I was surprised to see the attitude that marijuana is somehow better for you than alcohol. They each have a wide range of negative effects, but marijuana will change you more quickly and more noticeably than alcohol - at least, in terms of memory, personality, and general “quickness”. Marijuana has a whole host of associated problems besides these. Here’s a shitload of links - each link goes to the abstract of a paper published in a real peer-reviewed medical journal, so these aren’t links to some random scare-tactic “POT KILLS LOL” webpage.
I think my favorites are 1) how marijuana destroys personality, and 2) how marijuana can help slow brain cancer… because it’s so good at destroying newly-forming brain cells and synaptic connections.
Please post with comments, questions, or criticism!
Marijuana has a whole wide range of detrimental effects (at least to mice), some of which should be seriously considered before using this drug even once.
One thing I’ve found as a mentally scarred and disfigured daily user of marijuana is that when I can process a thought, I tend to think only in absolutes. I do however have moments of clarity and in one now I’ll share this with you:
I find
Pretty funny sitting amongst a post ripe with the rigid walls of about 20 .gov links, all obviously severely slanted in a certain direction. Now, this isn’t a Twiffy bash, I like you and I think you’re smart – smarter than this at least.
I’m not too delusional. Every action to your body has a certain reaction and marijuana is no exception. It’s not a drug for the lazy, despite how it may seem. But at the same time a few more things must be considered here.
1.Marijuana used to be quite widespread in acceptance, as it’s been worldwide throughout almost all of history.
Nothing in politics happens for a reason.
As much as the ‘de-personality’ trait is un-deniable, so is the ‘Open-mindedness’ trait. Anyone who denies this hasn’t yet tried the ‘drug’.
LD50 for Alcohol: 11,300 mg/kg, LD50 for pure THC: 1270 mg/kg
Marijuana leads to naps on the couch while dialing for pizza. Alcohol leads to passing out on the couch after beating a family member for no reason.
If you can see the specific reason why the paradigm exists why it does, one is better able to disseminate information. Especially if you’re going to be submerged exclusively in .govs.
I’m sick to death of people who care less about the readability of their post and more about sticking in loads of long links that ruin the page dimensions to try to make their opinions appear authoritative and well-founded.
So can capitalism. You don’t see millions of government reports criticising that. Ever wonder why?
tell me something, what in this world isnt bad for us? Honestly in some way, shape or form something we consume or do is going to be harmfull to us in some way.
THC…helps Prevent Cancer. Cancer cells attack Aging cells in your body. Those are the “weak” cells that get infected, Thc kills aging cells, basically it kills off the weak cells that would normally become infected. Its twisted, but in turn its good for you.
Puts people in a happier mood. Pain reliever, Muscle relaxer. Suppressent. If your sick, it will settle your stomach. It gives you an appitite.
Just the ability to think positively, and see past current problems. Marijuana is a great cure for monomaniacal and megalomaniacal thinking. It would have done wonders for Stalin, Hitler, and Napoleon. What more can you ask for?
I almost forgot. Marijuana has cured an insomnia problem my friend has had since childhood. It stops the racing thoughts, and allows him to doze off. As for sex, it tends to prolong lovemaking, then lead to an even stronger orgasm.
[i]The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS – or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day."
– Joycelyn Elders, M.D.
Former U.S. Surgeon General
Editorial, Providence Journal
March 26, 2004[/i]
[i]"[T]here is very little evidence that smoking marijuana as a means of taking it represents a significant health risk.
Although cannabis has been smoked widely in Western countries for more than four decades, there have been no reported cases of lung cancer or emphysema attributed to marijuana.
I suspect that a day’s breathing in any city with poor air quality poses more of a threat than inhaling a day’s dose – which for many ailments is just a portion of a joint – of marijuana."
– Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
“Puffing is the Best Medicine,” Los Angeles Times
May 5, 2006 [/i]
"[i]For some users, perhaps as many as 10 per cent, cannabis leads to psychological dependence, but there is scant evidence that it carries a risk of true addiction. Unlike cigarette smokers, most users do not take the drug on a daily basis, and usually abandon it in their twenties or thirties.
Unlike for nicotine, alcohol and hard drugs, there is no clearly defined withdrawal syndrome, the hallmark of true addiction, when use is stopped."
– Colin Blakemore, Ph.D.
Chair, Dept. of Physiology, University of Oxford (U.K.), and
Leslie Iversen, Ph.D.
Professor of Pharmacology, Oxford University
editorial, The Times (U.K.)
August 6, 2001[/i]
I’ve been doing a long term study on marijuana for about the last 14 years. So far I’ve concluded that it helps me focus and relax. It slows down my thinking so that I can think about one thing at a time without going off into spave every time someone asks me a question. When I’m high, people can at least understand what I’m talking about. When I’m not it’s like I’m speaking another language.
My brother hates getting drunk with me becuase I’m constantly updating him on how drunk I am. He doesn’t mind me as much when we used to smoke. Usually when we used to smoke he would end up napping on the couch while I called for pizza, but when we drink he passes out on the couch after beating me for the reason that I wouldn’t stop talking to him about it’s effects, the politics, and different scientific studies… or about philosophy… HA HA HA!
Hmm. Let’s examine what you’re saying here: the links I posted were all from a .gov source, and are thus influenced by the anti-marijuana bias that clearly pervades our government.
So, first, I completely agree that if I had seen a page on whitehouse.gov listing all these links, I, and any sane person, should immediately take it with a very large grain of salt. The govt. DOES have a clear, and irrational, anti-marijuana bias (at least in my opinion), and clearly tends to project all its biases into scientific reports that it endorses. I completely agree with this, and imagine that most others would too.
But this is entirely beside the point. I’m clearly an intelligent person; would I present links to such dubious sources as an argument for a position? (Hopefully you’ll agree it seems out of character.) PubMed.com is a SEARCH ENGINE offered not by the federal government, but rather by the US National Library of Medicine - funded by the fed. govt., sure, but removed from their influence sufficiently so that a search engine that they sponsor, which gives results in ALL papers published in major journals of science and medicine, is extremely unlikely to be biased. Presumably the only plausible degree of bias present in the sources I cite is any bias for researchers to demonstrate the negative effects of marijuana; and in fact I would argue that with the pharmaceutical company’s dominance in current economy and politics, the opposite is true; there would be more of a push to show that THC in medicinal marijuana is helpful, rather than harmful.
Old Gobbo, you suggest that I am too smart to have full faith in the links I posted. Hate to sound like I’m turning this around on you, but if that’s your position, it sounds a little like you didn’t read my links, or do your own research on the nature of PubMed.com - that you jumped the gun a little. And if that’s the case, you’re definitely smarter than that!
A bit more on the links I cited: first, I cited a good number of redundant links so that it would be clear that there was at least a degree of consensus on what these articles claim. Second, there were a good number of pro-marijuana links; but none that actually contradicted the links I posted. All the pro-marijuana links I came across were along the lines of “marijuana slows brain cancer” (which I posted), or “medicinal THC enables appetite in HIV patients” (which is generally well-known, and not a reason for your common person to smoke marijuana). I didn’t post those for good reasons - but the fact that they’re there, and in good numbers, is an additional good argument against the prevalence of bias.
On all of these fronts, I encourage you to search PubMed.com yourself, or JSTOR, or other search engines for academic results, if you want to verify or try to disprove my claims. Trying to introspect on how pot affects you is silly; trying to generalize claims about how pot works based on you and your friends having smoked it is obviously suspect. The best source of information will be repeated and repeatable scientific study, and those are available to all to a certain degree. I totally recommend that anyone interested in any claims of scientific truth use these as a primary source not just for argument, but in fact for belief.
SIATD:
Hmm - I have a hard time seeing any justifiable point here. 1) Clearly I care about the readability of my post - that’s why I summarized the content of each abstract beneath the link, instead of assuming everyone would be gung ho to read the links. 2) I guarantee that if I had not included references, someone (very likely you, although maybe not) would have said – and rightly so! – “you’re just saying that; where’s the evidence?” In a philosophical debate about something that is empirically falsifiable, the only true test of the matter is evidence. Obviously we can’t prove a theorem about marijuana - all we can do is test it and see what it’s like. Scientific studies are far better than common experience (provided they’re done repeatedly so as to minimize the impact of bias), because instead of relying on faulty introspection and small sample sizes, you have much more objective testing methods and criteria, and much larger sample sizes.
Obviously the idea that my links ruined the page dimensions is ridiculous - a small price to pay for a much greater increase in information. But insofar as me inserting links to try to make my stance appear more authoritative and well-founded - well, yes! That’s exactly what I was doing! I know we’ve had disagreements about the relevance of the Scientific Method and empiricism in general to the truth of the world, and I’m not the least interested in getting back into those - but barring axiomatic philosophical disagreements such as those, scientific evidence not only justifies stances, but can really be the only reason FOR a stance. Why would you believe anything except what the best evidence available indicates?
Now, science is hardly perfect - there can be faulty tests, bias, malicious funding and directed research. We all know this to be true. But unless there is some indicator of this, or some good reason to believe contrary to the scientific evidence, why would you bank on this? If you can show me that a large percentage of the studies I referenced were funded by the Bush administration, or Christian groups, I would willingly retract my claim that they are reliable evidence. If you can show me good evidence against any of my claims about the harmful effects of marijuana - and by “good” I don’t mean “I know this guy who…”, of course - then I will willingly reconsider my stance on the matter, and publicly restate my estimation of the worth of the science. Until then, I will believe what multiple independent scientists say - and so should you.
Desolate Thief
Sure. Sodium Benzoate, a significant ingredient in sodas, causes massive amounts of damage to the DNA in cells, and is essentially a low-level mutagen / carcinogen. It’s been linked to some of the increases in gastrointestinal and colon cancer over the past few decades. Millions of examples. The point is not “hey, pot is bad for you!” Like you say, many things are. The point is, rather, “hey, pot isn’t just bad for you - it’s SO bad for you that people probably shouldn’t do it idly.” Some people will gain so much from smoking pot that it makes sense for them to do it. But most pot users are casual, just for the fuck of it and because they’re bored, and the available evidence indicates that that’s a bad idea - whereas, drinking 2 gallons of soda a day is clearly bad, but having a coke every now and then doesn’t give you enough Sodium Benzoate to really make a difference.
Discounting brain cancer, THC causes cancer, or makes cancer grow more quickly. Your first sentence, therefore, is almost entirely wrong. Please see my links for justification of what I am saying. THC doesn’t kill cells except in the brain. Carcinogens in marijuana smoke irritate and kill cells in the mouth and lungs as well. THC’s effect on the brain is why it can slow brain cancer - as you say, it kills brain cells - although not the weak ones, interestingly, but rather the strongest and fastest growing ones. This is why pot makes you dumber. Anyway, to be honest, it doesn’t sound like you know what you’re talking about. Don’t rely on “I know this one guy…” stories to create your beliefs - look to science. They are more clever, and look at a lot more people.
Phew - I’m done. For anyone who’s gotten this far, I don’t mean to come down hard on pot users - that’s their own thing, and I not only support them making their own choices, but I support that being legally an option as well. But, I think far too many people MAKE their choices in ignorance, and often in willful ignorance. I’ve heard people react to new knowledge about the detriments of pot by saying something along the lines of “it only kills the weak brain cells, which makes me smarter!”, or “I have plenty of brain cells to spare.” Sometimes these people actually believe that what they’re saying makes sense, which is simply ridiculous. In other cases, the remarks are just flippant, obviously ridiculous, and usually don’t indicate that these people believe what they’re saying to be relevant - rather, it indicates that they just don’t care. This is like a teenager starting on cigarettes because it’s cool, despite the fact that he knows it is terrible for him. His choice? Well, it has to be his choice - but we’d all be better off if he was a little more intelligent in MAKING that choice.
So I’m trying to promote two things here - 1) awareness of the best information we have about the effects of pot, since it seemed that many of you really just didn’t know, and 2) an appreciation of the fact that these are highly relevant factors. If you’re going to smoke pot, you should honestly take into account the fact that you WILL GET DUMBER, PERMANENTLY, over time. Most people who have read the literature know this logically, but don’t really bother to take it seriously, just like someone driving drunk, or a teenager starting on cigarettes. Just because it’s your choice doesn’t mean that anyone should respect you if you make the choice poorly.
That readibility is more important that appearing authoritative…
Yet you couldn’t care less that people have to scroll left and right to read EVERY line of your post. You ‘clearly’ do not care that much about the readability of your post.
I never use phrases like ‘you’re just saying that’. I prefer ‘your saying that doesn’t make it true’ and suchlike. I don’t just recycle cliches and call them arguments, and you know it.
No, the only ‘true’ test of the matter is interpretation of evidence, and where there are rival interpretations, logic and reason come into play. I know you don’t want to get back into our prior debates but tough, you brought it up. Science does NOT ‘just go on the evidence’.
Nonetheless, the observations of a person of the printout of a machine hooked up to another person are never going to convince someone as easily as direct personal experience.
Hardly, since by your own prediction, a lot of people wouldn’t bother to read each link in its entirety (hence your summaries). And it’s more than possible to edit links to make them shorter, hence not fuck up the page dimensions while maintaining the sources. But that matters less to you than slapping a load of .gov scientific links into your post.
Good. Glad you realise that.
A bunch of theories that can only be falsified, never proven, is the ONLY reason for a stance?
Ridiculous. Fundamentalism. You know the drill.
Because I’m not convinced scientists are reading ‘the best evidence’ accurately and objectively. Science interprets data, it doesn’t merely produce and record it. Where there’s interpretation, there’s literature (and semiotics, logic, rhetoric and so on).
Plenty of people don’t know this to be true. Plenty of people blindly accept whatever a scientist tells them.
Some experience of seeing the raw experimental data and the theory interpreted from that data and seeing the massive gaps in between the two. Also, having met plenty of scientists who were elitist fuckwits whose main excuse for not being able to argue their point was ‘you won’t understand, you aren’t a scientist’. When science overcomes its bourgeois, elitist, institutional crap then I’ll be able to take it seriously. Until then, it’s just another means to define people against their will.
But if I show they are funded by so-called liberals who want to legislate on everything in sight, you won’t retract your claim?
So a scientist says ‘I know a few guys who…’ and it’s THE ONLY JUSTIFICATION FOR A STANCE, but I do the same and its hearsay?
Ridiculous. Fundamentalism. You know the drill.
One cannot derive an ought from an is. Tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing one more time and I’ll get nasty.
Sure… but I wasn’t at all interested in appearing authoritative - rather I was interested in citing plenty of justification for my position. And that’s more important than readibility. Anyway, this is a stupid debate: 1) all anyone has to do to if they’re interested is scroll over. Who gives a shit? 2) I readily admit that justification and readability are not mutually exclusive - I didn’t anticipate that the links would require horizontal scrolling on the page or else I would have truncated them as you mention. It wasn’t a lack of concern on my part, just a lack of expectation. But seriously: it seems a stupid thing to gripe about. It’s not like scrolling is difficult.
sigh Yes, I DO know it. I wasn’t attempting to belittle you by implying that you use cliches. I was pointing out that your criticism for my providing evidence was invalid by claiming that a criticism for FAILING to provide evidence WOULD have been valid. “You’re just saying that” was a quick reference to an idea, not a claim about how you would phrase it specifically. Try not to take this personally; that isn’t how it’s intended.
Sure, but this doesn’t help the issue at all that I can see. We all possess faculties by which we discern what constitutes a reasonable rival interpretation, and what doesn’t. In almost all of the links I posted, the evidence is listed together with the interpretation; for any of those is there anything close to a reasonable alternative interpretation? I’ve read them: there really isn’t. If you have counterexamples that are relevant to my point as a whole, from the specific links I cited, I’d be interested to hear them.
Depends on the person - but on the whole, you’re absolutely right. Which is a crying shame. In the context of evolutionary psychology this tendency is entirely understandable - but nonetheless, in today’s world, it’s a failing.
I should clarify that I was only trying to make them appear more well-founded by making them ACTUALLY more well-founded. In other words, I wasn’t trying to disguise the validity of my stance, but rather expose the validity of my stance.
In this crazy world of ours, it’s all about probabilities. So any theory must admit possible evidence for or evidence against. It doesn’t really NEED to be provably true or provably false, so long as it can be “bolstered” and “reduced” in a probabilistic sense. First, Fundamentalism isn’t falsifiable - we can never disprove God. Second, this means it’s also not capable of being reduced in probability - we can’t come up with a way to argue that it’s less likely based on certain new facts.
On a side note, it’s interesting that you justify your argument against my stance by citing an example, which in your mind either increases the probability that you are correct, or else proves it entirely. I stand my by claim: theories that are falsifiable and “bolsterable” (in that we can provide evidence for them, thus increasing our expectation that they are true) provide our only basis for empirical prediction. The philosophical foundation of that prediction can certainly be attacked - but what other basis would you possibly use?
Sure! And that’s reasonable! But this is my point - a) do you REALLY have enough reasonable skepticism in the proceedings of these scientists to DISBELIEVE what they say? That seems HIGHLY unlikely. Much more likely, and completely reasonable, is that you retain healthy skepticism, but don’t disbelieve it. What scientists appear to say with 100% certainty, you might believe with 65% certainty. And second, b) even if you believe it less strongly, 40% say, it doesn’t seem like you can have any good reason for believing a DIFFERENT theory MORE strongly. If science says X, and you don’t have solid tangible evidence that they performed their studies badly or whatnot, but merely are not confident that they DID do everything right, what reason could you possibly have of believing a contradictory theory MORE strongly? Any system in which evidence, lacking counterevidence, bolsters expectation, will be able to prove such an occurrence as irrational.
This is entirely irrelevant to my point, although I agree with it. I simply meant that almost all ILP members will agree that scientists and individual studies are fallible.
Those experiences justify a healthy skepticism very well. They don’t justify active disbelief in what the scientists claim. You need something more direct for that - like seeing the disconnect in the specific experiments you doubt, at the least.
Second, it’s true that the “you wouldn’t understand, you aren’t a scientist” thing is crappy - but it isn’t entirely false. That is, if someone is doing research on advanced techniques in the cellular injection of DNA for therapeutic cloning - or proving theorems in algebraic topology, or proving the consistency of String Theory with Quantum Mechanics - you really AREN’T going to be able to understand enough of what they’re talking about in order to have an informed opinion on the matter. They can always take time to explain it to you in a watered-down manner, so you can grasp maybe the loose concepts although still lack a fully informed opinion. The upshot of this is NOT “give up: you aren’t a scientist, so leave real Truth to the big boys”, but rather “yes, you will come across ideas and experiments you cannot currently understand. If you are interested in debating them or contributing to the understanding of these topics, learn enough about them so that you can reasonably do so!”
In short, it’s reasonable to criticize a scientist who has an elitist “holier than thou” attitude about his work: but at the same time, a great deal of science is going to be very much beyond those who don’t study the material professionally. We shouldn’t take this as a “fuck you, stay out of our intellectual elite”, but rather as a “we’d love to have you aboard, but you have to put in the work to develop the understanding first.” There’s nothing unreasonable about that.
Lastly, it seems dangerous and philosophically indefensible to reject the whole of science just because you don’t like how some scientists interact with the masses. This very much like saying “Wittgenstein and Kant were jerks, so I don’t believe anything philosophers say”. Science itself isn’t elitist - it is highly specialized, but that is entirely different. Some individual scientists are elitist, which is unfortunate, but that doesn’t make what they say any more right or wrong than if they weren’t, and it seems intellectually irresponsible to act otherwise.
No, then I wouldn’t retract my claim, because I’m really not interested in truth - I’m just interested in justifying a claim I made arbitrarily, because I like seeming right even if I’m fundamentally wrong.
Aargh! Of COURSE I’d retract my claim. Christ.
Please. 1) You know - well - how many guys who smoke pot? Between 5 and 30? Few people know even 20 people well, so I’d bet that margin is fairly accurate. Few (although some) scientific studies will have n < 30. But that’s an individual study. Not only will many studies have n>100, but there are hundreds and hundreds of studies done. That means that if scientists observe as accurately as you, they are still MUCH more likely to be correct, based on sheer numbers.
2) Scientists almost certainly observe much more accurately than you. Not just you - me too, and everyone else who isn’t studying the matter professionally. They have fixed scales by which they quantify things, rather than saying “smart / stupid”, “fast / slow”, “happy / sad”, which can mean vastly different things to different people. They have much more precise ways of measuring things. I’ve heard MANY people say “I feel much smarter when I’m high” - and so they’re skeptical when science says “you’re actually a lot dumber”. This is, of course, ridiculous - not only is intuitive human observation and introspection terrible, on average - which is why the scientific method has enjoyed so much success, since it gives an algorithm that compensates for our natural lack of ability in certain areas - but the fact that your consciousness is altered when you’re making the judgment should make them automatically skeptical. Also when people say “my friend smoked pot for 20 years and he seems fine”, there are MANY things wrong with that. First, n=1, which is a crappy sample size - even if he is fine, he might be a genetic anomaly. Second, “he seems fine” is a TERRIBLE way to quantify such things, because it’s so completely vague and imprecise. Take an MRI, do several different kinds of IQ test, test immunoresponse, eye tracking, reflexes, and speed of association. Correlate these against natural aging-related decline. Third, it’s so easy to see how this person could have degenerated very significantly, but because week-to-week this degeneration was very slow, and because normal day-to-day interactions won’t reveal new mental deficits nearly as well as more precise scientific tests, it wasn’t noticeable to his friend.
This strikes me as threatening, unnecessarily confrontational, and most of all, extremely hypocritical. Although you rarely if ever use the words “ought” or “should” in your posts, you are worse than most about directly (and confrontationally) implying those concepts. Just a few quick examples:
That readibility(sic) is more important that appearing authoritative == You ought to worry more about readability than appearing authoritative.
Yet you couldn’t care less that people have to scroll left and right to read EVERY line of your post. == You ought to care more about the fact that people have to scroll left and right to read EVERY line of your post.
But that matters less to you than slapping a load of .gov scientific links into your post. == You ought to care more about readability than putting in lots of links to justify your point.
Also, having met plenty of scientists who were elitist fuckwits whose main excuse for not being able to argue their point was ‘you won’t understand, you aren’t a scientist’. When science overcomes its bourgeois, elitist, institutional crap then I’ll be able to take it seriously. Until then, it’s just another means to define people against their will. == Scientists ought not be such elitist fuckwits.
Tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing one more time and I’ll get nasty. == You ought not tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing.
I never presumed to derive “ought” from “is” - I simply stated my “ought” directly, which is not philosophically problematic in the least. I’m well aware that no one can prove (or disprove) any “ought” statement, just as you should be well aware that your implicit position of “one ought not to make ‘ought’ statements” is self-contradictory AND unprovable. Seriously, it really hampers our discussions that you spend so much time worrying about irrelevant or personal stuff. I wasn’t commenting about your speech earlier - I was making a point entirely separate from that. You think I wouldn’t retract my point if it were funded by liberals? Ridiculous, and so off the mark of the point I was trying to make that I’d say it’s solidly in the realm of paranoia. And lastly this is/ought thing? You seemed to take it personally, whereas it was meant to be a general statement about how, since people form beliefs based on evidence, they should do it in a reasonable and consistent way, rather than always trusting their own limited experiences over very strong scientific evidence. In fact, ironically, I think your misapprehension of so many of my points is a fairly good argument for a more relatively objective scientific methodology towards the acquisition of information, over subjective methods that lack the ability to quantify simple observations.
The nice thing about science is that they have to post the data that they are interpreting.
One of the things that anybody has to do while reading those papers is to look at the data and see whether they agree with it or not. Oftentimes, you can reach a different conclusion than the author. That is part of the process.
I tire of arguing this point about peer-reviewed journals, and the numerous gatekeepers which surround them, as me and Xunxian get into it too much. I’ll rephrase what I said earlier and leave it at this: I find people who pray to the ‘respected’ medical journals and ONLY those, to be absolutist, and thus limited in their approach. Am I saying we should disregard them all-together? Of course not. But I’ve done more research on marijuana than most here over the past 4-5 years or so and I tell you that pubMed (something my old roommate loves) is not without it’s censorship. The puppet governments of the world are not the ones dictating what is censored, and often it’s not even their visible agencies which do it, wherever that me be.
I guess in the end we have a different idea of what constitutes ‘something which is unlikely to be biased’
There indeed have been pushes to advance a synthetic THC production by some. The fact that THC -could- be synthesized doesn’t mean they should and will, though. The ability to maximize profits, at least in this case, is more of the issue. It can be done I’m sure, and if for whatever reason they decide to, I’m sure we’ll hear about positive results I already know about in more of the ‘respected’ journals.
It is not silly. Or at least, trying to grasp at dry statistical results achieved from the testing of mice is equally as silly. I’m not arguing one should simply start smoking pot, ignore science, and only listen to themselves (as that’s lead to problems for many) – but surely there must be a balance? If you are arguing this from the standpoint of having never experienced the effects then you obviously lose some credibility. Insisting otherwise is nothing more than academic arrogance.
I don’t know about you but I’m not interested in ‘believing’ in science anymore than I am in some institutionalized, censored religion. You have no right to say (in a philosophy forum at least) the best source for information this, or the best source for information that. You may need to re-evaluate your sense of ‘fact’ – which to me is nothing more than a useful illusion used sparingly for communication. I find that whole quotation to be circular and non-nonsensical, and even worse dangerous, as that truly seems to be the new religion espoused by so many of the academics these days. A belief in the church of science is what it is, but I would ask you if you’re going to become subservient to the sermons, to at least step outside of the building to make sure the holiness extends past the physical ivory structure.
Now… to get back on topic a bit:
How is any of this proving that Marijuana is worse for you than alcohol – the initial provocation of this post?
For example, the above:
The title makes it sound rather horrific, but what happens when you break it down a bit for the human perspective? When I stop smoking pot there is a definitely a period of increased stress, depression, and anxiety --it’s there-- but it’s not some horrific event that my soul pulls itself through to get back to baseline. This is just my experience, but if I was to drink the percentage of alcohol relative to the percentage of THC present in weed to feel a high, especially with modern weed with percentages around today, I would most likely either be in a coma or dead. That is, it takes less of the actual weed plant now to achieve the same level of high. Just like there is no need for someone to chug a forty of 80 proof liquor in one sitting, there also isn’t the need to burn a 3 gram joint containing ~15-20% THC – but for the latter if you do, you’re not going to be physically suffering for the next day(s) to come.
No it isn’t. If you knew the meaning of life but couldn’t speak or write then your knowledge would be worthless.
I do. I thought that would have been clear from the ‘stupid’ debate that we’ve been having.
You still could, via the untold wonders of the ‘edit’ button. But it appears that you’d rather spend a small era of your life having a ‘stupid’ debate with me than simply solve the problem. Speaks VOLUMES…
Difficult, no. But irritating and a quick way to put dozens of people off reading your thread.
How is
not to be taken personally? Read your own posts.
Then why do we have such a hard time agreeing on it? This indicates either that we don’t all have the same faculties, or that these faculties are multiform, that there’s no one-to-one correlation between having these faculties and the particular reasonable interpretation that a person or people end up believing.
Alright, since we all have the same faculties I’ll not bother reading them myself and just take your word for it.
I’m more concerned with your rhetorical behaviour, to be perfectly honest.
Today’s world is scientific. Of course something that undermines science is going to be a failing in a scientific world. That proves nothing outside of the scientific realm.
Nonetheless, you were trying to make your post appear more authoritative. I’m glad you realise that.
On the contrary, if the world is crazy, probability is bunk.
Your first and second points are identical. I understand completely what fundamentalism is, my point is that you exhibit the attitude of a fundamentalist. ‘The only way’ etc. etc.
Yet this position itself isn’t up for debate in your eyes, making the whole system contradictory. Now, you might be happy with a general philosophy that contradicts the application of it, and if so, so be it.
That which produces the maximum pleasure or stimulus to the imagination, perhaps? Any number of things.
I have all sorts of reasons to disbelieve what they say. Remember the five day forecast example?
You obsession with attributing a percentage quality to the certainty with which I hold my opinions is a fine example of what I objected to before - the defining of people against their will. I couldn’t give a toss about percentages.
Not taking for granted what you take for granted, perhaps? Your lack of imagination speaks VOLUMES.
Irrational? Tell me, what do you know of rationality, other than that it’s a crutch in a debate?
And what does that tell you about us having the faculties to distinguish reasonably between interpretations?
Yes they do. If the methodology is illogical and some of the reports downright wrong, and the conditions in which the epistemology is operating are contradictory with the philosophy behind the epistemology then that’s every reason to disbelieve what they say.
Fine. A recent scientific study claimed to have found the formula for the ideal bacon sandwich. It used a small sample size, in one country alone, and there was no attempt to confirm the findings via observations in natural surroundings where people are just buying bacon sandwiches. All done in labs with checklists. Proves nothing beyond the limits of the lab and the checklist.
This is a problem that almost every such scientific study of human behaviour encounters. And it’s a philosophical problem as old as writing on paper.
Even if this were true, why should this stop me believing or disbelieving whatever I want?
Is that why you told me that I should believe in science? To try and invite me into the fold? Or to try to establish yourself as part of an elite that tells people what to believe?
Do you see what I’m driving at here?
Except that it’s inherently conservative, which is bad for science and runs contradictory to its philosophy.
That is not my only reason. Stop treating it as thought it were.
A fair argument, philosphically speaking.
It’s nothing close to ‘entirely different’. They are comparable. ‘Entirely different’ is an incredibly popular phrase, especially from the mouths of scientists. No two things in the universe or the scale of the imagination are completely different. It it and always will be a nonsensical description.
So you don’t see a problem with elitism in science? Fair enough, believe what you will, even if it does contradict what you’ve said before.
Fine, then kindly retract any and every support for the whole global warming parareligion that’s going on right now.
Literally hundreds. From all over the region in which I’ve lived for the last couple of decades.
Bollocks. I can read people more easily than books. Mainly because in person they find it very easy to be frank with me.
Unless you’ve surveyed the entirety of humanity you have no idea what it much more likely. By your own logic, you die.
How in the fuck would you know that, having exchanged a couple of dozen posts on an internet forum? This is presumptuous, insulting twaddle for which you should apologise.
And where’s the overriding standard that proves these scales are more accurate?
It also gives a justification for the stoners to believe their claims. If they experience a different sort of consciousness then what right do you have to trample over their consciousness with a big ‘no’ flag? Oh, yeah, the scales. Mustn’t upset the scales.
So could the hundreds used in your sample sizes. What are hundreds with regard to a population of 6 billion? Where’s your messiah now, Flanders?
To be honest, this whole section of your post is a massive strawman.
Defining human beings against their will, as I said (and will keep saying).
‘More precise’ by what standard?
How the fuck is making a series of claims about me personally and then telling me what I should believe not ‘unnecessarily confrontational’? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Twiffy…
Directly implying? And you are accusing others of ‘vague’ and ‘imprecise’ use of language…
To a paranoiac, possibly.
A better example, but I’ve still not been so patronising as to tell you what you should think and do. I’ve made my objection. That’s it. The rest is your emotional baggage and desperate attempt to get out of this ridiculous hole you’ve dug for yourself without just admitting that I’m right and getting on with it.
See above.
Well, they ought not to be like that around me. I suppose they can treat each other however they like.
No, simply an ‘if-then’. A scientific prediction, if you like. I’m not telling you how to behave, I’m telling you how I’ll respond if you behave like that towards me.
Because they are (is) ‘multiple independent scientists’ I should (ought) believe them. Couldn’t be clearer.
That’s why I stated it as a maxim.
It really hampers your discussions with everyone when you are patronising and label things ‘irrelevant’.
It was more of a wind-up. I don’t worry about you. I just disagree with you.
An illogical step made in the name of reason. Where’ve we heard that before? Oh, yeah, the sum total of human knowledge so far. Right…
So now you’re trying to use science to justify epistemological elitism as a means to crushing views that you can’t actually argue against. Fuckin’ A…
When I think of why… I’ll let you know… 