Dangerous Changes

['tyleR]

It wasn't needed though. A simple explanation is all that's needed.

Also this isn't america. This is a forum. As far as mods are concerned, you have the rights they give you.

 

-

 

Quit minimodding.

 

 

And Jesus Christ, you all literally know NOTHING about drugs do you?

 

Okay, first off, I'm currently on my 5th day sober from any substances.  And by substances I mean in the past month alone I have indulged in Marijuana and tobacco nearly every day, alcohol some 10 days, 3 mushroom trips (Which is a lot if you understand the way shrooms and tryptamine tolerance works), and 3 weekends of MDMA use.  NOW, that being said, my soberness is a personal issue and not because I disagree with drug use.  In fact I encourage the use of marijuana and certain non-lethal psychedelics.  Under the right circumstances and setting they can be useful inward focusing tools, and very fun tools at that.

 

Now, here's the problem.  Society as a whole generally tends to put drugs in one category, that they are all deadly chemicals that make you like every crackhead, crystalhead, and heroin junkie you see on the streets of your local west-side concrete jungle.  The only "drug" that has made any real progress is Marijuana, as it is the easiest one out of the bunch to defend as far as drugs typically go.  Others that aren't as easy to defend but definitely have their potential are LSD, Psilocybin Mushrooms, DMT, Peyote, Ayahuasca, and other psychedelics that have affected many people for the better rather than for the worse, even those who did not enjoy them can mostly see the potential for psychiatric use and if they had any health issues at all, they were short lived.  None of these are physically or mentally addicted, save for marijuana, which can be mentally addicting, but has no potential for physical addiction.

 

The real problem with drugs are the ones that, as stated, cause major addiction.  Heroin, cocaine (or crack), MDMA, speed, crystal meth, etc.  They are all HORRIBLY addicting.  I was lucky enough to be blessed with a generally non-addictive personality towards MDMA because it made me some fuckin' depressed when I came down, I just didn't feel like fucking around with it on the daily.  Either way, the addiction and health problems are the reason these are illegal and should stay illegal.  It's not necessarily that they make people violent for their next hit.  It's that in general these niggas make some of the worst decisions EVER.  Truck drivers, at least a good portion of them, use stimulants to stay awake on long hauls.  This includes coke, meth, and even frat drugs like adderall and ritalin.  Know why truck drivers drive like assholes?  They're hopped up on fucking coke.  Or take the opiate user.  The average opiate user, especially if dabbling in grade A heroin, will just fall asleep.  Literally, these assholes will drive and be nodding off at the wheel because they just shot up 5 minutes before leaving.  Or MDMA, which can cause depression and nostalgia on the comedown.  Instead of sleeping off their comedown, your average Molly user will take small lines throughout the night and day after their initial line.  This causes two things; insomnia and overdose.  Both are bad in their own way, and both at the same time can be a killer combo.  Literally.

 

IDK, I've typed for too long.  

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

[quote name="Kyng" post="6263120" timestamp="1377471603"]I'm not saying that. I'm saying Homosexuality, while effectively harmless, was looked in a similar light, if not worse light once as paedophilia (bearing in mind some countries marry children under-aged (just an assumption)), and it had a shift in outlook.[/quote] I know it wasn't intentional, but that such a comparison should be made is the implication of suggesting that people might look upon pedophilia in a better light because of breakthroughs in gay rights. Homosexual people being able to love without fear of persecution is not a warning sign of a decay of human morality. Rather, it's the reverse, it's a step in the right direction for humanity and a cause to have faith.

[Kyng's Old Account]

Okay, there is a fine line between homosexuality and pedophilia. 
Who I love shouldn't be considered a taboo. Maybe we should start banning heterosexual marriage now too. You really can't compare this sort of subject with something like rape and pedophilia. Homosexuals don't just get up an leave when their partner hits puberty. No pedos only go after children who have not hit puberty for sexual and or a intimate relationship. They don't actually love this kid, they just use them. 
 
So in my opinion you're stepping on people toes by using such a comparison. 

You cannot objectively state a paedophile does not ever love a child, because you do not understand the mind of a paedophile. You may not like it, but for all you know there could very well be paedophiles who genuinely love children in that sense. Assuming otherwise is somewhat reductionist, but I respect your opinion and apologize to those who think I'm "stepping on their toes."

I'd also advise that, if this topic offends you, it may be better you not reply at all. This is meant for objective discussion rather than "stepping on their toes."

I know it wasn't intentional, but that such a comparison should be made is the implication of suggesting that people might look upon pedophilia in a better light because of breakthroughs in gay rights. Homosexual people being able to love without fear of persecution is not a warning sign of a decay of human morality. Rather, it's the reverse, it's a step in the right direction for humanity and a cause to have faith.

Homosexuality is not immoral, not at all. But even so, that does not mean that it wasn't ever seen as a decay of human morality. It was, and some people were even executed for it. Now, things have changed to make it more acceptable.

It seems to be that you are suggesting something like this might now occur again with a different controversial topic that actually has negative repercussions.

[Tourmaline]

Pedophilia is not immoral in itself, either. That is, the mere desire of an individual of any age is fully justified by virtue of finding the given quality attractive. Pedophilia is not worse than homosexuality at all, but the term "pedophile" has a massively negative connotation despite the right name for what people really mean is a criminal. Finding ANYthing attractive, regardless of extremity, is wholly fine, but acting out on desires that would impede the rights of others is what truly causes conflict. There is a pretty logical way to put it, though. Not all people who experience lust over children assault those children.

 

So I find myself wondering why it is so scorned among an intelligent community when the difference is very easy to make.

 

Or at least dancing around it.

 

In addition, Polaris must not be too keen on detecting remarkable intelligence or kindness if they give the superlatives of both to Crab Helmet and J-Max, respectively.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

If you can't understand why cigarettes are legal, then you are literally too stupid to discuss anything with. Also, you just proved my theory to be correct. This guy was desperate enough to because he clearly had no money to purchase (or was just plain old greedy and didn't want to pay) and had the addiction that made him want to hold 2 people at gun point for cigarettes.

 

 

Also, paragraphs; learn to use them.

Okay, wow, the insults, they are ridicolous. Calm down dude, if you are going to get this upset and rude, then I don't think you have the right to use the word "discuss"
.

Now, enlighten me. Why are they legal then? You say yourself, it's the addiction that is the problem, yet you refuse to understand the simple fact that cigarettes are addicting. I just don't understand how your logic is working...

[Sander]

Now, enlighten me. Why are they legal then? You say yourself, it's the addiction that is the problem, yet you refuse to understand the simple fact that cigarettes are addicting. I just don't understand how your logic is working...

 

It was already explained prior in this thread, but okay, I'll spell it out for you; money. As .Rai said, the tobacco industry generates a huge revenue which the US, nay, any country cannot really live without, as the tobacco industry really does generate a lot of money.

 

Also, what are you reading? My posts? Clearly not, as I have never said anything that would indicate me saying "cigarettes aren't addictive".

[.Rai]

Pedophilia is not immoral in itself, either. That is, the mere desire of an individual of any age is fully justified by virtue of finding the given quality attractive. Pedophilia is not worse than homosexuality at all, but the term "pedophile" has a massively negative connotation despite the right name for what people really mean is a criminal. Finding ANYthing attractive, regardless of extremity, is wholly fine, but acting out on desires that would impede the rights of others is what truly causes conflict. There is a pretty logical way to put it, though. Not all people who experience lust over children assault those children.

Pedophilia is the primary sexual interest towards prepubescent children. Note: sexual. In Western culture, it's wrong to fulfil those sexual desires towards children, so having those desires in the first place is considered a dangerous thing. On the other hand, the attraction, sexual or romantic or otherwise, that comes from homosexuality is not dangerous. Same reason why there are hate speech laws, I guess. By your logic, hate speech is fine as long as they don't act out on those hates.

Also, Kyng, you've forgotten to take into account how the flux of culture has occurred. The thing is, pedophilia, as with homosexuality et al, is a modern construct. Homosexuality in Ancient Greece, for example didn't really exist during that time, but (in our age), we'd consider that homosexuality. They certainly didn't.

Pedophilia has only ever existed for the time we've actually considered it as cultural taboo. We've essentially defined it as taboo. I realise that homosexuality has been considered the same way, but culture defines taboo, not the other way round. We're at a point where our culture is being less and less defined by religion and other factors, and more by actual human morality and rights, I guess. While our view towards rights for all has been evolving incredibly quickly through the years, the cultural stance on sexual abuse is unlikely to change for a long time, and there's no reason to believe it will since it really never has. Since we've defined pedophilia as a form of sexual abuse to an extent, it won't be accepted.

tl;dr There is no correlation between the cultural acceptance of homosexuality and a gradual acceptance of current cultural taboos, because there is no correlation between the cultural acceptance of homosexuality and the universal acceptance of everything, or even to the universal acceptance of current cultural taboos.

[Tourmaline]

Hate speech has no relevance to the context I'm referring to. It's not logic if you're trying to lead me to a red herring.

 

I'll reiterate it so you can try to read it as it is, though. There is no negative effect to being attracted to children if you will not act out on those desires in a way that would impede on the child's rights. Hate speech has [b]no[/b] relevance whatsoever, so please try another example. I'm talking about what people find sexually attractive here.

[.Rai]

Hate speech has no relevance to the context I'm referring to. It's not logic if you're trying to lead me to a red herring.
 
I'll reiterate it so you can try to read it as it is, though. There is no negative effect to being attracted to children if you will not act out on those desires in a way that would impede on the child's rights. Hate speech has no relevance whatsoever, so please try another example. I'm talking about what people find sexually attractive here.

Well, fine, there's no harm in being a secret pedophile (which is essentially what you're describing). Doesn't mean it's right in the eyes of global culture though. There's essentially no way to guarantee that someone won't act out on those desires, which is why pedophilia is illegal, and the public expression of desire of pedophilia.

I guess hate speech was a bad example, but in a similar vein, there's no harm in someone thinking they'd love to, I don't know, mass-revive the Nazi movement and commit mass homicide or something, as long as they don't tell anyone or carry out those desires. In this case, for this circumstance, we have hate speech laws (prohibiting expression of desire to do immoral things), and homicide laws (prohibiting the act itself).

Consider laws on pedophilia as twofold - the first being the diagnosis of pedophilia as a psychological disorder, the second being the physical law that comes with both age of consent and attempting to engage in sexual contact with an underage person.

Pedophilia is immoral, regardless of whether you express it or not. If the physical act is, to consider the desire to carry out that physical act not is plain wrong.

[Tourmaline]

Finding it immoral is the subjectivity that was mentioned it earlier. Finding that it was considered a psychological disorder several months ago severely disgusted me. The difference is that I'm not a cultural relativist at all (at least not in comparison to most people here. I can't deny I have some influence of where I live) so the concept of a universal wrong is more utilitarian than anything, and judging merely by the masses is an appeal to authority.

 

The fact that there's no harm is already enough for me not to personally mind it. I usually follow the harm principle loosely in terms of various questions, but I do believe it is fine as long as one does not push the rights of others. Maybe just a twisted libertarian more than anything.

[.Rai]

Finding it immoral is the subjectivity that was mentioned it earlier. Finding that it was considered a psychological disorder several months ago severely disgusted me. The difference is that I'm not a cultural relativist at all (at least not in comparison to most people here. I can't deny I have some influence of where I live) so the concept of a universal wrong is more utilitarian than anything, and judging merely by the masses is an appeal to authority.

The fact that there's no harm is already enough for me not to personally mind it. I usually follow the harm principle loosely in terms of various questions, but I do believe it is fine as long as one does not push the rights of others. Maybe just a twisted libertarian more than anything.

In your circumstance, this means you consider having the sexual desire towards prepubescent children acceptable provided there is no publicly expressed intent to do so. I can see that does no physical harm towards anyone, but obviously, regarding laws, in order to make sure that such doesn't happen, measures must be put into place to prevent that from happening - even expressing the intent of such is considered dangerous, and rightly so, regardless of your stance.

Part of the immorality comes from the fact that it's very difficult to tell the intents of a child in the first place: it's incredibly easy to manipulate and etc. Part of that is why there is an age of consent in the first place. The potential to influence a child in such an affecting way is incredibly dangerous (they don't necessarily know what they're agreeing to in the first place, even if the other individual thinks they do), which is why it's considered immoral in the first place. It being a psychological disorder is linked highly not really to the immorality of it all, but really the danger of it: there is genuine danger in the manipulation of children, intended or otherwise. Part of the reason why homosexuality as a psychological disorder was eventually dissolved is because it posed no genuine threat.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

In addition, Polaris must not be too keen on detecting remarkable intelligence or kindness if they give the superlatives of both to Crab Helmet and J-Max, respectively.

I found J-Max to be the member who most went out of his way to be nice to people on a day to day basis. That doesn't mean I don't have reservations about some of the images he used, but bear in mind that they were cartoons and not real people so cannot be definitely said to have represented sexual depictions of minors or just caricatures of the innocence of people who are in fact the age of consent. I find them creepy either way myself, but I still stand by my claim that J-Max was infectiously kind and helpful day to day and I don't want the infamy of one of his mistakes to blind us to that fact.

I really don't feel I need to even justify how smart I thought Crab Helmet was and would rather just assume you weren't very much acquainted with his/her posts or are just a rogue hater or something. Perhaps if you can recruit more people who thought Crab Helmet was stupid I'll consider your case, but as is I'm pretty sure it was public opinion that Crab Helmet was just smarter than everyone else.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

It was already explained prior in this thread, but okay, I'll spell it out for you; money. As .Rai said, the tobacco industry generates a huge revenue which the US, nay, any country cannot really live without, as the tobacco industry really does generate a lot of money.

 

Also, what are you reading? My posts? Clearly not, as I have never said anything that would indicate me saying "cigarettes aren't addictive".

What most people you were calling stupid were saying was simply that, if drugs are thought of as bad because of addiction, so should cigarettes. That is pretty much all they were saying.

I don't know how to quote from multpile pages so... "Drugs would be accepted even if they did damage your health. Cigarettes and alcohol are still accepted, and you know what they do to the human health. The problem with drugs is that they get you addicted. If addiction didn't happen, they wouldn't be so looked down upon / be illegal." See the point here?

According to you, drugs are looked down on and illegal for being addictive. But, cigarettes are not looked down on and illegal despite being addictive. It's  a logical conclusion that either you're wrong about the reasons for drugs being hated and illegal, or you were saying cigarettes aren't addictive.

Also, your arrogance is starting to be really annoying.

[Sander]

According to you, drugs are looked down on and illegal for being addictive. But, cigarettes are not looked down on and illegal despite being addictive.

 

What I said is that drugs wouldn't be looked down upon / be illegal if addiction didn't happen. Keep your eye on the forward slash, which is most commonly used as the word substitute for "or". All this misunderstanding from the fact that most of you (the ones that I've been arguing with) here do not know what "/" means. Also, cigarettes are looked down upon, though. I never said that they weren't.

 

It's  a logical conclusion that either you're wrong about the reasons for drugs being hated and illegal, or you were saying cigarettes aren't addictive.

Also, your arrogance is starting to be really annoying.

 

I wasn't wrong, though. Addiction is the primary problem that keeps drugs illegal or under heavy regulation. If addiction didn't happen, people wouldn't get so hooked on said substance, thus not leading to further health problems down the road for the user or for the people around said user (most commonly seen as second hand smoke).

[Aix]

What I said is that drugs wouldn't be looked down upon / be illegal if addiction didn't happen. Keep your eye on the forward slash, which is most commonly used as the word substitute for "or". All this misunderstanding from the fact that most of you (the ones that I've been arguing with) here do not know what "/" means. Also, cigarettes are looked down upon, though. I never said that they weren't.

 

 

I wasn't wrong, though. Addiction is the primary problem that keeps drugs illegal or under heavy regulation. If addiction didn't happen, people wouldn't get so hooked on said substance, thus not leading to further health problems down the road for the user or for the people around said user (most commonly seen as second hand smoke).

Improvement. You did not swear or pointlessly insult.

 

The way you phrased the paragraph and worded it made it sound like you were implying that cigarettes were not looked down upon or illegal. It was a miscommunication.

 

"Drugs would be accepted even if they did damage your health. Cigarettes and alcohol are still accepted, and you know what they do to the human health. The problem with drugs is that they get you addicted. If addiction didn't happen, they wouldn't be so looked down upon / be illegal."

 

When you say "the problem with X is that...", that implies that whatever stated before does not have that problem.

[Admiral Tim]

If you can't understand why cigarettes are legal, then you are literally too stupid to discuss anything with. Also, you just proved my theory to be correct. This guy was desperate enough to because he clearly had no money to purchase (or was just plain old greedy and didn't want to pay) and had the addiction that made him want to hold 2 people at gun point for cigarettes.

 

 

I suggest you to actually reread a post carefully before you actually respond to someone. You know, so you could actually comprehend what the toerh person is saying. What I said is what I said, which is that drugs are illegal BECAUSE they create addictions, which leads people to do criminal activities to get more of said drug into their system. If that's not clear enough for you to understand, then I'll make it even easier for your simple mind: Person gets addicted to crack cocaine => Doesn't have enough money to afford to buy more => Steals money from someone => Gets more crack cocaine => Needs more money, steals some more etc. etc.

 

 

And your point is? You can't compare a "mild shy stoner" to a "testosterone filled psycho" when it comes down to it, as we do not know what kind of drug this "testosterone filled psycho" is using, since people generally do not actually get aggressive under the influence of weed.

 

Really, what was your point about anyways? All you did was prove me correct, even with this "study". Drugs are illegal because addicts with or without violent natures will do anything for their next hit, even if it means that they have to either steal / harm / kill other people. All that damage done by the addicts was started by one thing, which I've already stated countless times; addiction.

 

Also, paragraphs; learn to use them.

 

You act civilized and correct my grammar yet you then act barbaric and insult me?  I'm not arguing we should not make cigarettes illegal.  No one in this thread is.  It's just that you base your entire argument on addiction, cigarettes happen to be the loophole in your theory.  Now This is just getting everyone over hyped-up and angry.  It's quite honestly a waste of my time.  On a final note you argued HARD DRUGS like crack or heroin are banned because of strong addiction I was merely pointing out cigarettes can cause the same effect.  Not once did I not understand why they are legal?  In your craze to look smart you ended up hypocritical trying to make us look like idiots.  

To conclude you can say what you want after this, i'm done.  But know all you did was change the meaning of everyone else's arguments and reword them to make yourself sound smarter.  

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

What I said is that drugs wouldn't be looked down upon / be illegal if addiction didn't happen. Keep your eye on the forward slash, which is most commonly used as the word substitute for "or". All this misunderstanding from the fact that most of you (the ones that I've been arguing with) here do not know what "/" means. Also, cigarettes are looked down upon, though. I never said that they weren't.

 

 

I wasn't wrong, though. Addiction is the primary problem that keeps drugs illegal or under heavy regulation. If addiction didn't happen, people wouldn't get so hooked on said substance, thus not leading to further health problems down the road for the user or for the people around said user (most commonly seen as second hand smoke).

Pretty much what AixDivadis said.

I must add though, i know that a forward slash means or... that has nothing to do with what I was arguing about. Whether it's and, or or, my point remains the same.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

It is my unbiased third-party opinion that Zanda Panda owes his own ass a quarter due to having played himself.

[Admiral Tim]

It is my unbiased third-party opinion that Zanda Panda owes his own ass a quarter due to having played himself.

 

That's what I'm trying to say.  The posts started slipping off the argument and more into making himself sound good.  

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Don't let it get to your head, Timmy. I might not be so generous as to win your next squabble
for you. ;)