Why Dirty Old Uncle Roger Opposes Drug Use and Shut Up.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I mostly agree. I drink, but I'm under no delusion that I'm any smarter or wiser or funnier. I drink to give less fucks. Drugs are meh. I've tried a few. 

Thanks for the input. 

You seem a little gangsta.

Gangsta? I've been somewhat cranky lately on account of a deadbeat ex. Might account for it.

No worries, I'm a little gangsta myself.  And since this thread is now about how much we get fucked up and where, I'll just wander off and do something else.

[tarod]

Also moderation and/or drinking at home goes a long way towards not getting tossed in the clink.

My point is now buried under braggadosio.

Thread over.

Didn't mean to turn your thread sideways or 'brag' about drinking at home.

I've had a bunch of stoners tell me all kinds of stories that are totally unrelated to reality and believe them.

[tarod]

I guess the point I should have gotten to a bit more eloquently is that not all people drink just to whack their pleasure centers.

edit: I guess Roger was trying to make more of a point about the ccp rather than people doing drugs to escape reality.  My bad.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Actually, my point was that there is no good reason to get fucked up, the only thing approaching a good reason being "it feels good", ie, the pleasure center thing.

I was mostly aiming this at the "DRUGS ARE MAGICKLE" crowd, as well as those who think they somehow make you smarter or more attuned to things.

I mean, if you want to pound on your liver to feel better for a short period of time, that's your fucking business.

[tarod]

Actually, my point was that there is no good reason to get fucked up, the only thing approaching a good reason being "it feels good", ie, the pleasure center thing.

I was mostly aiming this at the "DRUGS ARE MAGICKLE" crowd, as well as those who think they somehow make you smarter or more attuned to things.

I mean, if you want to pound on your liver to feel better for a short period of time, that's your fucking business.

I would probably say quite a few people do it to not feel bad, but that's just semantics.  The "Drugs are magickle" crowd is just plain retarded. There is the social lubricant angle, but thats not always a good idea.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I would probably say quite a few people do it to not feel bad, but that's just semantics.  The "Drugs are magickle" crowd is just plain retarded. There is the social lubricant angle, but thats not always a good idea.

1.  Let's examine that.  "My life is a mess, the obvious thing to do is interfere with my ability to think, therefore compounding my problems.  Cousin Milty did okay, and he was a dumbfuck.  I got this."

2.  Yes.

3.  A roomful of Cousin Miltys.   

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It can be fun, though.

Sure.  I have all sorts of fun that is bad for me and probably isn't giving me anything useful at all, experience-wise.

I've also found that I have more fun at parties if I drink coffee and enjoy some conversation, than if I drink booze and try to have a conversation.

Um.

[Cain]

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[The Good Reverend Roger]

It can be fun, though.

Sure.  I have all sorts of fun that is bad for me and probably isn't giving me anything useful at all, experience-wise.

I've also found that I have more fun at parties if I drink coffee and enjoy some conversation, than if I drink booze and try to have a conversation.

Um.

That's Holy Stuff™, and is totally different.   

I mean, by that standard, eating a chocolate bar is taking a drug, right?  It's in fact a very powerful mood-altering drug, at that.

DOUR,
Isn't making an exception for himself, it's just that this doesn't apply to him.  Or words to that effect.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Illegal drugs also help fund fantastic covert operations by certain branches of government, or elements thereof, which go into propping up the international financial system and thus the insider late-capitalistic form of exploitation we have become intimitely familiar with over the past couple of decades.

Just one example: drug money was laundered by BCCI.  The BCCI had several deals with the Bush family.  The Bush family helped set up the illegal drug operation which helped to arm and fund the contras...with the profit being put in BCCI banks.

Project Phoenix, the CIA's assassination program in Vietnam which aimed to use terrorist tactics against the VC and the civlian population?  Funded by drugs, especially after the withdrawal of US troops in 1973.  Project Phoenix used tactics like grabbing a suspected VC informant and two innocent people.  The two randoms would be killed - detcord around the neck was a favourite, though some of the mercenaries involved preferred toture and vivisections - and the third would then be persuaded to talk.

Our "allies" in Afghanistan and Colombia?  Drug runners, and big ones. 

I could go on and on.  When you have drugs, you might just be paying to support these people.

Iran/Contra was funded by the invention of crack, IIRC, by the CIA.

ETA, I'd amend that last sentence to say "illegal drugs".  If the shit was legal, the yahoos wouldn't be making a dime off of them.

[Cain]

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[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It can be fun, though.

Sure.  I have all sorts of fun that is bad for me and probably isn't giving me anything useful at all, experience-wise.

I've also found that I have more fun at parties if I drink coffee and enjoy some conversation, than if I drink booze and try to have a conversation.

Um.

That's Holy Stuff™, and is totally different.   

I mean, by that standard, eating a chocolate bar is taking a drug, right?  It's in fact a very powerful mood-altering drug, at that.

DOUR,
Isn't making an exception for himself, it's just that this doesn't apply to him.  Or words to that effect.

Yes, coffee, tea, kava, chocolate, tobacco, and many other legal things are drugs, too.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Illegal drugs also help fund fantastic covert operations by certain branches of government, or elements thereof, which go into propping up the international financial system and thus the insider late-capitalistic form of exploitation we have become intimitely familiar with over the past couple of decades.

Just one example: drug money was laundered by BCCI.  The BCCI had several deals with the Bush family.  The Bush family helped set up the illegal drug operation which helped to arm and fund the contras...with the profit being put in BCCI banks.

Project Phoenix, the CIA's assassination program in Vietnam which aimed to use terrorist tactics against the VC and the civlian population?  Funded by drugs, especially after the withdrawal of US troops in 1973.  Project Phoenix used tactics like grabbing a suspected VC informant and two innocent people.  The two randoms would be killed - detcord around the neck was a favourite, though some of the mercenaries involved preferred toture and vivisections - and the third would then be persuaded to talk.

Our "allies" in Afghanistan and Colombia?  Drug runners, and big ones. 

I could go on and on.  When you have drugs, you might just be paying to support these people.

Iran/Contra was funded by the invention of crack, IIRC, by the CIA.

ETA, I'd amend that last sentence to say "illegal drugs".  If the shit was legal, the yahoos wouldn't be making a dime off of them.

100% agreed, on that.

I do like to trip balls on mushrooms every five to ten years, though.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Yup, the CIA denied it, but the CIA doesn't always know what its own operatives are up to.  In particular, the history of the CIA suggests a parallel network of former good old boys laid off by Carter, NOC types, aristocratic blue bloods with OSS connections and rabid anti-Communists (aka, the WACL and friends) were the responsible party.  Gary Webb's Dark Alliance reports focus more on the drugs than the latter, but you can certainly figure out the latter with a bit of historical knowledge.

I also suspect the Contras were a secondary consideration.  The Contras were awful.  Not just as people, but on an objective, military level, they failed hard.  And yet all these dirty operations, drug money laundering, arms sales etc...were for their benefit alone?  Come on now.  I suspect the above parties saw a way to support an anti-Communist cause, sure, but also to use government resources to line their own pockets.

IIRC, they admitted it in the LA Times, back in the 90s.

And Cain, I gotta say...Sure, some money obviously stuck to someone's fingers here and there.  But our intelligence service does dumb fucking shit just because they can.  And they're awful just for the sake of being hateful.

I think it's beaten into them at Yale/Harvard.

[Kai]

I agree with the OP. Stopped drinking recently for a number of reasons. One of the major ones was that, despite my colleagues and professors doing it together, it really didn't help lubricate SCIENCE at all. Nor social situations; I'd be drinking at 5 pm on Fridays and even if I could get thinking and talking it wouldn't be anything interesting. I like confronting reality sober, or if not sober, then with a bit of dark chocolate or tea to keep me alert. Drop my guard for a second, and reality doesn't pull punches.

If generating novelty in Science (or any discipline) is all about farming a "diverse investment" of ideas and hoeing later to uncover the prize winning pumpkin, then I can see why some people do drugs to randomize connections. Hell, Kerry Mullis came up with a perfection of PCR in an acid dream. On the other hand, Mullis is an AIDS/climate change denialist and believes in astrology. Either the drugs disconnected his tap to reality, or he was unplugged to begin with. Same is true for Lynn Margulis (I'd say "though without the drugs", but she was married to Carl Sagan).

Point is, doesn't it seem smarter to promote endogenous cultivation rather than exogenous stimulation? Yes, I want to generate novelty, yes, I know that the best way to do so, the lowest risk way, the way that nature takes, is to try lots of things. It feels like slowed reaction time is going to delay the process, not accelerate it. Or the inverse, /overstimulate it/, to the point where I loose track of everything (can't remember your ideas? they never happened). Paul Erdos could do it, one of the few. I'm not in that group. So the supposed benefits aren't worth the handicap. Like cutting off a right breast to pull a bowstring better, it seems sensible at first but then there's the realization it sets everything off balance.