Post your asides here

[jimbogumbo]

The fact that marijuana is very hard on certain individuals is likely a combination of lesser known and intentionally downplayed by people who should know better. According to the study, for some individuals it cuts both ways, both in and out.
Depersonalization disorder can result from both acute intoxication and withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms = addictive substance.

I am NOT downplaying its effects. Look at the studies on addiction. I feel pretty secure that I'm on solid ground here. We know how addictive the three I mentioned are. We know how addictive alcohol can be for some (can't predict who), and it is not at the same risk level as the first three. Marijuana appears to be much less risky than alcohol, and with much more upside for many medical conditions.

[mahagonny]

The fact that marijuana is very hard on certain individuals is likely a combination of lesser known and intentionally downplayed by people who should know better. According to the study, for some individuals it cuts both ways, both in and out.
Depersonalization disorder can result from both acute intoxication and withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms = addictive substance.

I am NOT downplaying its effects. Look at the studies on addiction. I feel pretty secure that I'm on solid ground here. We know how addictive the three I mentioned are. We know how addictive alcohol can be for some (can't predict who), and it is not at the same risk level as the first three. Marijuana appears to be much less risky than alcohol, and with much more upside for many medical conditions.

Not for me it wasn't.

[smallcleanrat]

I'm obviously still too stupid to recognize when there's no point to making an effort.

[Istiblennius]

I'm obviously still too stupid to recognize when there's no point to making an effort.

You and me both! Why do we bang our heads against things that resemble solid, immovable rocks in more ways than one?

[mamselle]

Just walk away...

M.

[smallcleanrat]

Just walk away...

M.

I can walk away from a thread, but none of this stuff is restricted to internet forums. Even if I choose not to engage in arguments, those arguments still influence the world in which I live. If these weren't about real issues with real-world consequences I wouldn't care so much.

I encounter the same sort of getting-nowhere discussions offline. The difference between here and there is that, here, with this community, I have slightly higher hopes that a discussion in good faith is possible. I make an effort to understand someone's post (reading it carefully, multiple times) before I reply. I try to take care with my wording and logic.

When I fare no better here than offline, I'm never sure if it's because someone is deliberately ignoring/misunderstanding my point, failing to comprehend what I wrote, or if I'm failing at communicating effectively. I want to be able to 'talk so people will listen' online and off, but I don't seem to have figured out how.

[Parasaurolophus]

IMO there's nothing you can say that will change their minds here. When they ignore or deflect, it's because you've scored a direct hit.

That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, though. I think it very much is, both for the overall health of the community and because, as you note, it all spills over into the real world.

[mahagonny]

It's actually happened already, as of the last five years or so. Only we don't have 'kiss me, I'm black' lapel buttons. We have 'confess your original sin here' and the self identifier is unnecessary. Consequently we're hearing more and more from Black individuals who don't want the Cold War, from people who've realize that that attitude will be attributed to them unless they disavow it. So more and more people are saying 'I'm not the guy who wants to carp about your privilege. Let's have a beer and make friends.' The grey sky of a cultural Cold Civil War, with occasional patches of blue.

[little bongo]

When I fare no better here than offline, I'm never sure if it's because someone is deliberately ignoring/misunderstanding my point, failing to comprehend what I wrote, or if I'm failing at communicating effectively. I want to be able to 'talk so people will listen' online and off, but I don't seem to have figured out how.

Smallcleanrat, if and when you do figure out how, you can write a book and probably make a great deal of money. I tend to agree, though, that the whole "changing someone's mind" thing probably shouldn't be the goal of any of these encounters. I don't know if my mind has changed about a particular topic, but I am starting to appreciate how much fear drives the disagreements. And I'm starting to work on what I'm afraid of and why, and what others might be afraid of, and why. Doesn't eliminate the whole annoyance thing, entirely, but it broadens my perspective a bit.

And speaking of broadening my perspective, the only encounter I've had on this thread that I would really consider rather yucky happened with a moderator, and not with any of the regulars, however much I disagreed with anyone. I might well have contributed to the overall unpleasantness more than I first realized, but I have to decide for myself, as I guess we all do, the difference between valuable self-examination and pointless second-guessing.

[smallcleanrat]

IMO there's nothing you can say that will change their minds here. When they ignore or deflect, it's because you've scored a direct hit.

That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, though. I think it very much is, both for the overall health of the community and because, as you note, it all spills over into the real world.

Thanks for your response Parasaurolophus. Much appreciated.

Thing is, these kind of thoughts/questions/rebuttals are in my head anyway as these issues are impossible to avoid unless I disconnect from society to go live as a hermit somewhere. It helps to have a place to put them into words.



Generally, I'm not too much bothered if I don't change anybody's mind. But what I find most useful about an exchange is when I better understand the other person's reasons for why they hold certain opinions.

If someone says something that doesn't make sense to me or seems to contradict something else they said, I want to know more about their thought process. There have been times I've changed my mind, or at least moved a thought from the category of Opinion to More Research Needed--Opinion Pending, because someone raises some aspect of the issue I hadn't yet considered.

If I can at least walk away from a discussion with a better understanding of why someone said what they said, I consider that a success. That's why getting ignored or getting a response which seems to have nothing to do with the point I was making or the question I was asking is frustrating.

[mahagonny]

IMO there's nothing you can say that will change their minds here. When they ignore or deflect, it's because you've scored a direct hit.

That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, though. I think it very much is, both for the overall health of the community and because, as you note, it all spills over into the real world.

Thanks for your response Parasaurolophus. Much appreciated.

Thing is, these kind of thoughts/questions/rebuttals are in my head anyway as these issues are impossible to avoid unless I disconnect from society to go live as a hermit somewhere. It helps to have a place to put them into words.



Generally, I'm not too much bothered if I don't change anybody's mind. But what I find most useful about an exchange is when I better understand the other person's reasons for why they hold certain opinions.

If someone says something that doesn't make sense to me or seems to contradict something else they said, I want to know more about their thought process. There have been times I've changed my mind, or at least moved a thought from the category of Opinion to More Research Needed--Opinion Pending, because someone raises some aspect of the issue I hadn't yet considered.

If I can at least walk away from a discussion with a better understanding of why someone said what they said, I consider that a success. That's why getting ignored or getting a response which seems to have nothing to do with the point I was making or the question I was asking is frustrating.

Para may share some of your views on the some of the topics, but seems to me to differ from you in that he or she wants to score 'direct hits.' He or she is not looking to understand why people state things by knowing more about their thought processes. Para knows everything already and wants to win the debate.
What Para is not telling you is their academic work is in all probability being directly challenged by such academics as Dr. Jordan Peterson, so they don't just have a dog in the fight; they have, probably, like a mastiff.

[jimbogumbo]

Only someone who did not grow up in Western PA, WV, OH, IN, KY, TN IL (south of Chicago) or MO (heck, even a bunch of MI) would think my family is odd. Hence the "you don't know crap about this" comment.

[Parasaurolophus]

Para may share some of your views on the some of the topics, but seems to me to differ from you in that he or she wants to score 'direct hits.' He or she is not looking to understand why people state things by knowing more about their thought processes. Para knows everything already and wants to win the debate.

Some of that is, of course, true: I have a high opinion of myself and my opinions.

But the standard I require from all my interlocutors is the presentation of valid (though preferably sound) arguments. If someone cannot manage at least that much, then they're not worth engaging seriously beyond a symbolic smackdown.

What Para is not telling you is their academic work is in all probability being directly challenged by such academics as Dr. Jordan Peterson, so they don't just have a dog in the fight; they have, probably, like a mastiff.

I'm an analytic philosopher, so I'm afraid you'll have to redo your probability calculus. I have no truck whatsoever with non-empirical psychology, let alone Jung and Campbell. (I do have some small interaction with empirical psychology, but that's a relationship in which I defer to the results of [properly conducted] studies and meta-studies.)

Although I'll readily admit that I've done a decent bit of logic, including deriving the incompleteness theorems, which Peterson thinks (due to a series of common early twentieth-century misunderstandings) somehow prove the existence of God. That's not much of a direct challenge, though. Interthreadually, it's about as much a challenge as telling someone they "can't prove a negative".

[mamselle]

Proof by contrapositive?

;--}

M.*

   *(who occasionally remembers the tiny bit of logic we learned in 10th grade geometry, but may well have mis-applied it here.)

[jimbogumbo]

Goedal's Incompleteness Theorem rocks!

mamselle: look up Cantor Diagonalization for a taste. First you assume you can line up all the positive real numbers from smallest to largest, then you...