Using drugs makes you stupid.

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Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
GIThruster wrote:It's true that using drugs does make you stupid, and that stupid people are often more inclined to use drugs. It's not true that all stupid people use drugs or that all drug users are stupid people.
Caffiene, an addictive drug, has a measurable "positive" effect on intellegence. Indeed, modern technological civilization started in the country that stopped each afternoon for their "cuppa".
All drugs are not created equal. The more dangerous they are, the more regulation they need. Some drugs have beneficial properties, others have no properties of legitimate worth.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote: Stupid people do stupid things, by definition. It is my intent to demonstrate that most drug users end up becoming stupid people. :)
MOST drug users become SMARTER thru the use of their drug of choice. See my above re caffiene.
Yeah, caffeine is the same thing as THC or CRACK. Are you REALLY going to make that argument?

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Betruger wrote:
Diogenes wrote: As this particular article was timely
Darwin articles are news everyday.
Here in the DC area, the major "news" radio station has a weekly "dumbest criminal" piece. They mention three idiocies and have folks vote. Too bad it isn't a Darwin Award piece. Guess there just aren't enough of them; despite the drug warrior contention that drugs make one "stupid".
And you know these stupid criminals aren't drug users how?

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote: If you think the game is to make a rational argument, you've already lost it. Rational arguments never win anything. ONLY emotion works. This is all for amusement.
Gee, why did I think this of you.
This isn't an issue of personal liberty, this is an issue of whether someone is permitted to drill holes in the ship that we are all riding in, just because it amuses them.
The answer to that is to quite trying to make your ship hull integrity dependant on their hull integrity.
Civilization is a flotilla with each person capitan of their own junk; not a single ship with a single capitan/dictator.
We aren't in separate ships. We are in the same ship. I WISH they were in another ship!

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:The very idea that someone who has been tampering with their pleasure centers through chemical abuse is somehow in a position to make rational decisions about their "pleasure button" is ridiculous.
This argument seems to be based on something you(?) mentioned a while ago, that experiment wherein rats where given a choice between pressing a button for food and a button hooked to an eletrical stimuation of their brain "pleasure center"; they chose to starve to death.
Hey dude, people aren't rats.
Data with people show that they don't do that. Women hooked up to an "orgasmitron" (a very similar thing) increase their sexual pleasure, but don't let it overrun their lives. It is the same with drugs, for most people.
It doesn't kill all the rats, just most of them.

What percentage of the population should we throw away?

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:The very idea that someone who has been tampering with their pleasure centers through chemical abuse is somehow in a position to make rational decisions about their "pleasure button" is ridiculous.
This argument seems to be based on something you(?) mentioned a while ago, that experiment wherein rats where given a choice between pressing a button for food and a button hooked to an eletrical stimuation of their brain "pleasure center"; they chose to starve to death.
Hey dude, people aren't rats.
Data with people show that they don't do that. Women hooked up to an "orgasmitron" (a very similar thing) increase their sexual pleasure, but don't let it overrun their lives. It is the same with drugs, for most people.

Just for reference.

Pleasure Systems in the Brain
Olds and Milner (1954) first identified brain sites where direct electrical stimulation is reinforcing. Laboratory animals will lever press at high rates (> 6,000 times per hour) to obtain brief stimulation pulses to certain brain regions. The reinforcement from direct electrical activation of this reward substrate is more potent than other rewards, such as food or water. The potency of this electrical stimulation is most dramatically illustrated in a classic experiment where the subjects suffered self-imposed starvation when forced to make a choice between obtaining food and water or electrical brain stimulation (Routtenberg & Lindy, 1965). A second distinguishing feature of reward from electrical brain stimulation is the lack of satiation; animals generally respond continuously, taking only brief breaks from lever pressing to obtain the electrical stimulation. These two features (i.e., super-potent reward and lack of satiation) are important characteristics of direct activation of brain reward mechanisms.

http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/ARUreport01.htm

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:The very idea that someone who has been tampering with their pleasure centers through chemical abuse is somehow in a position to make rational decisions about their "pleasure button" is ridiculous.
This argument seems to be based on something you(?) mentioned a while ago, that experiment wherein rats where given a choice between pressing a button for food and a button hooked to an eletrical stimuation of their brain "pleasure center"; they chose to starve to death.
Hey dude, people aren't rats.
Data with people show that they don't do that. Women hooked up to an "orgasmitron" (a very similar thing) increase their sexual pleasure, but don't let it overrun their lives. It is the same with drugs, for most people.
Oh, and another reference. Apparently humans DO act like that.

The pleasure seekers
Heath's experiments were based on findings from a decade earlier that administering a mild electric shock to the equivalent brain area in rats - the "reward centre" - would send the animals into a state that looked like ecstasy. The rats would work at complex tasks over and over for the promise of another shock. Heath wondered whether his human subjects would react in the same way - and they did. When they were given a shock they said they felt good. And when handed the electrode's controls, they just kept on pressing, again and again, sometimes a thousand times in succession.

http://wireheading.com/pleasure.html

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
Betruger wrote:That's a metaphor for the war on drugs sinking faster than people can help?
It's a metaphor for sinking if you DON'T bail. Fighting the war on drugs is the same thing as trying to bail water. If you stop, you are going to sink. I personally worry we are going to sink anyways, but from the much bigger holes caused by financial mismanagement from Washington. That doesn't mean that the smaller social holes caused by the drug scourge isn't significant. .
Carrying this rather absurd metaphor to its conclusion; the problem with drug warriors is that while they are bailing so frenetically (and forcing others to bail at gunpoint) they never notice that the hull is self healing, and that they are knocking holes into the hull with their elbows while bailing and at a rate so high the self-healing hull can't keep up. Quit bailing, the situation will go away. Will idiots on occasion still put holes in your hull? Yes, but it won't be a problem. The hull is self healing if you let it be.
If it were "Self Healing" as you assert, the bailing would eventually drain all the water. The fact that the bailing is being maintained at a steady (if not increasing rate) demonstrates that the speed at which the hull repairs is equal to the rate the damage occurs. Which is no faster than the bailing can get rid of the water.

New injuries keep occurring because drug usage is contagious. It's truly like a disease in that regard.

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
Betruger wrote: How can you argue what the dangers are? Have you been an addict of every single drug to the point of absolute bottom out and everything in between (stealing relatives' property to buy more drugs etc)? If not, you "truly don't understand".
We can find out the response to various chemicals by testing them on rats. The same information can be had by observing the test results on the volunteer human subjects. :) They end up "F*cked up like a test rat!"
(A friend of mine's favorite saying. Former Cocaine\Heroin user. Now he just drinks a lot. )
Here is the truth of the matter. D here thinks that people are rats and should be treated like them.
I doubt this will do any good against his impervium skull, but:

Dude, people AREN'T rats! :!: :!: :!:

Well, YOU may be, but people in general aren't. :wink:
Some people are rats, some people are chickens, some people are lions, and most people are sheeple.

In any case, I expect you to have already seen the link I posted earlier. While people may not be exactly the same biologically as rats, they fall in to the same category (mammals) as rats. Since a category defines a set as sharing certain characteristics, it is reasonable to believe that humans and rats share certain characteristics, indeed, that is why we use rats for laboratory testing.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

taniwha wrote:
KitemanSA wrote: Dude, people AREN'T rats! :!: :!: :!:

Well, YOU may be, but people in general aren't. :wink:
I think I saw a rat walk off in disgust ;).
Dude, you need to lay off the stuff for awhile. :)

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

Diogenes wrote:
MSimon wrote:"When you get in bed with the government, you're going to get more than just a good night's sleep." RR
When you eliminate government, you won't be able to sleep at all because you will be constantly fearing the Tyranny which replaced it.

Best to make the Government behave in bed and elsewhere.
Remember Johansen's third la: Like all toxic substances, govenrment programs are subject to the J-Curve.

Govenrment, like botulism toxin, in small amounts is beneficial. In large amounts it is deadly.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

TallDave wrote:Here's an opposing data point for you: William Stewart Halsted, genius, physician, sometimes called "the father of modern surgery," teacher, astronomer... and a lifelong drug addict.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stewart_Halsted
http://www.jhasim.com/files/articlefile ... 0short.pdf


Interesting fellow. Performing human experimentation on himself with a substance he did not understand. Ended up in a Sanatorium. Clever that.
Halsted, together with his students and fellow physicians, began to experiment with cocaine. They injected each other's nerves and showed that cocaine when injected into a nerve can produce safe and effective local anesthesia. Halsted became addicted, and was eventually sent to Butler Sanatorium in Providence, Rhode Island.
"Unaware of the insidious ease and rapidity of cocaine addiction and it's disastrous effects the group used the drug freely and sometimes indiscriminately. "
"By the time the evil effects of cocaine - severe mental and physical deterioration - were generally recognized, Halstead and several colleagues had become addicted. "

The articles go on to detail his battles with addiction, (For some reason he thought it was a bad thing.) and appears to support my argument more than yours. Obviously the man was a Doctor BEFORE he started experimenting with Cocaine, and one wonders what the probability would have been for him to become a Doctor had he experimented with Cocaine prior to becoming one. An example of his writing after addiction, (contained in the article) would indicate to me that he would have failed in such a case.





TallDave wrote: Drugs don't make you stupid. Using drugs is often a stupid choice,

I think I should disagree with this statement. I count a choice as stupid if a person knows beforehand what the consequences are likely to be, and then makes the choice anyway.


TallDave wrote: and stupid people often use drugs, but that's no reason to think drug use reduces intelligence, and even less reason to think making drugs illegal will help them (your own data point certainly seems to indicate otherwise)

It wasn't originally intended as a "Data Point." It's original purpose was to irk MSimon et al, just to poke a bit of fun at them. :) It has transformed into a "Data Point", because it is now being referred to that way. My original intent was to occasionally put in other examples of drug addled idiocy, (which I expect to occur in the current news that I read) mostly for a laugh.

I suppose if my stupid Bank Robber is to be a data point, then William S Burroughs (Shot his wife in the head while drunk.) and Steward Halstad, (discovered his pleasure button through experimentation with cocaine) can also be data points. So we now have 3. :)



TallDave wrote: -- in fact, drugs' illegality may cause up to 90% of the problems addicts experience.

It's a lot easier to function when the thing you really, really, really need isn't overpriced by a factor of 100,000 and doesn't require criminal acts to obtain.
We are talking about Plant toxins evolved to kill or disorient you by manipulating your endocrinal system as being something you "really, really, really, need"?

Isn't alcohol the waste product of bacteria metabolism?

I'm having difficulty understanding how we could "really, really, really need something that is foreign and malicious to our metabolism.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
MSimon wrote: There are only Progressives in politics these days. In the early days of the Progressive movement Economics and Morality were combined. Now a days the movement has bifurcated. We have Liberal Progressives who want the state to "fix" economics and Conservative Progressives who want the state to "fix" morality.
You repeat this mantra like you repeat the mantra of "It's easier for Children to get illegal drugs than beer." It is also not true. What conservatives want is for the government to QUIT INTERFERING with morality.
What a load of crap!
Here you are, a self proclaimed "conservative" demanding the use of government, to the point of widespread executions, to maintain YOUR no drug "morality". Then you say conservatives want government to "quit interfering with morality"??? Can you lie out more sides of your face???

Let me explain this to you again.

Government has LEGITIMATE roles to perform.

THIS is one of them.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

Diogenes wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote: Stupid people do stupid things, by definition. It is my intent to demonstrate that most drug users end up becoming stupid people. :)
MOST drug users become SMARTER thru the use of their drug of choice. See my above re caffiene.
Yeah, caffeine is the same thing as THC or CRACK. Are you REALLY going to make that argument?
No, you were. I was laughing at you! If you want to make statements like that, be a tad more explicit.

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote: THAT is the most significant problem with drugs. They are CONTAGIOUS!
Only when they are illegal. Illegality breeds expense breeds monetary need breeds PUSHERS breeds more users. It is the illegality, not the drug. You would understand that if you understood Johansen's three laws.
They are even more contagious when they are legal. I offer Alcohol and Cigarettes as examples.

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