. These low-boil attitudes that seem harmless enough, until they enable politicians to enact policies that seem innocuous enough, but in hindsight will harm certain communities. Ironically the failure of these communities can then be used to enforce more of the same, if support holds.

I think it has been well established that spatial memory is very well developed and uses distinct pathways, though there are overlaps with visual memory elements. However, rather obviously the brain does not store that amount of detail as outlined by OP. Most of the movements described will have no impact on the subject and will therefore not be reinforced as a memory pattern. De ja vu in the simplest sense seems to be a misclassification issue. Similarities to memorized events do reinforce the sensation, but so do certain impairments (e.g. sleep deprivation). That being said, the vestibular system contributes to spatial memory, but probably not in a bottom up way as described in OP (i.e. detail information are stored and then used to reconstruct a memory, piece by piece), Rather in a situation where spatial memories are built and reinforced, (e.g. navigating through an environment in one's mind) information of the vestibular systems seems to contribute to details, e.g. assisting in positioning oneself in a given memory, building perspective etc. In my uneducated mind it it works like additional information that pads out visual cues and assist in forming a more accurate (as far as memories go) spatial representation.