Were do viruses fit in the “tree of life”?
Outside. They don’t have all characteristics necessary for the definition of “life” (they can’t reproduce themselves), so they aren’t classified as life-forms.
Probably as a stripped down bacteria.
Stop spamming please?
the topics seem good. but posting to two coms is kinda spammy. as opposed to asking in one, then collect answers before asking for further additional responses in another.
Why is society so afraid of people purposefully altering their mental state? (In terms of cannabis, psychedelics, anything "mind-expanding.)
And even this isn’t something that I’ve never seen asked, but aside from like Terence McKenna, I don’t really know anyone who’s interested in it, or even accept the question.
Edit this thread is a case in point. Not one single explanation, just people absolutely terrified out of their minds, parroting bad propaganda and even worse rhetoric. “I don’t want my surgeon tripping when he’s operating on me.” And I don’t want my surgeon drunk, and alcohol is legal, and I’ve never had the issue, because surgeons don’t come to work drunk.
Genuinely, I’m tired of answering these “arguments” and no-one will accept how afraid they are, even when not a single soul can explain why.
because people in those states can act unpredictably and are thus unreliable. you don’t want your surgeon to be tripping balls.
Pffftt these childish and stupid “arguments.”
Your surgeon isn’t drunk at work now, why would they be any less responsible with, say, LSD?
Only people who’ve never used drugs think this way, that once you do any illegal drug, you’re instantly hooked, can’t stop, 247 high and sucking cock for crack.
When you look at any science on the matter, those are simply asinine ideas which aren’t supported by any of the evidence we have. Alcohol is clearly the most dangerous drug (well, arguably strong opiates, but it defined how you define dangerous or harmful, but Here’s a handy ranking with a chart, comparing the relative harms of drugs.
We’ve got decades of data to show psychedelics aren’t addictive, people only use them a few times a year when they’re “actively” using them, they’re far safer than alcohol, and have loads of benefits.
Cannabis is also extremely safe, and even when now it’s at the point they’re starting to admit the prohibition doesn’t work, they’re still pushing basically sixties propaganda like reefer madness.
We allow people to get wasted on booze. We allow people to beat other people up, as long as its voluntary. There’s literally a sport (face slapping) where the object is to just hit the other person so hard you give them a concussion and render them unconscious. Getting voluntary brain damage is fine?
People can modify their bodies, jump out of planes, juggler chainsaws, spit fire, shoot guns for a hobby, celebrate with fireworks, swim in the Drake passage, but me, at home, doing LSD alone and watching great movies from the 60’s is illegal… becauseeeee?
i didnt say the reason was fair or cool. if you’re not on duty or responsible, go bananas. theres cities you can move to where drugs are legal and everyone is quite civilized.
but i don’t want my president to be tripping, even on holidays.
More of the same, zzzz.
No there aren’t “cities in which drugs are legal”. There are cities in which use is decriminalised. UN drug laws still apply. Even in countries which have made cannabis legally available, it’s still technically illegal under UN laws, it’s just been “made available” through legal shenanigans.
i didnt say the reason was fair or cool
You gave a completely irrational reason which would never happen. According to what we know of these substances, it’s infinitely more probably that you’ll go to work drunk as a surgeon than going in under the effects of psychedelics.
It’s just not realistic what you said “the reason” is. You’re perpetuating the exact thing I’m asking about, and you don’t even understand that you have a baseless fear of the thing I’m talking about and you don’t even know it.
but i don’t want my president to be tripping, even on holidays
But you’d presumably be fine with them boxing and drinking alcohol? And alcohol as I’ve shown you with science, is way more harmful.
And as someone who’s known and interacted with literally thousands and thousands and thousands of drunk and high people, no other substance makes a person as fucked up as alcohol. Drunk people lose their coordination, inhibition, they fall, they vomit, they fight, they harasss.
And even with those things, if you take some care, you can avoid getting that drunk, as most people do.
You’re denying that substances which we know are physically less inebriating and less addictive could be used responsibly.
It’s like you’re trying to argue you’re afraid of hitting your head on a pillow when you lay down but have no problem jumping from a cliff to some rocks below it despite usually breaking a leg or two. And that that is why pillows need to stay illegal.
In my opinion it’s because in the past human beings needed to be constantly working or assisting with a group in some capacity in order to ensure mutual survival for the group. Let’s say a village.
Activity which is not seen as being productive or could be construed as lazy has a stigma around it because it casts doubt on your ability to contribute to society.
Obviously none of this applies in the same way these days but there is a kind of primal conflation of intoxicants and laziness. Laziness is bad and so consuming intoxicants turns into a moral issue.
These attitudes are very deeply ingrained and although they can shift a bit as people become more liberal the deep suspicion remains.
Youre assuming there’s no use in using intoxicants, but there very much are. Arguably the most important, in terms of larger humanity.
Those “deeply grained” attitudes are the product of 20th century propaganda.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Binge
In WWI it was completely normal to send your son/friend a package of morphine, cocaine and syringes.
And what I’m talking about is “mind-expanding” substances.
Alcohol literally depresses neural activity and makes it so you lose your coordination and eventually get sedated. It’s the most “lazy” substance there is, yet none of these “deeply ingrained” attitudes concern it?
So no.
I don’t think there is a correct answer to the question you are posing. You asked for people’s opinions and I gave you mine.
And I showed you how it obviously can’t be that. Come up with a new explanation.
Not fucking with you, if you could genuinely think of another, I’d be pleased.
There is a correct answer. It’s the inordinate amounts of drug propaganda, and people’s tendency to self-reinforce and perpetuate that propaganda.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote
“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
— John Erlichman, Nixon’s “right hand” man
No, that’s just your opinion.
Do you know what “opinion” means?
Facts are distinct from opinions. Good opinions are based on facts, though.
Like mine.
Which I just proved to you, that the drug propaganda was purposeful political lies.
Yet you still won’t believe it. Why? What is it in you that’s so deeply ingrained that you can’t even as a thought experiment question something which was literally programmed into you?
lol we get it you like drugs
Did you ever stop to think that the propaganda you speak of is directly influenced by exactly what steeznson was speaking about?
Why do you believe that anti-drug propaganda only began in the 20th century?
Do you have anything other than wikipedia links to back your stance up? Say, a real study done on the impacts of anti-drug propaganda through the ages which demonstrates that the 20th century was the most militant with it?
Do you know what Religion is, and its impacts on anti-drug mentalities predating the 20th century?
Why do you believe that anti-drug propaganda only began in the 20th century?
No. But the vast vast majority did.
People were playing around with electricity in ancient Greece as well. (Electricity coming from the word for amber, even). But if you asked someone “when electricity was invented”, I’m sure you wouldn’t even think of anything before 1600.
Do you have anything other than wikipedia links to back your stance up? Say, a real study done on the impacts of anti-drug propaganda through the ages which demonstrates that the 20th century was the most militant with it?
“Other than Wikipedia links”
You do realise Wikipedia puts down sources, right?
“Do you have proof that the ground was dry before it starter raining, despite the rain having started decades before you were born?”
If you’re honestly interested, you can find tons of literature. Foremost though for figuring out what most people think; speaking to them. Like I said, I’ve spoken to thousand of people about this. That isn’t anecdotal, that is hard data I have, but I understand you won’t accept it.
You can see how some prohibition of cannabis began in the 19th century due to Egyptian cotton farmers wanting to get bigger market share. This was then copied to America with the 1937 Marihuana tax act, and later they’d push the laws through UN who’d make them global because of US pressure.
Do you think the people in India would’ve ever voted to criminalise cannabis? For the whole century it’s been banned, it’s been ridiculous. All the cops who arrest people for it smoke.
There’s literally actual tons of material on this stuff.
https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/reports/the-war-on-drugs
The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s wr on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed. In this seminal report, the Global Commission on Drug Policy calls on global leaders to join an open discussion on drug policy reform.
And are you a bit thick if you’re saying that these attitudes have always been with humans, when literally everything shows you they haven’t? The Great Binge itself is proof UK and US both having enjoyed the pharmaceuticals at the turn of the 20th century. And again, those were opiates and cocaine.
I’m talking shrooms and weed.
People were playing around with electricity in ancient Greece as well. (Electricity coming from the word for amber, even). But if you asked someone “when electricity was invented”, I’m sure you wouldn’t even think of anything before 1600.
“The word comes from the Greek elektron (“amber”); the Greeks discovered that amber rubbed with fur attracted light objects such as feathers. Such effects due to stationary charges, or static electricity, were the first electrical phenomena to be studied.”
https://www.britannica.com/summary/electricity
Here is something to help you in understanding more about the topic of magnetism, static electricity, and what the ancient Greeks were talking about regarding both.
https://worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789813223776_0001
I am curious why you believe any of that is relevant to a discussion about Anti-drug propaganda.
I’ve spoken to thousand of people about this. That isn’t anecdotal
Yes it is. Literally the definition of “anecdotal”.
anecdotal, Adjective, “Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis.”
You are free to provide your study about the thousand individuals you interviewed with the same questions regarding anti-drug propaganda to demonstrate it is in fact not anecdotal.
If you’re honestly interested, you can find tons of literature.
Name 10 books on the subject including the authors.
Did you ever stop to think that the propaganda you speak of is directly influenced by exactly what steeznson was speaking about?
Why do you believe that anti-drug propaganda only began in the 20th century?
Do you have anything other than wikipedia links to back your stance up? Say, a real study done on the impacts of anti-drug propaganda through the ages which demonstrates that the 20th century was the most militant with it?
Do you know what Religion is, and its impacts on anti-drug mentalities predating the 20th century?
Feel free to actually answer my questions, and try to keep personal attacks like this
And are you a bit thick if you’re saying that these attitudes have always been with humans
out of it.
You’re not aware of prohibitions and now surrendered your whole “do you think there weren’t any drug prohibitions before the 20th century” point, because I actually know the topic, and you don’t.
Yes it is. Literally the definition of “anecdotal”.
It would be… but…
“Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis.”
… unless I actually did it systemically and collected results, which I have done. Amateurish, yes, but still not casual. Would you like to see my files? They’re in Finnish, with my own notation about what people respond with. It’s honestly baffling how small the options are for people, and how they all think they’re actually making a point, with some idiotic bullshit like “I don’t want my doctor operating on me while they’re on drugs” or some other completely ridiculous propaganda bullshit from some “Just Say No” campaign. I could draw a flowchart on an A4, wouldn’t even need an A3, lol.
Name 10 books on the subject including the authors.
First let me say that everyone knows you’re trying to set impossible goals, because you know you don’t have a leg to stand on in this debate, so you think a number you pull out your arse means anything, but I will give you literature on the subject, as requested, because I’ve actually fucking studied this for probably longer than you’ve been alive, despite you thinking I haven’t and am some random druggie — something which is all too common when you bring up the subject. People like you get what are essentially panic attacks when asked to question the propaganda programmed into their heads. It must be a horrible feeling, when being asked a question you’ve just claimed to be 100% sure about, to realise that you don’t actually have any reasons to believe what you believe and that you have no idea why you believe it, but you do know that you MUST NOT QUESTION IT.
Probably the best book is “Good Cop, Bad War” by Neil Woods:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Cop-Bad-Neil-Woods/dp/1785034758
Obviously you won’t even open that link, let alone buy a book, let alone READ IT. (Not to mention doing it for 10 books hahaha). So here, have a Youtube video with the author (who is a former drug cop) How Drug Gangs Actually Work | How Crime Works | Insider
All of those “How Crime Works” by Insider related to drugs are actually fantastic watches, deeply recommend them for people like you to open your eyes.
The Cato Institute also write well on the subject and have actual data as well: https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policymakers-9th-edition-2022/war-drugs#repeal-controlled-substances-act
I mean, ofc there’s Mr. Nice as well, which might be on your level and tons of other drug-war adjacent books, but this is about what actual reality and science have to say about the drug war, not reading through the memento’s of some insanely rich druglords.
If you’re defending the prohibition of drugs, you’re either ignorant on the subject, or you’re actively supporting organized crime / making money off the situation. Literally. There is no other alternative. You’re in the group which is ignorant of it, because you’re brainwashed to even avoid information on the subject.
https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/world-leaders-call-for-legalisation-of-drugs
See most the things I read on the topic are actually studies or news, not books. You know scientific studies are “literature”, right? Anyway, the Good Cop, Bad War was the most recent one I read about the actual politics. I seriously suggest it, might wash that propaganda off your noggin.
There’s literally not a single person who understands the topic and doesn’t realise there is NO WAY that the prohibition will EVER work. Look at how the prohibition of alcohol went, then recall the saying “history repeats itself.”
Now, since I’ve more or less done what you’ve asked and answered your points, how about you stop ignoring my rhetoric and extend me the same courtesy? So… ANY science at all that says that drug prohibition is actually doing what it’s supposed to? Any science at all saying decriminalisation/legalisation is bad for society? ANY at all? Oh there isn’t? Not ONE? Wow, I’m so shocked, if only I could’ve seen this coming, eh?
You’re not aware of prohibitions and now surrendered your whole “do you think there weren’t any drug prohibitions before the 20th century” point, because I actually know the topic, and you don’t.
Logical Fallacy.
… unless I actually did it systemically and collected results, which I have done. Amateurish, yes, but still not casual. Would you like to see my files? They’re in Finnish, with my own notation about what people respond with. It’s honestly baffling how small the options are for people, and how they all think they’re actually making a point, with some idiotic bullshit like “I don’t want my doctor operating on me while they’re on drugs” or some other completely ridiculous propaganda bullshit from some “Just Say No” campaign. I could draw a flowchart on an A4, wouldn’t even need an A3, lol.
Oh look more logical fallacy with a heavy sprinkle of personal attack. I have a purple unicorn, but I cannot show it to you. Just trust me.
First let me say that everyone knows you’re trying to set impossible goals, because you know you don’t have a leg to stand on in this debate, so you think a number you pull out your arse means anything, but I will give you literature on the subject, as requested, because I’ve actually fucking studied this for probably longer than you’ve been alive, despite you thinking I haven’t and am some random druggie — something which is all too common when you bring up the subject. People like you get what are essentially panic attacks when asked to question the propaganda programmed into their heads. It must be a horrible feeling, when being asked a question you’ve just claimed to be 100% sure about, to realise that you don’t actually have any reasons to believe what you believe and that you have no idea why you believe it, but you do know that you MUST NOT QUESTION IT.
Everyone knows I am setting impossible goals?
Here are 254 results for books regarding “Drug prohibition”.
People like me? You don’t know anything about me. It would help if you responded in good faith by answering the questions posed, and maybe asking some of your own.
Honestly the logical fallacy and personal attacks have become quite tiresome.
If you’re defending the prohibition of drugs, you’re either ignorant on the subject, or you’re actively supporting organized crime / making money off the situation. Literally. There is no other alternative. You’re in the group which is ignorant of it, because you’re brainwashed to even avoid information on the subject.
Show me where I said I support drug prohibition. Also, more logical fallacy.
Now, since I’ve more or less done what you’ve asked and answered your points, how about you stop ignoring my rhetoric and extend me the same courtesy? So… ANY science at all that says that drug prohibition is actually doing what it’s supposed to? Any science at all saying decriminalisation/legalisation is bad for society? ANY at all? Oh there isn’t? Not ONE? Wow, I’m so shocked, if only I could’ve seen this coming, eh?
I think I have explicitly demonstrated how you have not answered a single question, and fell back on logical fallacy and personal attacks numerous times. I never made a claim in support of drug prohibition.
You are not worth any further time. Feel free to write another novel in the comments.
Fair warning, it will be ignored.
Why do you believe that anti-drug propaganda only began in the 20th century
Show me a single piece of drug propaganda earlier than the 20th century.
Do you know what Religion is, and its impacts on anti-drug mentalities predating the 20th century?
I do, you don’t.
I think the mindset of a society is hard to change. We do see some progress towards the use of psychedelics for mental treatments which I think is great(at least in my area of the world). Is it enough ? Not to my taste but it’s progress. I can’t wait for people to have access to that kind of help!
I’m still using mushrooms from time to time to deal with personal issues, trying to find a different perspective on my own, it has helped me numerous times. I think it also helped me reduce my overall stress and prejudice.
I would suggest you also try to find different perspectives on how people got different opinions on the subject. I really don’t think being aggressive towards them the way you have been helps anybody. If anything, your opinion/facts are discarded quicker because you dont appear as a respectable source of information. You appear too emotionally connected to the subject. Especially to people who may be scared or closed to those different ideas.
I would suggest you also try to find different perspectives on how people got different opinions on the subject
No offense, but; oh, please.
I find it extremely annoying that people pretend as if I’ve not listened to or considered the “different opinions”. If it even was different opinions. It never really is. That’s my point. People don’t really form an opinion of the subject as an aversion to it. If I could just relay my personal experiences to you. The frustration of politely bringing the topic up pretty much always ends in people getting extremely upset. And I’ve worked customer service for decades. I know how to be polite.
I don’t need to accept the asinine propaganda being touted as someone’s opinion. Like the “I don’t want my doctor being high” shit. It’s almost as disrespectfully asinine as “if people do LSD, they’ll peel themselves as oranges or try to fly by jumping of high rise buildings”. No respectable doctor is someone who goes to work high. And if they’re a doctor who’s not respectable and have a drug issue, they shouldn’t be a doctor, but those doctors exist currently. And according to actual science we have on the issue, reforming drug laws to be more liberal really works on addicts, so legalising drugs will actually make it less likely your doctor would be high. Doctors have access to pharmaceuticals all the time, so why on Earth would they need to wait for them to be legal? Them being legal wouldn’t make it okay for them to be under the influence at work, just like it’s not okay for them to be under the influence now.
See. I have considered their “opinions”. More than they have. And that’s my issue with it. People get somewhat upset, and then say “have you considered”, when it’s literally them who are refusing to even consider my side.
If anything, your opinion/facts are discarded quicker
That is a myth as well, btw. Well, according to the flimsy research we have.
What is true however, is that some people will sometimes (or most of the time) perceive neutral attitudes as hostile ones. Unfortunately, not my issue. Where I live, we speak directly. It’s in our culture.
However, for that one guy, I’m not really being neutral towards. But this comment, for instance, is completely neutral.
You know who appears too emotionally connected to a subject? People who can’t even consider something else than what someone programmed into their brain through shitty propaganda, because they get extremely emotionally upset if they even try.
It’s a cold hard fact that prohibition of drugs is extremely harmful towards the planet, and any sort of even indirect defense of it or defense of aversion towards discussing it is bad for the world in the long run.
Imagine if you were suddenly transported to say to the 1800’s or something. Imagine how annoyed and disgusted you would be with people who’d get annoyed (or even downright violent) at you for you trying to talk about how chattel slavery is bad.
edit oh I forgot to mention, there’s one person that I actually managed to completely convert during a single night. He began touting 60’s propaganda. (Literally, he was like 70 or something at the time and this was in 2011 or something.) He was the president of the local Mensa. (Any my coworker, he worked part time essentially.) He actually considered my points. It took a while to get through the propaganda, but once I just posed the same simple questions enough times (and after a bottle of Jägermeister) he suddenly stopped at one point when he was raising his finger in protest, then froze, looked somewhere far and was like. “Huh. I think you got me with that one.” And that’s how you recognise intelligence. He actually listened, unlike 99% of the population with that extreme aversion to the whole topic.
What are we going do if (and when) it turns out that economic growth is not compatible with environmental protection and yet a prerequisite for political freedom?
Sorry for the bummer of a question but to me the conundrum looks more obvious every day, I really want to know the answer, and yet (almost) nobody is talking about it.
I disagree that economic growth is a prerequisite for political freedom. I think that type of thinking has been perpetuated by capitalists to keep capital flowing. Communes and mutual aid don’t have great or any economic growth but can allow for political freedoms that we don’t even have now.
The counter-argument is that communes are populated by an unusual variety of human being, hence their rarity, and that most people are motivated by less disciplined human goals such as status and material accumulation.
Nate Hagens talking with Daniel Schmachtenberger.
Youtube it.
Interesting, will do. I do know of the host’s dark take on such matters.
In terms of more mainstream pundits it just really bothers me how many so many of them are obviously intelligent and well-meaning yet incapable of breaking out of the mental straitjacket of orthodox economics, despite all the evidence that its usefulness has run its course.
Sustainable growth is popular but we are going to need to invest in unpalatable energy sources like nuclear power in order to power it. We also need to make sure recycling actually happens as opposed to local authorities shipping the materials overseas for “processing” (i.e. being dumped or burned).
Human populations tend to decline as an economy becomes more advanced and people are able to plan their families. We are already seeing population growth stagnating much more quickly than expected in countries like China. That will cause demographic challenges so we are going to need to rethink how we manage immigration so it can happen sustainably with public consent.
Lastly, increasing economic output doesn’t necessarily mean consuming more resources. If a country becomes more productive, by for example integrating a new technology, then you can increase output with the same or fewer resources.
Die
The fun answer is kill
If you had a microscopic object that took up the smallest amount of space physically possible, what shape is it? What shape is a pixel/grain of space?
I think it would not have a shape, or would rather be a zero dimensional point. For it to be any shape, it would have to have features, but you’ve already defined this as the fundamentally smallest ‘thing’ so it can’t have any features smaller than itself. But you could also probably convince me that it’s a sphere. I’m not sure if mathematicians consider a sphere of infinitesimal radius to still be a sphere or not, but treating it as infinitesimal kinda makes sense to me even if it’s actually finitely small (the Planck length?)
A more interesting question to me is, assuming positions in space are discrete, which I’m not sure follows from saying there’s a smallest possible object, how are those ‘voxels’ arranged? I don’t think that’s necessarily equivalent to asking what the shape of the smallest object would be. Pixels on a screen are in a rectangular grid, but the actual elements are circles in some types of screens.
There are a number of shapes besides cubes that can fill 3D space, but do the voxels even have to all be the same shape? Are we even looking for a 3D tiling, or could it be 4D in spacetime, or even higher dimension if it turns out the universe has more than 4 dimensions? Does it have to tile at all, or could it be entirely irregular while still being discrete? Is there any conceivable experiment that could prove any of these things, or is it unknowable?
What you’re talking about sounds similar to the Planck length to me. I’m not a string theorist, but my understanding is it is well defined in normal 4D spacetime (where Planck time would be the time it takes a photon to travel one Planck length). Planck length is based only on universal constants (Planck’s constant, speed of light, and the gravitational constant), and so any “thing” smaller than that is unphysical.
I think the interesting question is how do we get continuous experiences, measurements, and observations from a spacetime that is fundamentally quantized.
If it is a sphere then, the question that comes to mind (and may in turn inspire the first question) is, how would they fit together? If you cluster spheres together, you always end up with space between the spheres.
Our Planck length reality voxel isn’t made up of physical matter; it’s much too small. It’s basically just quantum field fluctuations. It probably wouldn’t interact with the Higgs field either so stacking them together would be impossible.
A string
How could we get three-dimensional phenomenon from string units?
You string them together.
But a three-dimensional string would no longer be a string, and anything less than that would just be a longer version of the same string.
If time dilation occurs when the velocity of an object approaches the speed of light and relativistic speeds, do objects experience time dilation when rotating at relativistic speeds? Aren’t there pulsars or black holes rotating at relativistic speeds, how would someone’s clock near the surface compare to someone a couple AU away from the star not rotating with the object?
On the surface of the body, you’re moving, so you experience time dilation. Physically this is no different than orbiting The body. The clocks built into GPS satellites need to be constantly adjusted for this reason.
But the question how it works when the surface of a body rotates at relativistic speeds while the core is not moving breaks my brain.
