THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: jhocking on 09 Mar 2008, 10:46
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What do you think are important signifiers of age level? Like, what are the things that make you different from your parents?
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Well not being almost 70 helps.
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my parents have real jobs.
they own a home and shit.
i'm poor.
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To give a serious answer, guyz...
Yesterday I had a massive row with my mum's partner (who is 44 years older than me) about the fact that he was watching football (soccer) at the dinner table.
I hate football (the watching thereof, not the partaking in) and my mum isn't keen on TV while we eat. What we mostly were clashing over, though, is the fact that I feel that everyone should be equal in a household. We share out the house work, and although I can't cook I always wash and dry up and do the other food-related tasks. As far as I'm concerned, this should also apply to things like watching TV. If two people would rather not, then we shouldn't.
But he disagrees. He said that it is his house, and that he was brought up in a family where the father chose what to watch. Is this an age thing? I'm not sure if it is a generation difference but I think maybe my generation (I'm 17) is on a more equal level to adults than previous generations. I call my teachers by their first names, for example.
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You're just a punk.
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Man I am constantly being looked down on just because I'm 19. Nobody takes me seriously. Which is possibly the most infuriating thing I know of.
Seriously dude, look at Rihanna and look at Kate Nash. Where are they? So-rich-I-don't-have-to-do-fucking-anything-for-the-rest-of-my-lifesville. I bet people take them seriously.
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.. As far as I'm concerned, this should also apply to things like watching TV. If two people would rather not, then we shouldn't.
Oh, hell no.
Lookee here: My kids get a tremendous amount of respect from me. They really do. I earnestly listen to what they have to say and what their wants and desires are and I take them into consideration. I don't want to argue with my kids. I don't want to piss them off. I want them to be happy, and if I can make them happy, so much the better. They are not now --and until they are fully self-sufficient they will not be-- my equal though. There isn't a vote. They are children.
It is my job to raise them. It is my job to ensure that they are prepared to enter the world ready to pursue happiness by whatever means they determine best meets their own personal goals. If I have succeeded as a parent, then they will do that without a) taking a premature dirt nap b) getting a sexually transmitted disease or c) going to jail.
In the meantime, I determine what is best for them --taking into consideration their wants-- and they do what I tell them, or face the consequences. So though I personally don't think watching sports on tv during dinner is appropriate, I do see the fallacy of thinking there is equal voice. "We outnumber you and we all want to eat ice cream for supper so that's what we're going to have."
Wrong.
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You are noting that his mom agreed, correct?
I'm sorry, but his dad was being a tit if that story's to be believed. If both his partner and her son, who is easily old enough to input a valid opinion I add, feel he is committing a faux pas, he should respect the wishes of the majority. The "my house" thing in particular is just horribly dismissive and incredibly overbearing a response.
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Wrong.
Just because it works for you doesn't mean the other person is absolutely wrong.
Besides, I tend to disagree. At some point you've got to let the kid start making their own decisions, and it is your responsibility as a decent human being to advise them of the best way, but to still let them do what they want to (within reason, cocaine is always a terrible idea) and learn from their own mistakes.
And I'm with Jon. That is one of the rudest things anybody can say. My mother does it to me all the time ("it's MY computer"), and when she does, I have this almost overwhelming urge to grab the largest magnet I can find and have a little party with her hard drive.
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My parents knew better than to pull that when I was a teenager. They acknowledged early on that it would be rather unfair to claim "mine" "mine" when half the electronics in the house would fall apart without my maintenance.
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He said that it is his house, and that he was brought up in a family where the father chose what to watch.
This is the bit that makes me angry, for reasons related to. That he lived in an antiquated and sexist household is not a valid reason, hell, it even makes it more of a reason to not be a dick. As for the "it's mine because i pay for it mentality", that only really works if your children are sheep.
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To answer the original question: My parents and I pretty much treat each other as equals, as far as the they support my living things lets it.
My dad is pretty tech savvy, so Obsessions' point doesn't really apply. I don't see many differences between how they were 30 years ago and how I am now. I think they see this too.
How do I get along with other people their age? It gets easier and easier. Two-three years ago it was mostly awkwardness, but now.. meh.
But when I'm staying at their's (when I'm not at uni) I respect that I'm staying at their house, and while I might disagree with some of the things they do, they're a) my parents and b) it's their home with their rules. Barmymoo it's really a problem your mom and her partner need to sort out between each other. You can tell them how you feel, but in the end it's their decision. Realize you're living at their expense, even if you help out around the house.
The 'it's my house' thing is rude to point out, but he shouldn't have to. It is his house. When I go stay at a christian household and they say grace I don't tell them that I disagree with their believes and refuse to look down and fold my hands (this was the first thing I could come up with). It's common courtesy.
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You are noting that his mom agreed, correct?
I'm sorry, but his dad was being a tit if that story's to be believed. If both his partner and her son, who is easily old enough to input a valid opinion I add, feel he is committing a faux pas, he should respect the wishes of the majority. The "my house" thing in particular is just horribly dismissive and incredibly overbearing a response.
So are you being deliberately obtuse or did you really miss the pains I took in my post to point out that I did not condone the behavior of the 'adult'? I specifically address the belief of a minor child that he is an equal in the house and has some sort of veto authority. Any child who is raised in such a household is being done a tremendous disservice and is being ill prepared for the really real world in which most of us eventually find ourselves.
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I have a house and what could be called a career. I'm fucking ancient and rapidly deteriorating so I feel like I desperately need to lie to the Internet.
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You are noting that his mom agreed, correct?
I'm sorry, but his dad was being a tit if that story's to be believed. If both his partner and her son, who is easily old enough to input a valid opinion I add, feel he is committing a faux pas, he should respect the wishes of the majority. The "my house" thing in particular is just horribly dismissive and incredibly overbearing a response.
So are you being deliberately obtuse or did you really miss the pains I took in my post to point out that I did not condone the behavior of the 'adult'? I specifically address the belief of a minor child that he is an equal in the house and has some sort of veto authority. Any child who is raised in such a household is being done a tremendous disservice and is being ill prepared for the really real world in which most of us eventually find ourselves.
I think his point was that his wife disagreed, which makes it at least 1 to 1, and if the child counts even the slightest amount of a person, his vote would tilt it in the favor of the wife, unless the wife is less of a vote than the husband. The problem is that he's denying the wishes of both his partner and his child because it is "his house". Which is an inequality in all of the relationships, especially in the husband-wife department.
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And again: I never said that the guy wasn't being a jerk. What I did say is that a household is not a democracy in which a minor child gets a vote.
I'm not sure that I can be anymore succinct than that.
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I think mostly the main difference between my parents and I is that they only know how to use the internet for gambling, and they only abuse legally sanctioned drugs anymore.
Also they are about 35 years older than me, which I feel helps a LOT.
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Wow, that was more of a response than I expected.
Wet Helmet I do take your point, and in a lot of cases I agree with you. Ice cream for dinner, to take your example, is definately something that parents shouldn't condone (and incidentally something I rallied for a lot when I was younger).
But in this case, it wasn't about him telling me not to do something dangerous like substance abuse or shoplifting, it was disregarding my request for the football not to be on. I'm not allowed to read at the table. It felt like double standards. I also take your point that you weren't agreeing with him watching it but just illustrating that there isn't an equal voice. I think this was mostly the point I was making: I'd imagine that as a parent yourself, you are probably closer in age to him than to me, and therefore backing up what I was saying. On the other hand, I could be an anomaly in my own age group and I might find that most people my age would agree that because he is older, he has the right to choose what we watch or don't watch when we eat.
Also, guys, I'm a girl :wink: It always surprises me when people see Barmymoo as a male name, it always seems female to me (possibly because it's my name?)
Hat, your parents clearly haven't heard of Lolcats or they would not need to abuse any form of drugs.
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I am 100 % certain that if my parents knew about LOLcats it would only cause them to sink deeper into their substance abuse problems.
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About the OP, I would say things like maturity and common sense, but people develop these things at different ages. Like I feel I "grew up" well before many other people my age, especially ones I went to school with. But my mom and I get along pretty well. I have a feeling we'd get along better if we didn't live in the same house, because we're both pretty stubborn people, but as I don't have the time to get a job to afford what I need to live on my own while I finish up school, I will stay here for the time being. Hell, I've even done the thing most kids dream of - I got my mom to like over half the music I listen to, and this doesn't include the stuff she played while I was growing up. But I guess the most major difference between me and my mom is that she has more life experience as she's almost 60. About 22 and about 60 is a major difference. Another difference is she doesn't like watching animated movies that much anymore outside of the Pixar stuff. She put up with me watching Disney movies on repeat for days at a time, so I think I can understand why...
He said that it is his house, and that he was brought up in a family where the father chose what to watch.
If all three of you live in this house, I don't see how it is only his. He could at least wait until after dinner if your mom asked him to turn it off during dinner. Unless he's one of "those guys," but I don't know him so I won't make that assumption.
What I did say is that a household is not a democracy in which a minor child gets a vote.
No offense, but maybe in your household this is true, but it certainly wasn't in mine. For a well rounded only child of a single parent, there were things my mom gave me a vote on. Now when it came to eating ice cream for dinner, that was a definite no, obviously, but TV during dinner (for example)? Yes, I would get a vote if it wasn't something important like the news or whatever.
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What do you think are important signifiers of age level?
This is something I've thought about a lot while growing up so that I could act older than I actually was at any given time. Admittedly my focus has been on age rather than generation, which seems to be the real question you're implying.
I find that some generational signifiers are cultural. For example, when talking about music with my aunt on my mother's side, she's made the remark that music is more important for me right now than for her because she's grown up. I'm sure my mother shares the same sentiments.
On the other hand, my dad is still always looking for new music, and he's nearly a generation older than they are.
I honestly don't know why that is because I know being Chinese doesn't stop you from being focused about the music one listens to. Perhaps the Cultural Revolution stifled such tendencies.
It's hard to generalize about age level signifiers because obviously individuals mature at different rates and thus need to be judged by different standards. Ultimately I think it comes down to subtle differences in behavior and humor. It demonstrates the amount of control you have over your actions and your awareness of others. Obviously there are exceptions to these stereotypes but younger people are more excitable, passionate, more noticeably happier, and are comfortable within a smaller range of ages. (In other words, the older you are, the more age groups you feel comfortable around as peers.)
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Hat, that is also a possibility that I considered before posting. However I prefer to be optimistic about the healing powers of cats sporting bizarre clothing and odd captions. :wink:
And in reference to Linds' post, which appeared while I was writing this, the reason that it is specifically his house rather than ours is because he has lived here for over twenty years and I moved in six months ago. I do consider it to be his house, but it's also temporarily my home until I go to university. Sometimes it doesn't seem he always agrees. But to be fair to him, he is never violent and rarely raises his voice, although is immovably stubborn at times and my mum is still at the stage where she seems to back him up on issues that she's divided over, purely because they only got together about a year ago. Maybe that's just my perspective on it.
I have a friend who's an only child living with a single parent, she says exactly the same thing about getting on better with her mum if they didn't live together, but they're still close. I think it's often easier to be close to a single parent rather than trying to function in a family setting. I'd certainly find it easier, I think.
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Now, I think some of the conflict that Barmymoo has could come from them just not knowing each other well. It took my father about fifteen years to realize I was just as stubborn as him, and that butting heads over trivial things wasn't going to do any good. I wouldn't say it is so much a matter of having a vote as being polite, if someone doesn't want the TV on during dinner, that doesn't seem at all like an outrageous request to make.
Course, I am 16, I have a bias, as does everyone else participating in this.
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Yeah, I get your point then, Barmymoo. But still, it's a tv. :|
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my parents immigrated to canada in the 60s and i can't really tell whether or not my constant disdain for them is a result of family dynamics being different in russia or the possibility that maybe they are just ridiculous people regardless. to name a couple of examples, they deal with their severe debt issues basically by looking away and pretending they don't exist, they are petty and superficial and compete in just about everything with my extended family (to my dad, it is absolutely crucial that I end up more successful than his sister's kids), and they fight on a daily basis but always end up resorting to name-calling instead of civil discussions... which of course solves nothing in the long term.
in a lot of ways i feel i am more mature than my parents, which is kind of depressing considering they are almost 40 years older than me. there's a pretty big generation gap between us as well as evidenced in their constant racism/sexism/homophobia/etc. like tommy, i don't spend a lot of time with my parents because we fundamentally disagree on just about everything and being in the same place as them is really kind of a stressful experience.
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Edit: Ok this was mostly a response to Wet Helmet's original couple of posts, but the internet shat out and I had to go do stuff and it's been a few hours. I haven't read the interim replies or changed what I was going to say.
I find more and more that my upbringing was rather singular. The "it's MY [whatever]" thing actually did work in my house, but only because my sisters and I used it as well (only on each other, though, because my parents were careful not to misuse or abuse things that were specifically ours). This might have something to do with how my parents taught us to think about money, and how it is a means to an end (if you want something, you will probably have to pay money for it) and how the saving of it is security for future freedom from want or need.
I went to a pretentious rich kid school from age 7 until 17 when I graduated, and throughout high school all of my friends got cars for their birthdays. Granted, not all of them drove to school every day, but that was because they just didn't want to pay for gas or couldn't be arsed. I didn't get my own car until I got a job the summer after my senior year, and that was only because I bought it and was making monthly payments to my dad, who was the actual title owner. I am expected to pay for maintenance and repairs too. Basically, except for the title, which my dad still owns as a favour to me to save money on the insurance, it is MY car. When it got totalled, the insurance money went to ME, and I picked out the new car myself. No one has any say over what I do with my car except me. It was this way with both of my sisters, as well, although neither of them have had to replace theirs yet.
It was the same way with books or movies or whatever: you asked permission to borrow it, and the other person had every right to refuse for whatever reason they wanted. With the TV, it was a case of priority or seniority; i.e., whoever was watching something first had control of the remote at least until the particular program was over, or if someone watched, say, The Muppet Show (yeah that was me) every week, it was understood that for that half hour or hour I would watch the show and it was at the least exceedingly dickish for someone to try and change that.
I cannot remember or even think of any potential situations wherein my parents would not treat any of their children as individuals with opinions and rights to those opinions and choices. The issue of "it's MY house" has never even arisen, and in fact I do not think that phrase has ever left either of their mouths. They have always given me advice and related their own experiences when relevant to try and give me some perspective and then let me make my own choices. This is, of course, relative; for instance, if I were going to try and buy drugs or something with the money in my savings account, before I turned 18 my mother would've just locked me out of the account, or taken the keys to my car away for driving 130 miles down to Statesboro on a school night or something. But since I never saw drugs as a good potential return for the investment of my money, I never had to bother with that, and I suffered "grounding" (nothing outside school or extracurriculars for a few weeks) for the Statesboro trip.
I suppose it has to do with the fact that my parents have complete faith in the fact that they have done their absolute best to raise thoughtful, reasonable kids, and they realise that beyond that they cannot ultimately control the actions of another being. I have always appreciated the fact that they made this clear to us as their children, as well, because it reinforced that if they made mistakes, they were only humans and mortals doing the best they knew how, not some sort of irreproachable gods who handed down mandates and privileges from on high to their offspring. I think ultimately it has caused me to have a great deal of respect, rather than fear, for both my parents, and it has only grown as I come to realise how much good they have done me.
Also:
If I have succeeded as a parent, then they will do that without b) getting a sexually transmitted disease
Sometimes accidents happen, or your kid might get lied to. A friend of mine (well, I haven't talked to her in like a year, but I guess she still counts) was with her significant other for two years and he never told her he had the herpes, but now she does too and she had no idea until she got a breakout and thought she was dying or had the plague or something. She was going to sue him, but he got a job overseas and can't be reached anymore. So I guess what I am saying is that sometimes you can teach your kids to be responsible and shit can still blow up in their face.
Double Edit: Linds basically said what I did.
EditEditEdit: Guys what the fuck? I have never in my life asked for ice cream for dinner. I do not even do that now that I am feeding myself. I do not like being ridiculously sick and I never have. What the hell, dudes?
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With regards to the OP, I am pretty good friends with my mom, especially now that I have moved out. Unfortunately, I cannot be as free with my lifestyle as I would like, because my parents are my money source right now, and I cannot afford to have them withdraw that support (which they would do if I did something horrendous, like move in with a BOY or have a BABY or something) SINCE I CANNOT GET A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING JOB HGABUALGUHAUGHABULH. But mostly we don't fight very much anymore and I value her advice and her experience and while our beliefs, mostly about moral stuff, are not the same, I think that if she was not my mom we would pretty much be peers and still pretty good friends. She is really fun to geek out over fish with, which I had never suspected until I said I was going into marine science. That was when I found out that she used to be a science teacher and she pulled out all her old marine science textbooks and we started talking about all the squishy gooey things that live under the sea.
Basically my belief that she is the best mom ever was cemented when she surprised me with the I Feel Pretty shirt for christmas "because I know you like that site, and I didn't know if you had seen the shirt but I saw it and thought you would be tickled by it".
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Something to consider:
Do you really want your son or daughter to go around their entire adult life saying "Well, my momma said" to everything?
Humans are social beings. That is how we survive, by interacting and communicating with one another to find the best way of doing things. Respect is a huge issue in any society, and for damn good reason: if you earn and maintain people's respect, you can get things going your way and you are more likely to be successful in life. The ability to earn and maintain respect is a survival skill, and by refusing to allow your child to learn how to gain respect, you're pretty much damning them to a life of paper-pushing and shitty pay.
Telling your child that nothing they think will ever matter is just asking for them to fail at life.
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That is a good point, dismissing their thoughts and opinions is a good way to cause self-esteem issues, I should know, but that is thanks to our oh-so-wonderful school system which I can (and have) go on about for a few pages MLA-formatted.
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Something to consider:
Do you really want your son or daughter to go around their entire adult life saying "Well, my momma said" to everything?
Humans are social beings. That is how we survive, by interacting and communicating with one another to find the best way of doing things. Respect is a huge issue in any society, and for damn good reason: if you earn and maintain people's respect, you can get things going your way and you are more likely to be successful in life. The ability to earn and maintain respect is a survival skill, and by refusing to allow your child to learn how to gain respect, you're pretty much damning them to a life of paper-pushing and shitty pay.
Telling your child that nothing they think will ever matter is just asking for them to fail at life.
Is this a response to what Wet Helmet said?? I mean, it's not like every household must choose one of two options, those being total equality of decision-making power or complete and utter disregard. None of what you're saying follows from simply stating that a household is not a democracy in which a child has an "equal" voice to a parent. I think it's pretty obvious why that is a terribly bad idea, for all the reasons Wet Helmet has already stated. None of those prevent a parent from treating their child with respect, letting them earn their trust, etc etc, all it means is that it's not OMG TOTALLY UNJUST when a parent makes a child do (or not do) something they don't want to, just by virtue of the child's disagreement.
Anyway, the guy was obviously being a jerk though, especially if the other adult wanted him to turn it off -- that seems like much more of an issue to me.
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Not an equal voice, no. But if your nearly-adult kid has a different idea about something than you, you should at least consider it and alter your plans accordingly, not just say "I'll consider it" and ignore them/tell them that they're wrong no matter what. If anything that's just going to breed resentment, and I want my kid to be able to not only succeed, but to know that I helped them develop the skills necessary to do the things they did.
A lot of people have the idea that their child is nothing but a mindless slave with just enough sentience to understand instructions to perform a task, and I'm mortified whenever I see people act accordingly. After childhood, the kid's got to survive somehow, and if they can't think for themselves, they're fucked.
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*whistle*
I would ask anyone who has got their panties tied in a knot over my posting to go back and read the very first thing I wrote in this thread. In an effort to not be misunderstood, I went to great lengths to explain that I do listen to and respect my children and I do try to respect their wishes. I also am pretty sure I mentioned that I didn't think what was going on the household (ie "It's mine") was cool.
That said, if you want to continue to believe I said anything else from this point forward, go ahead. There are certainly plenty of people in this world who think I'm a dick. A few more won't hurt me any. Though I would prefer if that's the opinion that's going to be formed, it at least be for a good reason.
If you want to get hung up on minutia about watching tv or whatever... fine. Don't get confused with what I'm speaking about --Kids get an equal vote that can potentially over ride a decision of the parent-- with someone acting like a pre-schooler and having a temper tantrum.
I have three kids. There is one me. I am outnumbered. Right now there is one tv on in the house and it's on cartoons. I sure as hell didn't pick that. The kids want to watch cartoons, I'm fine with that. Hell, I can watch what I want after they're in bed. Big freaking deal.
What they don't get to do is say "Hey Pop, we've decided that we're going to juggle chain saws in the living room and you can't say no because we represent a majority interest in this little debate." See? Because I'm going to shut something that is legitimately dangerous down. That's my job as a parent. Keep them alive, keep them safe. Until they are self sufficient, I get veto power over their decisions.
Don't confuse being a raging prick with exercising a little parental authority. The two can be mutually exclusive. My original post was addressing only the latter.
--edit: The two posts above me appeared while I was typing this and I didn't re-preview.
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Idiolect: No, I think the point being made is more along the lines of how the "it's MY tv and MY house" reaction tends to show a lack of respect for the other individual, regardless of their status as child and parent. When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to read at the table; my mom would often get onto my dad for trying to leave the TV on so he could watch the football game or golf tourney reflected in the window. It's the same thing, except in this case her mom's boyfriend disregarded his partner's desire for peace and (most likely) some sort of social family-type time at the dinner table, as well as someone else's desire to not watch football at all. And while I realise that not watching something just because someone else doesn't want to watch it makes you kind of a doormat, unless the other party is doing something important like studying or doing taxes or something, it doesn't mean you shouldn't take note of their request.
It's TV. It doesn't have to be symbolic of your relationship with your children and how you deal with them. It IS symbolic of how you treat with other people, though.
Dude, Wet Helmet, if you are referring to my post, I thought yours was merely thought provoking and recorded my thoughts in a subsequent post. I think pretty much everyone is talking about within reason here, unless someone has an El Bola (http://www.filmmovement.com/filmcatalog/index.asp?MerchandiseID=2) situation that needs to be addressed. Also, remember that for almost all the people on this board do not have kids, and most (a majority, I think, but am not sure) do not want kids ever, so we speak from our experiences with our own parents and speculate about how we would go about parenting in theory. Also grow thicker skin.
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Sure, but no one here was advocating just telling your kid they're wrong or useless or whatever. My impression, at least, was that the only thing being argued against was this sense of grand injustice kids will have when they disagree with their parents about some decision -- because DEMOCRACYEQUALITYJUSTICEFREEDOMAMERICAFUCKYEAH etc etc. Thing is, the parent is in a position of responsibility and authority over a kid -- hence there is none of this "equality" stuff you guys are talking about, and rightfully so. But that doesn't mean the kid is TOTALLY OPRESSED AND IGNORED ALL OF THE TIME. What that means is that a good parent will listen to their children, encourage them to develop those skills you're talking about, but be willing to make decisions and enforce them even if the kid doesn't like it in the immediate. The reasons for this are often because of the kid's best interest (i.e. no ice cream for dinner, no dropping out of high school to join the circus, etc) -- and on the other hand, sometimes a parent ought to be able to make a decision like that for the sake of their own sanity, i.e. "We're going to watch my show right now because I want to and I've had a long day." So much of a parent's life revolves around their kids, it seems reasonable to me that they should get to just DO stuff like that once in a while, especially considering that it's REALLY not a big deal for a kid to sit through a boring tv show or find something else to do (I mean, come on).
However, as I said before, it sounds like that guy's a jerk for reasons totally unrelated to the above (but I guess he was trying to justify it with the above) -- that is, he's ignoring people during a family dinner in favor of a distracting machine that everyone wants him to turn off, including his "partner" (wife?) who he should certainly respect as an equal, and who arguably should have even more authority over what happens than he does in the presence of her own child so as not to undermine her authority in the view of the child.
Warning - while you were typing 2 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.
Gah. I'm posting anyway -- sorry if some of this is obsolete by now.
(Added a few minutes later):
Also, remember that for almost all the people on this board do not have kids, and most (a majority, I think, but am not sure) do not want kids ever, so we speak from our experiences with our own parents and speculate about how we would go about parenting in theory. Also grow thicker skin.
Yow :/ It might also be worth noting that most of the people on this board are not only not parents but also were children themselves pretty recently. I, at least, had a somewhat different opinion on and understanding of all this stuff just a few years ago, when I was legally an adult and pretty capable of taking care of myself but having moved out of my own parents' house only somewhat recently. Your view of things starts to change a little when your friends start getting married and having kids, and I imagine it changes drastically when you yourself are in that boat.
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No, I wasn't referring to your post specifically. It was more of a comment of the general mood this thread has taken.
One of the tragedies of this type of communication is that it lacks the typical non-verbal cues that accompany a conversation so it's hard to understand tone, etc. Without the benefit of a couple thousand posts under my belt on this particular forum, I fully expect people not to 'get' my style. Pretty much anything I type --ever-- is said with a smirk. I've been doing this internet thing way too long to actually get upset about it. (
Anyway... Knowing that people here don't know what to expect from me led me to come back and try to explain myself. Probably should have stuck with my gut and let it slide without further comment. If I offended anyone, I apologize. That's not my intent, my sense of humor is kind of snotty.
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Also, remember that for almost all the people on this board do not have kids, and most (a majority, I think, but am not sure) do not want kids ever, so we speak from our experiences with our own parents and speculate about how we would go about parenting in theory.
Your view of things starts to change a little when your friends start getting married and having kids, and I imagine it changes drastically when you yourself are in that boat.
AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHA
ha
Oh hee hee kids. Yes. I am sure I will change my mind about wanting kids or marriage. Because me with kids is such a great idea! Hee hee hehehehehehe ha.
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Brings up an interesting point, there. I don't want kids myself so why the hell should I care how other people raise theirs? If they grow up to too productive I could be out of a job. Fuck thattttt
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I guess I am unlike most people here, I want kids, but eventually, once I have a good job and can actually support them, not before I get out of college, or (god forbid) in junior high, like someone my friend knows.
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Apparently, I'm damn near a clone of my Dad, minus his extra thirty years of experience and insight. We share a lot of the same mannerisms and personality traits.
My relationship with my parents (nowadays) is great. I try to visit them whenever I can, we're all into the same stuff, and we can have a conversation about nearly anything and agree on it. They respect my intelligence, and I respect their experience (not to mention, I'm fairly certain they're both smarter than me). I love them both to bits.
There were a few rocky patches back in the day, but looking back, they all boiled down to me being a complete fucking brat. I'm glad to have grown out of that now.
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Helmet, it's ok. The number one thing I hate about internet conversations is the lack of non-verbal cues, as that is the number one thing in communication, so I'm with you on that. And also, I get what you're saying now. Some things are democratic, like what sports to play or programs to watch (that are age appropriate of course), and some things aren't, like riding your bike down a very steep driveway and crashing into a neighbor's mailbox because the street is too narrow to turn in time. (I did that. My mom said no, but I did it later when she wasn't looking. And yes, I learned my lesson and was relieved when I discovered blood did not creep me out.)
I don't want kids myself so why the hell should I care how other people raise theirs?
I understand this is a joke, but this sentence raises a good point. Shitty parents annoy the hell out of me.
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Also, remember that for almost all the people on this board do not have kids, and most (a majority, I think, but am not sure) do not want kids ever, so we speak from our experiences with our own parents and speculate about how we would go about parenting in theory.
Your view of things starts to change a little when your friends start getting married and having kids, and I imagine it changes drastically when you yourself are in that boat.
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Oh hee hee kids. Yes. I am sure I will change my mind about wanting kids or marriage. Because me with kids is such a great idea! Hee hee hehehehehehe ha.
Thanks for engaging in conversation maturely there. I wasn't talking about you in particular (and I think you know that), I was responding to what you said:
almost all the people on this board do not have kids, and most (a majority, I think, but am not sure) do not want kids ever
Maybe I should've used the more proper but stuffy "one" instead of "you" in what I said above, but I figure you (yes, actually you now) would understand what I meant. In any case, I stand by my general statement that people who are barely out of childhood themselves are fairly unlikely to be completely sure that they don't want kids. I'm sure there are some who totally know exactly what they want in this regard, but those are exceptions, not the rule.
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I say this hesitantly because I don't want to seem rude, but I think it's kind of immature for anyone to be so sure they'll never have kids. What makes you so different or special from other human beings? Don't you think many of our own parents ever felt the same way? Also, a lot of us are very young. Who are you to say you know who or where you'll be in some years? Ask anyone what they remember about being in their early 20s.
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Heck, I barely remember my mid-20s.
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A lot of human beings don't want and never have children so having no desire for them doesn't make you special or different at all. Technically I might change my mind and decide I do want kids after all at some point. I might also become a Christian, vote conservative and take a job in middle management. I could change my mind about anything, but it isn't very likely I'll go that way. The thing I find odd is that if you say you don't want children people will always be so sure that you'll change your mind when you get older. Some people just aren't interested. Kids are nice and everything but why are people always so sure you'll feel unfulfilled or something if you decide not to have any of your own?
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What makes you so different or special from other human beings?
Other people will not start living in a box within the next 5 years.
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I want kids. However, unlike a lot of people I know who are married and pregnant, I don't want kids right now. I mean, my mom didn't have me until she was 37. Personally, I think that's a bit late, but right now 37 seems a lot better than 22. And I mean this. Half of my circle of friends, who range from 19-late 20s, are married and about half of them have kids and/or are having kids. This makes me want to have kids right now even less, because the idea of having a kid right now scares the shit out of me.
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(To note--this isn't a response to anyone inparticular, just an exposition of my thoughts on the matter. So don't take it personally.) The parental argument of "This is not a democracy, this is not 'Let's Make a Deal'" is not only disingenuous and potentially dangerous, but also it's also a paradoxical abdication of responsibility. Rather than act a mature adult capable of carrying out a conversation and working to a resolution (even with children who are being insufferable), they simply resort to "this is my house, and things will be done as I say." In that way, they're being no better--perhaps worse--than the child throwing a tantrum in the drug store, wanting candy or a toy. Both reactions are brought about by the mentality, though it's subconscious in most, particularly in children, that it's their way and nothing else and god help you if you go against it. The child will pitch a fit, scream, cry, kick, fight and thoroughly embarrass you until you give in. The parent will punish, take, admonish, speak down to, and often times passive-aggressively insult the child until they give in. It's a pathetic response.
That's a nice sentiment, but it's an empty threat. What are you going to do? Kick them out on the street? Until they're old enough to care for themselves, the parental or guardian is legally culpable for them. Take away the Playstation, take away the TV, ground them, etc., but beyond that, there's really nothing you can do. With a young child, parental authority is, and has been for a half a century now, a paper tiger. Kids don't have any right to run amok and get whatever the hell they want, to cause chaos and act like little jerks in general, but they do have the right to have their their feelings, emotions and desires taken just as seriously as the adults of their family, even if they're ridiculous and outlandish at times.
By employing what are frankly autocratic methods, it's been proven that the neurotransmitters in the brain that are responsible for weighing judgment are rewired in a strange way--they wind up acting not in the way that evolution forged it, to determine "what will the be downsides and rewards to this action?", but instead "How harshly will [insert authority figure here] punish me for this? " which then taps into the parts of the brain responsible for anxiety, panic and fear. After a prolonged period of this, every time the child has to make a choice, the brain will automatically release the chemicals responsible for anxiety and fear, setting up the child for life-long and potentially crippling anxiety problems.
Basically, in summation, if your idea of dealing with a child is to pull the "I'm your parent, your elder, and I own the house" card, then you really shouldn't be popping out kids at all, because you lack the capability to provide the child with what is scientifically a healthy upbringing--that is, one of mutual respect, discussion and compromise.
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Apparently, I'm damn near a clone of my Dad, minus his extra thirty years of experience and insight. We share a lot of the same mannerisms and personality traits.
My relationship with my parents (nowadays) is great. I try to visit them whenever I can, we're all into the same stuff, and we can have a conversation about nearly anything and agree on it. They respect my intelligence, and I respect their experience (not to mention, I'm fairly certain they're both smarter than me). I love them both to bits.
There were a few rocky patches back in the day, but looking back, they all boiled down to me being a complete fucking brat. I'm glad to have grown out of that now.
This is exactly my experience as well. I clashed with my parents as a kid, but it 95% of the time it was me being a goddamn stupid teenager who believed in his own personhood but wasn't nearly smart enough to take responsibility for things. The other 5% were misunderstandings. When I move out my parents will be my favorite people, I wager. This is the same for a lot of people, even here, I bet.
Man, it's only recently occurred to me how little I know about my dad. We sound the same and have the same mannerisms (we're very mild people) but all I know about his youth was that he went out to see the Stones and Zeppelin and Bowie and Springsteen and a bunch of people I love but will probably never witness.
And has anybody else noticed themselves becoming gradually more conservative as they get older? Not necessarily in the political sense, but rather in that they start to value stability and certainty more, and don't find themselves getting outraged at every little slight and discrepancy in their lives? Shit, I'm feeling it and I'm only 21.
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I say this hesitantly because I don't want to seem rude, but I think it's kind of immature for anyone to be so sure they'll never have kids. What makes you so different or special from other human beings? Don't you think many of our own parents ever felt the same way? Also, a lot of us are very young. Who are you to say you know who or where you'll be in some years? Ask anyone what they remember about being in their early 20s.
One of my second-cousins recently died of cystic fibrosis. One of my great-grandmothers died of diabetes, and another had gestational diabetes. My maternal grandmother had a double lumpectomy, her father had multiple instances of melanoma, my great-uncle is currently fighting colon cancer, and my other great-grandfather died of testicular cancer. My paternal grandmother is on thyroid medication, the kind that if you don't take it for three days you die. Bipolar disorder and severe ADD run in both sides of my family. I am self-centered and irresponsible. I am greedy and selfish and lazy. I am terrified of forcibly inflicting myself on another human being, and likewise terrified of being inflicted with someone I potentially dislike for the next 20 years of my life. I cannot afford to support myself, much less someone else as well, and I do not want to give up my standard of living.
These are my reasons for not ever wanting kids. If they are immature, then so be it; in fact, that only strengthens my argument. Plus, if I ever change my mind about the non-medical issues, I can always adopt.
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Calenlass, I believe you that you don't want kids, and I even agree with the above poster who said that it's weird that people do always assume that those who don't have kids will surely somehow "snap out of it" at some point down the line. All I (and I'm assuming ruyi as well) am saying is that most people who are 20 probably haven't got a solid line on major life decisions like that quite yet.
Also, I totally don't believe you that your lack of desire to have kids stems from some kind of generous feeling of not wanting to inflict your genes on someone. I mean, you could always adopt, or just play genetic roulette anyway like most people do. I think you just plain don't want to have kids, and that is totally fine in and of itself.
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almost all the people on this board do not have kids, and most (a majority, I think, but am not sure) do not want kids ever
Even if that's the case (which I doubt), I suspect that it will change with time. The imperative to breed is one of the most deeply-rooted drives in the human subconscious - most people listen to it eventually. Maybe you don't, which is fair enough... but I'd wager that you'll change your mind eventually.
I sure as hell want to be a Daddy. It's something I've always wanted to do, since I became old enough to get my head around the concept. BUT, I'm going to follow my parent's example and not do it until I'm ready - stable career, married for at least a year or two, all that lot. All of which means that there's at least another five years between me and parenthood at the moment
And has anybody else noticed themselves becoming gradually more conservative as they get older? Not necessarily in the political sense, but rather in that they start to value stability and certainty more, and don't find themselves getting outraged at every little slight and discrepancy in their lives? Shit, I'm feeling it and I'm only 21.
Most people go through a kind of "bell curve", apparently. Kids are ultra-conservative and don't deal with change well at all, which is why stable households are so important. Then you hit your teenage/young adult years where you're old and wise enough to deal properly with big shifts in your situation because they only affect you, and you're happy to accept that. Then, you become a parent and start becoming more conservative as any major changes to your life will affect your child as well.
Of course, that may or may not be true for the individual.
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That's what I'm afraid of: following my parents' example. You want to see failure? How about that divorce when I was 8. That really fucked me up and has caused me permanent damage (why yes, kids DO value stability) and I'll never get over it even though I know why they split and I hope they never speak to each other again because of it. I am worried that the same thing will happen to me. I am just as nitpicky and control-freaky as my father (ever wonder why I'm not in a band?)
Besides, the dynamic between the sexes is just annoying. I'm talking to somebody about this very topic right now, and it's pretty much a concensus that people are too symbolic, and a lot get pissy when nobody fucking gets what they're saying-but-not-saying. Hinting about what you want without saying it is really annoying, because god damn it I refuse to pick up on every shift of the eyebrow that can mean anything from "I like you" to "I will fucking gut you like a trout and do the same to your family" depending on the distance of a goddamn millimeter.
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I never used to think I'd want to have children, but suddenly in the last year or so I think a hormonal impulse has kicked in and I realise that I really do want to be a mother. I joke about wanting to have a baby now but the idea of being a teenage parent actually terrifies me, I wouldn't do something so stupid and it would be immensely selfish too, since I couldn't support the child and I wouldn't inflict a screaming infant on an already occasionally turbulent household (and vice versa).
Definitely, getting older can change your perspective on things. An obvious but fairly relevant example is eating vegetables, which I never used to enjoy but now have come to quite like. I see the logic in regular cleaning and sharing out household tasks, particularly since after my mum left (but before I went to live with her) I ended up taking on all the jobs at home and realised how boring and frustrating it was. It's a pity it had to wait until I actually had experienced the sort of unfairness my mum had lived with before I did something about it, but I suppose that's how it works mostly.
My mum's partner isn't a jerk in general. He's actually a very nice, very thoughtful man most of the time. I think it was ruyi who said that most of the problems probably stem from not knowing each other very well and I agree; we have very little in common and I was brought up in a different atmosphere to the one he is used to living in. I'm not sure that time will fix it, but I'm fairly certain that when I leave home and start living on my own, I will enjoy spending time with all my parents far more than I do at the moment.
And Kid van Pervert, I think as I've got older I've been less comfortable with change. I'm not sure if that's to do with increasing conservatism or just an insecurity about my future but it's certainly something I've noticed. Perhaps it's because when you're younger, the changes are less likely to be very drastic whereas when you get older, they're bigger and you have to deal with them alone.
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So are you being deliberately obtuse or did you really miss the pains I took in my post to point out that I did not condone the behavior of the 'adult'? I specifically address the belief of a minor child that he is an equal in the house and has some sort of veto authority. Any child who is raised in such a household is being done a tremendous disservice and is being ill prepared for the really real world in which most of us eventually find ourselves.
Here is your first post. I would normally trust one to be able to scroll up and just read it again, but it seems you either didn't read it before posting it, or chose to deliberately ignore it and backpeddle at intense speed (Seriously, if you're going to pretend you said something different, at least edit it the post to pretend you're trying).
.. As far as I'm concerned, this should also apply to things like watching TV. If two people would rather not, then we shouldn't.
Oh, hell no.
Lookee here: My kids get a tremendous amount of respect from me. They really do. I earnestly listen to what they have to say and what their wants and desires are and I take them into consideration. I don't want to argue with my kids. I don't want to piss them off. I want them to be happy, and if I can make them happy, so much the better. They are not now --and until they are fully self-sufficient they will not be-- my equal though. There isn't a vote. They are children.
It is my job to raise them. It is my job to ensure that they are prepared to enter the world ready to pursue happiness by whatever means they determine best meets their own personal goals. If I have succeeded as a parent, then they will do that without a) taking a premature dirt nap b) getting a sexually transmitted disease or c) going to jail.
In the meantime, I determine what is best for them --taking into consideration their wants-- and they do what I tell them, or face the consequences. So though I personally don't think watching sports on tv during dinner is appropriate, I do see the fallacy of thinking there is equal voice. "We outnumber you and we all want to eat ice cream for supper so that's what we're going to have."
Wrong.
Can you explain to me how, in that entry, you didn't both heavily imply that the father was right and outright state that "There isn't a vote. They are children?" If you went to "great pains" to make it clear that the father was wrong and that you are all about fairness, then you done fucked up as it were, cause it assuredly does not even come close to coming off that way. Even with you getting defensive about it and my following up by re-reading it, it still reads as "Yeah, well, I'm an adult and they are not, so tough shit on them." In terms of relevance to the statement you were actually quoting, you outright say "Oh, hell no" and "wrong" in obvious reference to the aforementioned forumite's statement (Unless you were just quutoing him for shits and giggles). What exactly is he wrong about?
No one here's arguing that it's wrong to discipline kids or set boundaries. We all know it's ridiculous to allow one's kids to "juggle chainsaws," but there's no reason to say that one person's opinion matters more than another's, regardless of who's house it is or who's older, especially when the original person in question is less than a year away from the legal voting age.
Honestly, it looks more to me like you said something wrong or poorly worded, decided to get defensive and backpeddle with the speed of a fucking freight train.
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I'm going to share something with y'all. It's not because I think I'm better, or smarter, or wiser than you. I simply think that I've had 15-20 years of hindsight to examine my adolescence.
Here's some things I discovered upon examination: Starting about 1986 I came to the conclusion that I was smarter than my parents.
That I was capable of self sufficiency.
That their guidance was irrational, controlling, and condescending.
I was reasonably convinced that when I wasn't looking they goose stepped around in knee high, spit-shined, jack boots and plotted ways to deny me any fun, freedom, or friends.
I was absolutely certain that they didn't understand me, or what I felt.
I was convinced that my angst --nay, my rage-- was unique and that I was unique as well. All of it, of course, was justified by the fact that I already knew everything I needed to know, that nobody understood me, and that old people were screwing everything up for the youth. If people would just listen to me --and do things my way-- every thing would be much better. Because I have it all figured out! Why won't you listen?
In short, though I understood that I didn't have the worst life possible, I was certainly going to get an honorable mention should that contest ever be held. Likewise, if there was a ever to be a 'boy-genius who is completely capable of making all his own decisions' competition, I'd place pretty well in that too.
In retrospect... not so much.
Starting about 1986, you could chart my bad decisions on a bell curve. That bad decision quotient rapidly ascended through my teenage years to plateau at about age 18 through about age 22, where the curve starts a downward trend.
Sidebar: I wish I knew there was an age somewhere where I would stop making poor choices. Unfortunately, you can only really mark your trends with a few years perspective on those decisions.
So here's what's going to happen when you get older:
You're going to realize that you don't know everything when you are 16, 18, 20, or 22. In fact, the older you get, the more you'll realize you don't know much at all.
You're going to realize that you did some stupid shit when you were a kid
You're going to realize that you were an obnoxious pain in the ass
You're going to wonder how you survived to adulthood
You're going to see the ripple affect that seemingly inconsequential decisions make in your life.
And that last one is probably the most important one. Things you do, or say, or decide now will literally shape the rest of your life. Of course, you can't see that until it's happened.
I don't expect you (collective you) to believe me. I fully expect a reaction of "You don't know me!". Yeah, cool, I get it. And you're right, I don't. I don't know you. Maybe you're the exception. I'll concede that. I'll say this as well though: I thought I was the exception too... and so did everyone else.
So feel free to dismiss me now. I'm not going to argue with you about it. Honestly, I get plenty of absolutely pointless argument from my own teen age child. I get it. I remember. You are a unique and beautiful snowflake. That's awesome. I'm sincerely rooting that you stay that way.
But if there's money on it, I'm betting that in 10, 15, 20+ years you're going to look back and say "Man, I was a dumbass" and you're going to look at the next generation and wonder why they don't believe you when you tell them you really do get it.
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Idunno man. Both my parents still think they know everything.
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Jeez, this thread moved fast...
Anyway, as for the original question (which i believe was what contributes to the generational gap/how do you feel about your parents): I get along really well with my Mom. I've never had any major problems with her, and as far as she's concerned we (As in my siblings and myself) will always be her kids and have a place to stay --she has no probem taking care of us, even when we fuck something up (i.e. my sister dropping out of college and mooching for two years). My Dad on the other hand...Class A-Asshole. I really have no idea whatsoever what my Mom has ever seen in him. She married him when she was 16 and pregnant with my older sister. He's selfish and lazy whereas my mother basically works herself to death working two jobs and is pretty fucking selfless when it comes to her family. I think what really divides my siblings/ne and my parents is just the way that they were raised and their ideals. My Mom's family was fairly religious and tolerant while my Dad's family is conservative farmers...
As for everything else going on in the thread: Yeah, maybe i should keep my sentiment about having kids quiet, but I will share this: I was at work, working an express lane maybe two months after I had started. Well this guy, probably in his early forties with two kids in tow is checking out and he asks, "So do you have kids?" and I say, "I"m not really overly fond of children", being totally honest you know? I get enough of the rugrats at my volunteer job in the summers and people at work --I don't need my own thanks. Well, the guy looks really surprised because apparently you know, women are suposed to just love kids all the friggin' time... Well, his kid does something that's apparently cute as he's leaving, and he's like, "You should rethink that, isn't a face like that worth getting up for every morning?" I think I just raised an eyebrow and my inner thoughts were just like, "Not really..."
And this reminded me of something that I think is really unfair: Why can MEN get a vasectomy if they've never had children but women can't have their tubes tied until they do? That seems grossly unfair and biased doesn't it? I mean I think a woman an legitamently say she doesn't want kids --and you know what? If she changes her mind later in life, friggin' adopt! There are so many kids already in the world with no one love and take care of them. WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP HAVING MORE?! I guess I kind of understand the whole "Well, I MADE this " mentality, but that just seems...I don't know, cruel. Are you really going to shun a homeless little kid with no family? That's just mean.
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And has anybody else noticed themselves becoming gradually more conservative as they get older? Not necessarily in the political sense, but rather in that they start to value stability and certainty more, and don't find themselves getting outraged at every little slight and discrepancy in their lives? Shit, I'm feeling it and I'm only 21.
I dunno about this. Yes, I like stability, but I like change, too. Actually, I really really want things to change right now. I'm sick of the point I'm at in my life right now, but I think this is because graduation is looming around the corner and though I like the program I'm in, I'm sick of how the college (not the whole uni, just the college that has my major) treats my program. (This school, for how professional it's supposed to be and how design and architecture have #1 programs in the country, they are really fucking immature and snobby.) And I want to move and also travel and get a "real" job until I decide it's time for further schooling, which may or may not even be out of the country depending on how much money I can save in the next year or so. As long as I'm stable, I see change as a good thing. I'll settle later.
Edit: holy shit, lots o' posts before I could put this up.
Second edit: PQ, I don't know much about tubes being tied, but the internal plumbing of men and women is different. Men help make babies, but they don't actually have babies, so if what you're saying is true, I think that's why. Also, birth control is pretty easy to get when you have health insurance, but when you don't. Also, adoption is really hard, especially if you want a baby. It can take years on a waiting list, even if you want an older kid. Having babies is also instinctual, when you think about it, and also there are a lot of unplanned pregnancies. And also there's all that shit about kids not learning about any form of birth control other than abstinence, which is kind of fucked up.
Wet Helmet, I believe you. I heard a lot of stuff like this from my mom growing up and as I was very observant as a kid, I've also watched other people's lives follow the bell curve because of bad choices they've made. However, I don't think this argument is going to go anywhere, because everyone's life experiences are different. I don't think my bad decisions are NEARLY on par with most of the people I've known in the past 8 years.
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Seriously Obsessions?
I'll concede that I may not have communicated as clearly as possible but accusations of back pedaling? I haven't back pedaled anywhere. I addressed specifically the issue of children getting a 'vote' and I did that by excerpting the part that Barmymoo's post that I disagreed with. That is: The implied belief that a household should be a democracy with majority rule on every issue.
Other than to say I didn't think watching television during dinner is appropriate, I avoided any discussion of the behavior of the "father figure" (for lack of a better term) at all in my original post. I went on in subsequent posts to elaborate.
How are you confused by this? Where is the back pedaling? There isn't any.
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Tube tying is entirely reversable, isn't it? Isn't that the idea behind TYING them instead of going snippy snippy?
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I think it's the other way around. Vasectomies are reversible (my boyfriend's dad had his reversed not long ago and now has a lovely baby girl), tube litigations are not.
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I thought both were reversable. My bad. :\
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Tube tying is an incision, not actually tying your tubes. They make a cut so the egg floats out into your body instead of to the uterus. I don't know if it's reversible or not, but there is still that chance where a lady could get pregnant, though the chances are pretty slim.
Edit: Whoops, it's not always tying. Huh. Didn't think they actually tied them anymore.
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http://www.arhp.org/crc/sterilization.html (http://www.arhp.org/crc/sterilization.html)
It seems to not be reversible.
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Idunno man. Both my parents still think they know everything.
My folks are the same way. My mom, not so much, but my father very much so. He still has to tell me what he thinks about every decision I make and if it's not the same decision that he would have made, well... then it's wrong.
Except that starting in my late 20s I began to realize that there were things that he didn't know. Not only things that he didn't know, but things that I did. I started realizing that there were things I could do that he couldn't. That, I think, was very liberating for both of us. So though he's still highly opinionated (as am I) we are able to communicate more as peers than we ever were in the past. I actually see now that he has doubts and regrets, which are two things I never would have imagined my father capable of even when I was say... 25. Probably because he never showed that side to me. He's a lot more human now than he was then.
I also started to realize that my mother was smarter than I ever gave her credit for. There is something to be said for the ability to hold a household together and do it pretty well. I didn't really have any respect for that when I was younger, but I do now. I find myself seeking the advice of my mother more now than I ever did as a kid. She was also pretty insanely patient with me considering what a raging asshole I was. She was also pretty tolerant of the clothes, music, art etc. Far more so tolerant than I gave her credit at the time.
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Seriously Obsessions?
I'll concede that I may not have communicated as clearly as possible but accusations of back pedaling? I haven't back pedaled anywhere. I addressed specifically the issue of children getting a 'vote' and I did that by excerpting the part that Barmymoo's post that I disagreed with. That is: The implied belief that a household should be a democracy with majority rule on every issue.
Other than to say I didn't think watching television during dinner is appropriate, I avoided any discussion of the behavior of the "father figure" (for lack of a better term) at all in my original post. I went on in subsequent posts to elaborate.
How are you confused by this? Where is the back pedaling? There isn't any.
Seriously, man. Reread your post. It came off as condescending to the girl you responded to and you seem to be the one misunderstanding people. She clearly didn't say anything regarding "every major issue." She said it was ridiculous for her mother's partner to watch TV at the table when two other people told him he shouldn't. You responded by saying she was wrong and that it's not a democracy and the child shouldn't get a vote, when her suggestion was entirely reasonable and something that SHOULD be questioned. I mean, if you agree that he was wrong, why even call her wrong? Were you just being contradictory for the sake of it or were you backpedaling? Which is it. If you meant something completely different, then you said it completely wrong to a point where you simply came off as an overbearing "I'm older and thus smarter" type.
Accounting first for the fact that, while yes a seventeen year old is not an adult, they are also by no means a child. I think you'd agree with me that you wouldn't be where you are now if you didn't start exploring your freedoms and boundaries when you were her age.
Your other post on the issue of "growing up" just reads as a condescending and dismissive "you'll agree with me when you're older, until then..." Seriously, you might as well have just quoted the entire thread and said "tl;dr." You might notice if you drop the seemingly defensive nature and stick around for a while, but overall this is a rather mature board. We have some severe tits, but there's a large group of frequent forumites who you would never know the age of by the way they word themselves and their overall attitude toward life. We are not a group of whony, emo "no one understands me" types as you seem to be implying we may be. I myself was a bit of a bitch of a teenager and have accepted as much, but I probably never would've grown out of that if my dad had ever once pulled the "it's my house and you will follow my rules" bullshit. Just as much as it would be presumptuous of me in my youth to assume that I know better than anyone else older than me, it would be presumptuous of you (And damn ignorant, no less), to assume that you know any better than the rest of us just because you're older. Age hasn't got shit on experience. And even then, half the time experience doesn't have shit on a brand new perspective. Take a time out and a step back and reevaluate what the Hell it is you're arguing and then let's all just try to be excellent.
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So here's what's going to happen when you get older:
sweeping generalizations
Without getting into too many personal details, I am well past highschool, and looking back I still see a lot of the unreasonable things my mom did as being unreasonable, as well as seeing a lot of unreasonableness in how she deals with my sisters. Indeed, although I am 28 and teach college classes, my mom continues to scream and yell in her attempts to exert total control over everything in my life.
That said, I do agree with you overall. In my own case, I certainly perceive now how my own behavior was immature in many situations (sort of we-were-both-wrong rather than just she-was-wrong,) and that for all her faults my mom was doing her damndest to do right by me. However, your patronizing post (incidentally, this more than any of your specific points is why people are reacting negatively to you; you're so damn patronizing) implies that your exact situation will apply in exactly the same way to everyone, and that's a pretty silly attitude to have.
I'll concede that I may not have communicated as clearly as possible but accusations of back pedaling? I haven't back pedaled anywhere. I addressed specifically the issue of children getting a 'vote' and I did that by excerpting the part that Barmymoo's post that I disagreed with. That is: The implied belief that a household should be a democracy with majority rule on every issue.
Actually, the line you quoted was specifically about the TV watching, not just general household democracy. Certainly the line you quoted implied nothing as far as destructive behavior, what you are going on about. To soften your "hell no" about TV control to a more generalized point about parent-child dynamics is back-pedaling.
As for jon (obessions for those who don't know real names,) stop being an argumentative dick. So the guy back pedals a little bit, big fucking deal. If you're going to keep harassing people for the first thing they say, never letting them clarify their words or change their mind then, well as I said, you're being an argumentative dick.
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He neither clarified nor "changed his mind." He's claiming that he never said anything to indicate that he isn't agreeing with the dad. I'm trying to come to an understanding on how that is. Yes, I am admittedly being argumentative, but I have my reasons. One of my biggest pet peeves, for the past ten plus years, has always been people who are condescending toward others based on age. If you don't find it justified, that's your opinion, but I'm hard pressed to feel I'm being unreasonable.
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christ, you are both so hard-headed. He states that he didn't back-pedal when he so clearly did, and you state he wasn't changing his mind, when he so clearly was. First he says the child shouldn't get a vote on the TV, then he later says that actually the parent was being unreasonable about the TV thing. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how is that not changing your mind?
Coming from a different angle, what exactly do you want here jon? For wet helmet to be like "omg you're right, I'm an idiot and you're a genius"?
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I'm sorry you feel that I've been condescending when that wasn't my intent. In my experience, people who look for reasons to be offended can always find one. It looks like you've found your reason.
Jhocking: You're absolutely right that I made sweeping generalizations in that particular post. I'm not sure how you can characterize a collective "you" without doing so. I also understand there are exceptions. The quoted line was about the t.v., true, because that's what I had to work with. The intent of my post was to speak to the concept of a household being a democracy. I don't believe that it can be, and be functional.
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You're absolutely right that I made sweeping generalizations in that particular post. I'm not sure how you can characterize a collective "you" without doing so.
The best way to avoid the problem is not to characterize others for them. The top half of your post where you describe yourself and your own hindsight realizations was effective at conveying your point, while the remainder of your post was rather patronizing and thus mildly insulting.
As for the TV watching bit, I think jon's entire problem comes down to the "hell no" in your original post. Instead of coming down like a hammer, it probably would have been more effective for you to open with what you've said since ie. "while in this specific situation with the TV the father was being unreasonable, in general a household cannot and should not be a democracy." Notice how much more respectful and open to discussion that approach is?
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"Teaching QC starring the enigmatic Joeseph Hocking is a heart-wrenching..." [Fresh]
"Teaching QC is a stunning return to form for Joeseph Hocking and the..." [Fresh]
"A story that has been told countless times in film, once more tediously retrodden..." [Rotten]
"You'd think Teaching QC would be boring from reading the premise, but thanks..." [Fresh]
"You have to wonder just what Joeseph Hocking was thinking when he agreed to this..." [Rotten]
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The intent of my post was to speak to the concept of a household being a democracy. I don't believe that it can be, and be functional.
This is where I can't seem to see eye to eye with you on it. How is it that it upends the functionality of the household? Given, that obviously your kids shouldn't overrule you on spending decisions and the like, but I feel that trivialities and the occasional more major decision should definitely be open to consideration, especially when teenagers are involved. Stifling such democracy can lead to full scale revolts when it comes to teenagers. I mean, look at it this way: a questionable decision is a questionable decision, no matter who makes it. A democracy isn't a matter of "everyone makes every decision." I'm pretty sure the US wouldn't launch nukes if 51% of the US said, "Hey, let's launch us some nukes." The obviously bad ones like the aforementioned juggling of chainsaws or something like playing with fireworks in the house should be a practical non-issue (I say practical as not every kid develops inherent common sense, just telling a kid "no" isn't going to resolve the issue, they'll just find a way to do it behind your back to either see why they shouldn't or just to prove you wrong). There's always plenty of missteps parents can make which can eventually lead to trouble. A common mantra from my parents when I was under ten was "you have to be nice to your sister because she doesn't know better" (She's mentally ill in many a way), but as soon as I hit middle school, I started testing that boundary because they hadn't properly explained it to me. By the time I was a teenager and I still questioned the issue, eventually we came to a common understanding that, yes, I was way more confrontational than necessary, but they also babied her way too much and this resulted in a "more they give, the more she takes" attitude. We were both wrong, but my parents had the good grace to eventually wise up to the fact that sometimes your kids are right and you are wrong. Now, I obviously don't know you, but everybody makes mistakes and thusly that would determine that every parent makes mistakes. Eliminating the democracy of a household insures that those mistakes will happen with frequency as it eliminates the possibility of an alternative perspective and, worse yet, it plays horribly against the psychology of children where they have a constant desire to push every boundary placed upon them.
A prime example would be the difference between my upbringing and my friend Amanda's (I choose her as she grew up in the same neighborhood, same size family and same income background). My parents had a loose hand with me, very fair and balanced. I didn't have a curfue (Within obvious reason, boundaries were not explicitely stated, but I knew better than to stay out until 1 on a school night), provided I gave them some indicator of where I was. I was trusted to make my own decisions and mistakes, because a child never really learns until they fuck up on their own. This seems to have worked out rather well, as I'm further along and better adjusted in the real world than a very small handful of exceptions amongst people I know. Given, the easy going nature of my parents kept me in the house a bit later than some (I moved out at 20) as I had no specific motivation to leave other than wanting to make it on my own. The difference between me and a lot of others I know who moved out earlier is that a large chunk of them are back home by now, as they weren't prepared.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned "friend" had a very, very strict single parent upbringing. She had a step dad who was a bit overbearing. He was strict and it was his way or the highway. Soon as she hit eighteen, she bolted with her boyfriend. The sudden influx of freedoms and being able to make all of her decisions without parental oversight wrecked her shit. She disappeared from the radar for a long time. I just heard from her a couple weeks ago for the first time in years. She's living with her grandparents because she went up to the city and got herself a nice coke habit. She's both a physical and emotional wreck. That's not to say that all children with overbearing habits are going to turn out to be coke fiends, but it's rather telling.
The prime difference in our upbringings that I feel made the big discrepancy? That freedom of choice and democracy in the household. As I said, my parents let me make my own mistakes. I may have fucked up more than some as a teenager because I had the freedom to do so, but this put me a long way toward not pulling the same fuck ups when I got the full freedom of being on my own. She didn't know her limitations because all of her limitations were parentally enforced. It all falls into the old addage of "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." Kids are still growing and it's much easier to learn and change at a younger age. That's how we develop that teenage "I'm smarter than everyone" phase. If a kid makes a stupid decision, it's a lot easier for them to adapt to it and change their lifestyle accordingly than an adult. If I hadn't made those fuck ups as a kid, I'd be making them now when I can't afford to the emotional turmoil or physical pain that comes with it.
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"You have to wonder just what Joeseph Hocking was thinking when he agreed to this..." [Rotten]
MY THREAD MY RULES
A democracy isn't a matter of "everyone makes every decision." I'm pretty sure the US wouldn't launch nukes if 51% of the US said, "Hey, let's launch us some nukes."
Totally irrelevant point, but technically that is how a pure democracy works. Most people ignore the subtle distinction, but the US is a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy.
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Something I noticed, particularly when my parents' marriage broke down completely but also a bit before that, was that I had never really realised as a child that my parents could make mistakes. Once I reached my teenage years, I started to see them as people and therefore fallible.
I think it's illustrated by the way that small children see adults as "my teacher" or "my friend's mum" whereas when you get a bit older, they become people with names and a backstory. I was fostered for a while by the parents of some younger friends, and I used to see the adults as "Emma's mum and dad". Now, Emma is "Susan's daughter". Maybe that's more to do with the difference between being an adult and being a child rather than between my parents and I, but it's definitely an age definer.
Also, Obsessions, thusly? That's the best word ever! I've never heard it before, is it real?
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Yes, it is a real word --the dictionary on Office '07 says it means "the same as thus"... the LY just makes it more fun.
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Totally irrelevant point, but technically that is how a pure democracy works. Most people ignore the subtle distinction, but the US is a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy.
This I was actually aware of, but I was basically sticking with the word democracy for continuity's sake. Nothing in this world is a pure demoracy and I assumed we were just going with the ideals of a republic.
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I think it's illustrated by the way that small children see adults as "my teacher... whereas when you get a bit older, they become people with names and a backstory.
Oh yeah, I totally notice this now that I'm teaching. Many of the undergrads I teach are only just beginning to recognize that the teacher is just another person who happens to already know whatever the class is about, whereas many grad students are older than I am.
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That's an interesting question, possibly for another forum (and possibly not at all, since it can lead to arguments), about whether the US is a democracy. Does anyone know of anywhere I can find an article or a discussion about it? We touched briefly on the topic in my Law class but mostly we concentrate on the UK system.
At my college we call our teachers by their first names, which I feel helps us to know them as people rather than as entities. At my school, which has a sixth form attached (college and sixth form are fundamentally the same thing with some very small differences, you choose which to go to ususally), the teachers are referred to by their titles (Mr Smith etc). The fact that this happens at all is also proof of a difference in attitudes these days.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic
At my college we call our teachers by their first names, which I feel helps us to know them as people rather than as entities.
The other thing I do to help students along with growing intellectually is chatting about my experiences learning the material. Occasionally it backfires because I come across as condescending, but overall it helps students to feel more confident about learning the material when they realize it's not like I was born knowing this stuff.
Can you imagine guys, being trapped in a classroom and forced to listen to my stories? doesn't it sound wonderful
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It could be worse, I went to school for Secondary Education for a couple semesters...
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Are your stories funny and can we have cookies?
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I would much rather listen to your stories than feel the awkward tension that appears every time I'm in my Broadcasting and Film writing class whenever the teacher stops talking mid sentence and leaves the room for fifteen minutes.
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my parents smoke pot to feel normal after a stressful day; i smoke pot to get stoned and listen to Holy Fuck.
also, they drink more expensive beer than i do.
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Even if that's the case (which I doubt), I suspect that it will change with time. The imperative to breed is one of the most deeply-rooted drives in the human subconscious - most people listen to it eventually. Maybe you don't, which is fair enough... but I'd wager that you'll change your mind eventually.
I sure as hell want to be a Daddy. It's something I've always wanted to do, since I became old enough to get my head around the concept. BUT, I'm going to follow my parent's example and not do it until I'm ready - stable career, married for at least a year or two, all that lot. All of which means that there's at least another five years between me and parenthood at the moment.
I don't think the desire for children is just about an evolved psychological imperative. I think culture also has a lot to do with it, and that there is a message in ours that having children at some point is a necessity to be happy and that you're actually a bit weird if you don't. Personally I disagree. I'm sure it is for some people just as it's necessary for me to make art of one kind or another for me to be happy, but there are a lot of people who can be perfectly happy with their lives without that. I have a lot of friends in their thirties but only one of the ones who don't already have children have any desire to have them. So don't be so sure that people who say they don't want kids in their twenties will change their minds, plenty don't.
Perhaps one reason I don't want kids is related to what you say about the stage in your life where you want to have them. It's a sensible route to take but also not one I plan on going down. I don't have an interest in getting a stable career and I'm averse to getting married (a steady partner yes, but not marriage). Rather than wanting more stability and clear direction in my life as I've got older I've come to want less. I like the fact that I have no idea what I'll be doing or where I'll be living two years from now. The teenage me would be quite surprised that I don't have a settled career by this point, but I came to realise that many things I was taught to believe I should want were not at all what I really desired out of life, such as a nice house and car, good career, marriage and children.
None of this is to suggest that you yourself or anyone else only wants kids or a career or whatever because of societal conditioning. But I think it is the reason people are so sure that others either secretly want them too or will come to in time.
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Ah ha! We have a frame of reference issue.
For the record, when I use the term 'democracy' that is exactly what I mean. One voice = one vote and majority rules. I believe --and will hold on to the belief-- that that is untenable in a household.
Let's step back a little, let some of the vitriol settle, and let me see if I can weave a couple of anecdotes into something that makes sense when I'm done.
I used to have two guys who worked for me. They were from the same place, were the same age, had the same interests, and were friends outside of work. Dealing with them should have been pretty much a rubber stamp process right? Nope. Not by a long shot.
One of them was 100% praise motivated. If you so much as looked at him funny he took it as a criticism and he would literally mope for weeks. His work performance would suffer for it. If you wanted him to do something you had to tell him, "Look, you're the best guy I've got for this ok? That's why I've chosen you..." It was a non-stop ego stroke with him. If there was something you wanted him to improve a little bit in it was "Oh man! You kicked so much as at this last week, and you're the best in the whole organization at that, and why couldn't everyone do something else as well as you? You know what though? Tom told me that Bob can do something else entirely just a little bit better than you. I told Tom 'fuck no' and that you're the best at it. He says...."
See what I mean? An extreme example of praise motivation was required or this guy was absolutely fucking useless.
His buddy on the other had, was exactly the opposite. If I didn't find something to literally scream at him about at least once a week, he thought that I was ignoring him and he'd go out of his way to fuck something up royally so that he would be the center of my attention. With him, praise didn't do a thing. Screaming did. My conversations with him would usually involve a closed office door, me in his face with spit flying out of my mouth threating violence on him. He'd be out of the office like one of those Evil Knieval wind up toys. Motivated and moving fast for a couple of days, but then he'd kind of wind down, realize that I wasn't on his ass, and fall over. Or, in a more literal sense, do something really stupid so that he'd get in trouble. So I would have to look for little things to yell at him about before he felt like I didn't care about him anymore and he screwed something up really badly.
Two guys who required radically different communication styles to get the same result.
So having the understanding of myself that communication requires more than just "I say it, everyone gets it" I will often seek to clarify, especially if it becomes apparent (quickly!) that I'm being misunderstood. And that's what I call it too... clarification. My point hasn't changed, though my method of explaining it might. That's somewhat different than back pedaling in my book. I didn't 'spit it out' in a manner that people got what I was saying the first time, I'm going to try to convey my point through a different approach. I have a dry sense of humor, I'm sarcastic, and I'm snotty. It's hard enough to pull off in person and not piss people off, it's ridiculous to think that I can do it on a web forum. But it's who I am. It's how I talk, and if I think I'm upsetting someone unintentionally, I'm going to try to clarify that.
Rarely --and I mean rarely-- do I deliberately try to incite someone.
Part two:
I'm going to tell y'all something that I'm relatively certain won't be believed at this point. Perhaps after I'm a little better known it will be.
I'm a cool-as-hell parent.
Seriously.
Here's how it breaks down, just so we know who I'm talking about: I have a 13 year old daughter, a son who is about to turn 7, and a four year old daughter.
When my 13 year old asks me if she can go out, I ask her "What time will you be home?" I don't say "Be home at whatever o'clock." I try to give her the option to come up with something reasonable and then I hold her to it. If it was say, a school night, and she wanted to go out and told me she'd be home at three a.m., my response would be "try again" until she got down to something reasonable. I do my best to let her determination of reason preempt mine if I can't find anything inherently dangerous about it. Because I do think that kids need to make their own choices and their own mistakes. Within reason. As soon as life, limb, or eyesight might get compromised, I reserve the right to put my foot down.
Here's where it gets funny with this one: I go to great lengths with her to explain my reasons for doing something whenever it impacts her. If I have to tell her "No", I always want to explain why. My folks were "because I said so" types and I hated it. I don't want to do that with my kids. She, however, doesn't care. All she hears is that "No" and doesn't want to hear a thing that I have to say. My other two --who are much younger and could change-- on the other hand, will listen raptly to the reasons behind my parental veto and usually are ok with it once they understand it.
The oldest though... she'll abuse any privilege that you give her. Phone, internet, going out, going shopping... it doesn't matter. It's never enough with her. She wants what she wants when she wants it, and anything that stands in the way of that is awful.
She was recently restricted from the phone and the computer. I don't really like to punish but there were a slew of incidents leading up to it. One of the things was I caught her on the phone with her friend at 12:30 on a school night. I came upstairs and herd her talking. I looked at the phone base station and it showed that there was a call on. She heard me coming and she hung up.
Me: "Are you on the phone?"
Her: "No"
Me: "Were you on the phone?"
Her: "Yes" (Well hooray for her for not lying. That was a bad habit that took a looooooooong time to break)
Me: "Your mother told you not to use the phone and it's 12:30 at night. On a school night."
Her: "Oh, you know, I forgot Mom said no phone and I didn't realize it was so late"
Me: "Oh, you didn't know you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing then?"
Her: "No"
Me: "Then why did you hang up when you heard me coming?"
Busted. She knew.
Anyway, the point is for a variety of reasons she lost her phone and internet privileges. She did really really well not sneaking around (another problem we've had with her) so I gave them back with a congratulations for doing so well, I really appreciate the maturity you've shown, etc. When I took them away I made a point of saying that I'm not trying to keep her from the phone, and I'm not trying to monitor what she's doing. What she needs to do is realize when it's appropriate to use the phone, and when it's not. She needs to have the maturity to say to herself "It's getting late, I should be in bed, I'll call tomorrow". THAT is all that I want her to demonstrate to me. That she is capable of doing things with a modicum of responsibility. She's not though... yet. She still has to have it *all* right fucking now.
I give her the phone and the internet back on Friday. On Saturday morning she was sitting at her computer and I asked her to do something to help her mother that would take all of about five minutes. She says "Ok". Fifteen minutes later she's still at the computer. I remind her again that she needs to help her mom with something and that mom is basically waiting on her. "Ok, I'm getting up now" she says. Ten minutes later she's still sitting there. What choice do I have at that point but to say "Get up now and help your mother." ?
I don't like doing it. I don't want to do it, but she does things the hard way. Instead of placing the needs of others above her own wants for all of five minutes (which is a sign of maturity) she had to turn me into asshole dad telling her do it now. She got right back on the computer and was almost late for music lessons because she didn't want to get up and get ready to go.
She almost missed the bus this morning because she was on the phone. Her missing the bus is not something that only impacts her. Her school is is ten miles away. Either her mother or myself then has to take her, and she's got a little brother and sister that need to be ready to go at certain times too. If she's not on the bus, the entire morning schedule is blown.
So I'll let her make her own mistakes, and I'll let her make her own choices, right up to the point where they become dangerous or have a detrimental impact on others. If that makes me a shitty parent, then I'm a shitty parent. But I believe that some parental structure and guidance is critical to understanding that there are consequences for the choices you make, and sometimes you don't get exactly what you want in life. Sometimes, consequences are good, sometimes they are bad. Otherwise, that realization comes as a judge is banging a gavel, or the paramedic is running an IV.
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Otherwise, that realization comes as a judge is banging a gavel
Yeah I think we can agree that that judge is probable making a Bad Decision and there will be Consequences.
what?
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Wet Helmet, you do sound like a good parent, and I never meant to say that you weren't. All I was originally meaning to say was that it's a difference in attitudes between myself and my mum's partner that I think is related to age.
On the other hand, the examples you are citing are different to the one I gave, in that the things you don't let your children do are dangerous or stupid in some way. In my example, it was more about me having an opinion that was disregarded on the grounds that I'm a teenager and he's an adult. My mum didn't say anything much until after the argument, although we all knew already that she isn't a football fan or a fan of television while we eat.
This thread seems to have started dissolving into a bit of an argument, I'm afraid that might have been my fault. But it's interesting!
Also, thanks for the wikipedia link whoever that was :-)
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Bluntly speaking, your anecdote only speaks to me in a manner of you just had two really damn high maintenance employees who both needed to sack up and learn to motivate themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if this has something to do with why they "used" to be your employees.
In terms of your daughter, that's something I admittedly have very limited understanding on. The only obvious frame of reference is first child syndrome combined with the five year difference between her and her next sibling. All three in my family are within close age proximity of each other (My older sister is actually closer to my youngest brother in age than your two oldest are), so my parents learned second child and third child lessons quick enough to be able to still apply them relatively seemlessly before any of us got too old for them to be properly applied and not protested too hard. Beyond that, it's hard for me to determine since, as I mentioned earlier, my sister has some severe mental illness. This pretty much upended all birth order trends and psychology as the roles are very hard to peg as a result.
Honestly, it would seem that a good portion of all this has been a perfect storm of semantics, misunderstandings and poor wording/stubborness on both of our parts and I apologize for my end of it.
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On the plus side, my word count has crossed 200.
What sort of things do you mean by second and third kid lessons? I'm three years older than my brother and I think we were brought up in a similar way, although I was expected to be a good example (I wasn't really) and he goes to a fee-paying school whereas I went to a state school. I'm not sure if that was a good decision or not (for him, I mean. I loved my school). So I can't really think of many lessons they learnt from me. On the other hand, I was a small child at the time and they'd probably have a better perspective. But I've talked about this sort of thing with my mum and I don't remember her saying anything in particular to suggest she did anything different with him.
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The main thing my parents learned from me is to have daughters.
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Parenting is a learn by doing sort of situation. No matter how many books you read or what kind of instincts you have, it's not an exact science. Typically parents will adjust certain nuances of their parenting and in some cases do things completely different with subsequent children. Subsequent children tend to be a bit easier on the parents as they've learned by doing with earlier children.
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What sort of things do you mean by second and third kid lessons?
I am the oldest of three, and my siblings are definitely treated differently than I was. As the first to hit high school, I was given a lot of rules that were pretty strict. For example, when I was fifteen years old my mom or dad went with me on my first dates, which was awkward as hell and a testament to my poor first boyfriend's patience. My parents have since relaxed a lot, and give my brother and sister more reasonable guidelines. My mom has actually apologized to me for being so overbearing, I was just the guinea pig when it came to childrearing in my family. This is also a good example of how parents don't always make the best decisions for their kids.
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~Right so some background I am 19 nearing the mighty 1/5 a century in the next few months. And over the past ocuple of years I've kept a tally out of sheer curiosity. this tally comprises of who I used to know in my earleir teens, who has kids.
The tally is up to 12 girls I know have kids, thats not including the guys, this is just the girls I knew who have had kids / are pregnant, one of which is onto their third already!
Another thing that makes me realise I am getting older is watching cartoons, I actually go out of my way to watch cartoons and sitcoms from the 1990s. While I watch cartoosn these days and go "they are too childish!" Dear me, that made me feel old. Granted I'm only 19 its kinda a shocker!
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Obsessions, I had to laugh at the assertion that the second and third kid tend to be a bit easier. I wouldn't know, in general, but my younger brother was apparently completely opposite from me, so my parents had the backwards effect: all the lessons they had "learned" from raising me, they had to un-learn when dealing with him.
Anecdotal, I'm sure, and doesn't prove or disprove anything.
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when I was fifteen years old my mom or dad went with me on my first dates
Wow. I was about to say that I found that really weird, then I realised that my first date did in fact include my family. Said first boyfriend came to a dance with us. So it's not as odd as I thought.
Might be a good idea actually, in some ways. I mean, a guy who is prepared to put up with the presence of parents is more likely to be a keeper than one who isn't.
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you just had two really damn high maintenance employees who both needed to sack up and learn to motivate themselves.
High maintenance is an understatement. I've never had anyone since who comes even remotely to either end of the spectrum. Thankfully.
Honestly, it would seem that a good portion of all this has been a perfect storm of semantics, misunderstandings and poor wording/stubborness on both of our parts and I apologize for my end of it.
And I for mine.
Barmymoo: I took the next logical step with what you implied and probably could have done a whole lot better communicating my meaning from the get-go. For the record, I agree that there probably is an age/male dominance issue there. Why your mother puts up with it is beyond me. But why my mother puts up with some of my father's shit is beyond me as well.
In all honesty I think we get to a certain point in our lives where there are certain things we aren't willing to compromise about. There isn't necessarily any rhyme nor reason to why we chose these little battlefields to stand on. There isn't any logical reason behind it, and there is no 'good' justification. We're just sick of compromising and we draw a line in the sand. When you're in a relationship, you have to chose whether or not you accept the other person's lines. It's unfortunate that a dynamic that works for your mother impacts you.
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The conflict is rarely, if ever, between my mum and her partner. I think, without sounding like I'm wallowing or being melodramatic, that I have a problem with connecting with father-figures. I had similar problems with my dad, which is why I don't live with him any more, and when I was living with friends I connected best with my foster mum and sisters, and not so much with my foster dad.
Maybe as you get older, you start to realise that the happy ending we're looking for as a child isn't necessarily going to work. The people I've fallen for in a romantic sense aren't the people I have connected with in an emotional or intellectual sense. Now is the first time when I've found someone who overlaps both groups. Sadly he doesn't seem to agree, but hey, that's teenagerdom for you. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that another thing that comes when you're older is relationships with a bit less drama!
Siert, I fully sympathise with your 90s cartoon-watching. Today's kids TV is terrible (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvvaDVnGn88).
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Siert, I fully sympathise with your 90s cartoon-watching. Today's kids TV is terrible (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvvaDVnGn88).
thank you, you have no idea how many people think im strange for liking the 90s cartoons!
Perfect example, rugrats, they are a bunch of babies who imagine they are in a fantasy world, becoming indiana jones or egyptians crossing the sandpit, or avoiding the mosnter of the dentist, but... all there stories end hapy, the kids get their injection, they find their toys, they get lollypops, its all good.
These days, we have "Kids next door" who tell kids that adults are all evil and all a dentist wants to do is ruin your teeth!
I mean seriously...
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Wet Helmet, you do realize that the way you described your daughter is the way most people her age are, right? People in their middle-teens tend to not be the most level-headed and rational people. You're absolutely right that teenagers who act like they know everything and are the shit are ignorant and in truth don't know much. But that's true of people of every age. There's always people who think that they know everything there is to know, that they're done learning and the way they do things is the only way things should be done. And that's mostly a quality that's attributable to the elderly and to parents.
The whole rebellion thing needs to happen. The child has to break away from the parental unit, no matter how "cool" the parent might be, and they often have to break away violently. It's a societal and, in many ways, a biological need. The alternative is the complete stifling of emotional and intellectual growth and the instillation of dependency. You can break a minor's back if you crack down on them hard enough and often enough, but the end result of that will be 100 times worse than the hot-headed rebellion and irrationality that you're dealing with.
Often--not always, but often--anger, on the part of a person who is coming of age, is a good thing, as long as they then mature and leave that anger behind in favor of acceptance and a calm determination. But until then, a healthy level of anger is necessary. I's needed. It provides the fuel that's required to move them forward into adulthood. No matter how maddening it is, it's something that has to happen, and you might as well embrace it and just do what you can to stop them from going too far, and working to help them facilitate that anger and channel it in productive ways.
Frankly, it's not really responsible of you to try to keep the "status quo" in place, when what you're trying to hold on to with your daughter is already gone. When anger and rebellion is used in a productive, rather than destructive way, it often leads to results that capitulation couldn't achieve. Witness the American Revolution, the abolitionist movement, every progress on the issues of Rights and Equality for races, sexes and sexual orientation.
The household has to be a democratic place, including many of the large decisions, within reason. With all respect, it sounds like you're just doing more harm than good right now in the way you're handling your daughter.
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I LOVE the Rugrats.
For my fifteenth birthday, I got a Recess DVD. It was my second favourite present (the first favourite being a goat which was sent to Africa by Oxfam and I never got to pet).
The scariest modern kids' cartoon I've seen is one I saw when accompanying a friend to the family planning clinic. It was some kind of Looney Tunes cartoon and it was absolutely terrifying, gun shots and sudden "actually that scene wasn't real, let's do it over again" and everyone running round like they were on drugs. I think it might have been a sneaky way to discourage teenage pregnancies or something. The poor kids who were there with their parents are probably scarred for life.
RedLion, you have some good points but at the same time, if Wet Helmet gives up trying to discipline his daughter purely because it isn't working at the moment, then she will never learn. I had the same experience and now I'm starting to listen and adapt my attitude. I'm a few years older, so maybe it just takes time and perseverence. No, I correct myself: it DOES just take time and perserverence. And a good dictionary, that is not spelt right.
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The whole rebellion thing needs to happen. The child has to break away from the parental unit, no matter how "cool" the parent might be, and they often have to break away violently. It's a societal and, in many ways, a biological need. The alternative is the complete stifling of emotional and intellectual growth and the instillation of dependency. You can break a minor's back if you crack down on them hard enough and often enough, but the end result of that will be 100 times worse than the hot-headed rebellion and irrationality that you're dealing with.
Often--not always, but often--anger, on the part of a person who is coming of age, is a good thing, as long as they then mature and leave that anger behind in favor of acceptance and a calm determination. But until then, a healthy level of anger is necessary. I's needed. It provides the fuel that's required to move them forward into adulthood. No matter how maddening it is, it's something that has to happen, and you might as well embrace it and just do what you can to stop them from going too far, and working to help them facilitate that anger and channel it in productive ways.
Isn't this culturally relative?
Anyways, this thread has made me nostalgic for Sesame Street (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE) and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/misc/fred-rogers/).
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Comments redacted because I was a) mocking and b) being mean
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Wet Helmet and RedLion, you guys are having an argument over nothing. Let's let the accusations of harmful parenting and drug abuse go, shall we?
It sounds to me like the following things are almost certainly true in most situations:
1. Parents need to exercise authority over their kids so that their kids have a basis for treating their parents as role models (nobody will emulate someone who allows them to do whatever they want ... they'll just do what they want instead).
2. Adolescents need to spend some time realizing that they're independent people, that their parents are old and uncool and embarrassing, and that in order to be who and what they want to be, they need to say "no" to their parents at least some of the time. Otherwise they will not be able to assert independence when it is required of them.
3. The optimal outcome of this tension during adolescence is that the kid grows up a bit and manages to become fully independent, but also begins to understand what their parents were trying to say the whole time, and a healthy relationship between parent and child ensues.
If we agree that this is a more or less fitting progression for a parent-child relationship to go through, why bother getting into specifics? Each family does things differently, and as such different approaches work for different families. Basically, whatever parenting strategy anyone uses is used with the hope that the child will grow up smart enough to understand why their parents raised them the way they did, and what their parents' goals were for them. You can't zero in on some strategy or another and say "this will or won't work," not when every family is different ... all you can say is "I think that when I have kids I will try this" or "I have kids and this seems to be working so far."
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Because despite your tremendous penchant for verbosity, your reading comprehension skills seem to be lacking.
(snip)
So meet me halfway and tell me how best to have rational discourse with you, because frankly you have me at a loss.
OH MY GOD THE IRONY IS GOING TO KILL ME
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Paging celticgeek to this thread. Celticgeek, to this thread.
Or est. But I think est would bore us to death with his recounts of the Mesoproterozoic. Plus I think est's kids were all born so long ago that they were slugs or something.
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One request, est: PLEASE don't lock this, this is the most entertaining thing I've seen all day.
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Man this thread was not worth reading. Way to much tl;dr and lol internet debatez for a whole lot of nothing.
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Onewheelwizzard, I have redacted my previous comments. I was mocking and being mean spirited. Thank you for pointing it out to me.
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Eh, I found it humorous, to be honest. No offense taken. I wasn't arguing with you, Wet Helmet, nor was I calling you a bad person or even an all-around bad parent.
I don't really do drugs, though. I'm rather boring when it comes to that sort of thing, really.
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Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/misc/fred-rogers/).
Off topic and probably just me: Does anyone else get really pissed off when people insult Mr. Rogers? I mean, if you just don't like the show, fine, but I always hear people calling him a "creepy child molester" and stuff like that. That shit is just not true and it annoys the crap out of me, because Mr. Rogers was the coolest thing on TV when I was a kid (I basically only watched PBS, but I have no complaints.) Seriously, Picture Picture was the best thing ever.
Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is considered "boring" by my young cousins. I guess this makes me feel old. But if that show goes off the air, I am never having children. I don't want to bring a child into a world where Fred Rogers doesn't sing pleasantly to them every day at noon.
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I have never heard anybody diss Mr. Rogers before. If I did I'd probably beat them up. Mr. Rogers was a straight up g, okay?
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Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/misc/fred-rogers/).
Off topic and probably just me: Does anyone else get really pissed off when people insult Mr. Rogers? I mean, if you just don't like the show, fine, but I always hear people calling him a "creepy child molester" and stuff like that. That shit is just not true and it annoys the crap out of me, because Mr. Rogers was the coolest thing on TV when I was a kid (I basically only watched PBS, but I have no complaints.) Seriously, Picture Picture was the best thing ever.
Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is considered "boring" by my young cousins. I guess this makes me feel old. But if that show goes off the air, I am never having children. I don't want to bring a child into a world where Fred Rogers doesn't sing pleasantly to them every day at noon.
Seriously, the comments on youtube for clips from the show...then again, I should really only expect the worst from there anyways.
I was just thinking about how if I ever have children, I'd really like them to be able to watch Mr. Rogers.
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Good, RedLion, because it was intended to be humorous. I do tease. I ask my boss if he's high when he says something I perceive as ridiculous too.
I can see easily how it could have been misinterpreted though, which is why I redacted it.
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So, are you saying that you redacted Joe Hocking's mother?
I mean because, who didn't?
*This post was simply so that I, as an old man, could contribute to a thread titled "Get off my lawn" even though I have no lawn for kids to get on.
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I would like to point out at this time that I have over 200 posts.
That's right OVER 200 posts. That is .333 posts per day!
Therefore, since I have so many posts that there is no reason for me to pad my post count, it would be pointless of me to post unless I had something really relevant and totally not-disregardable to say.
I would now like to call upon Joe Hocking to start a thread called. "Kids today with their hair and their music!"
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Siert, I fully sympathise with your 90s cartoon-watching. Today's kids TV is terrible (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvvaDVnGn88).
okay, this is completely off topic but i have to strongly disagree with you on this. i concur that most cartoons today suck, but there are some gems buried in the dirt. i am like a giant five year old so i watch the cartoons shown on skye on a fairly regular basis. this is how i was introduced to foster's house for imaginary friends (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/fosters/index.html) and the grim adventures of billy and mandy (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/billymandy/). they both are really cute and imaginative (especially foster's house) and make me laugh really hard. i've also always liked the powerpuff girls, and i am sure that there are plenty of other examples out there that i just don't know about because i don't live in america/don't watch enough TV. basically, i think it's silly to get so nostalgic about old things that then all the cool new things are ignored!
(tl;dr : I FEEL REALLY STRONGLY ABOUT CARTOONS, OK)
on topic:
the main difference between my parents and i is probably that they are completely insane and i like to think that i am not.
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I'm partial to Ben 10 myself. Proper cheeseball "kid superhero saves the day" stuff.
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mooface I have never seen either of those programmes, clearly there is a gap in my education.
I will go home tonight and watch them.
Perhaps I need to distinguish between terrifying (the Fimbles spring to mind, as does the previously-linked In the Night Garden) and terrible (certain Looney Tunes, almost every Disney series ever made, with particular reference to As the Bell Rings, and anything that involves hugely patronising women explaining how to spell blue).
Also truly amazing programmes like the entire channel devoted to pictures of fish and relaxing music to send your child to sleep. All the time. I love that channel.
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i've also always liked the powerpuff girls,
(Mai, honey. I'm pretty sure that started in the 90s and is no longer being made)
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...some gems buried in the dirt...foster's house for imaginary friends (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/fosters/index.html) and the grim adventures of billy and mandy (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/billymandy/).
Potential friend, I agree with you about Foster's, it's sweet and creative (dare I say...imaginative?) and has beautiful art. But then I love anything Genndy Tartakovsky/that other PPG guy does. But Billy and Mandy is a terrible show as far as I'm concerned cuz it has ugly art and teaches kids to be complete brats. It plays into that whole "tween" identification, which I think is just bullshit. (No, you're not a teenager until your age ends in "teen". If it was good enough for my neighborhood pool's parties it's good enough for everyone else! harfleblargleharrumph) I really just hate the art, though. I didn't mind so much when it had Evil Con Carne shorts to add variety. I certainly don't have any problem with a Caribbean Grim reaper-- I mean, who could?
Luckily for me all the earlier harrumphing in this thread will never apply to me, because I gots someone to do my parental thinkin's for me! My roommate is a social worker and child therapist. I fully intend to raise my kids near her so a) we can stay bestest best friends 4evaz and b) she will keep me from being a dick to my kids screwing them up more than I'm supposed to.
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Tsk. Redacted.
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Who's Mr. Rogers?
(NOT a Troll moment, I swear. I've heard the name before, but I know nothing about him)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha3Ko6hXTa4
This guy.
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i've also always liked the powerpuff girls,
(Mai, honey. I'm pretty sure that started in the 90s and is no longer being made)
actually although it did start in the 90's it wasn't created until 1998, and (i just wiki'd to make sure) it ran until 2005. so at the very least i don't think it counts as a 90's cartoon.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha3Ko6hXTa4
This guy.
Cheers.
Seems like a nice bloke.
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Mr.Rogers frightened me greatly. When my mom gave me the 'stay away from strangers, especially men' talk, I always imagined Mr.Rogers. It may have ruined a good part of my childhood.
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it did start in the 90's it wasn't created until 1998...i don't think it counts as a 90's cartoon.
Uh, I don't follow your logic.
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Wikipedia LIES. The Powerpuff Girls have been in existence since time immemorial and they will always exist. And frankly that also terrifies me.
Perhaps, to get a bit back to the topic, it's the type of television we watch that makes us different from our parents? My mum loves gardening programmes. My stepdad likes (as well as football ;-) ) Last of the Summer Wine which is a soap opera kind of thing about three old men, and I like Dr Who, The Bill and Waterloo Road. I also love tacky Disney programmes like the Naked Brothers Band and Zoey 101 (actually, they are both Nickelodean. Hmm.) and Hannah Montana. Clear age definers, I'd say.
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It may have ruined a good part of my childhood.
It did. Mr. Rogers was one of the coolest guys ever. What you should have been afraid of was Barney.
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Please undisregard Cardinal Fang, with respect.
If you have enjoyed disregarding Cardinal Fang, we would invite you to disregard the following forumites -
(snip except for Patrick because nobody cares about the others anyway)
Disregard that, I suck cocks.
You were asking for that, Tommy.
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What you should have been screaming in sheer terror about was Barney.
Fixed.
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Yeah, that's more like it. I cringed because I was too paralyzed with terror to scream any time he came on the TV.
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No man, Blues Clues is what you should be screaming in sheer terror about. I mean, that guy was/is just a little bit creepy. http://www.steveswebpage.com/ (http://www.steveswebpage.com/)
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I find Grim Adventures rather funny, but there are few other "children's" cartoons that I will watch that are currently made.
Oh, and not to go necro on thread topic, but I would just like to add that at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, I do not want kids. I made that decision when I was thirteen and I still stick by it. Since the current world is over populated and kids are really a burden in modern society, I decided that I don't want them. Besides, I can just hang out with my nephews.
There are definitely different cultural responses I have noticed across America. When I am on a coast, my choices aren't that odd. A good deal of career or goal oriented people choose to not have children or have them much later in life. Since I live in the middle of the bible belt, people tell me that I'll meet the right woman that will change my mind and still have children. Their minds just can't grasp the concept of living a happy, childless life.
Wet Helmet,
When I was a teenager, I didn't think I knew every thing. I just wanted people to acknowledge that I knew something. It is completely frustrating when you can prove something beyond a shadow of a doubt and people ignore you because you aren't, at least, twenty-five.
Yes, I was annoying at times. Yes, I fucked up some times, but I held a part time job while going to high school and participating in enough extracurricular activities to be another part time job. I graduated with an unweighted GPA of about 3.9. There were adults that respected me and treated me well. To those people, I am grateful. My father was so condescending all the time that I barely talked to him for two years after I moved out.
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See, I tend to sympathize with the people who're saying "you'll find the right somebody for you eventually", but that's probably because my mind's been firmly made up since my early teens that I want to be a parent - which means that your own attitude is entirely alien to me.
I find it interesting that there's such a huge variance of opinion on what I would consider to be such a fundamental part of human life.
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Well, if the world was a bit different, I would consider having children. It is projected that we are going to hit nine billion people before the human population some what stabilizes. If the world was still sparsely populated, then I would likely consider having children. Instead, I plan on helping out my brother with his nephews a bit and then just living my life. I still feel very connected to the world and the community I live it. I want to make changes. I give to charity and I am involved in politics. I just don't think I need to pass on my genetics to leave behind something I am happy with.
Also, I do not want any of this to be perceived as an attack on people that choose to have children. Parents that do a good job raising their kids, have my utmost respect.
Oh, and over all, I think my parents did a good job even with my two years of resentment towards my father. I certainly do think that age gives you perspective on a lot of things.
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I think my folks did an ok job of raising me. I don't speak to my mother much because when it gets down to it, we just don't get on. We can't agree on anything and everything she says feels like a personal attack which, to be fair, it is about 80% of the time. My mum was raised in a reasonably strict Catholic household and tried to instill in me the same blind, unquestioning mindset that she is happy with. Her rules were not reasonable nor were they ever explained - and I'm not saying you need to explain shit to a child but when someone is old enough to form coherent arguments (around the age of 13ish) you better be able to have something better at hand than "Because I'm your parent and am right about everything."
My dad on the other hand was reasonable, though quite strict. He expected us to do what we were told and gave us damn good explanations why we were doing it. I still talk to my dad. I miss my mum sometimes but it's not actually her that I miss, I just feel like it would be nice to have a mother that doesn't tell me how horrible a person I am everytime I speak to her.
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My parents refused to acknowledge my fear of clowns, which pretty much scarred me for life.
"Come on, go say hi to Ronald McDonald, he's giving out balloons! Oh you're just being shy, let go of my leg"
"nooooooooo"
Someone should write a book about understanding children, titled "KIDS FUCKING HATE CLOWNS"
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Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/misc/fred-rogers/).
I just read that article again and posted it in a different thread.
Oh, and not to go necro on thread topic
Actually that was not the thread topic, just a closely related tangent. way to derail the thread
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You were asking for that, Tommy.
Please Reundisregard Patrick effective immediately.
We thank you for your patience at this time.
Reundisredisunregard everything you see here.
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Speaking of clowns, I am pretty sure that Stephen King's IT traumatized an entire generation of children.
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Because it's about a clown, and clowns make everything worse
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Just now, while we were discussing a book called Bobos in Paradise (http://www.amazon.com/Bobos-Paradise-Upper-Class-There/dp/0684853787), my fiancee linked me to an article by the author of that book, coincidentally discussing the issue of negotiation within the family in different parenting styles:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=David+Brooks+Class+Parenting&st=nyt&oref=slogin
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Speaking of clowns, I am pretty sure that Stephen King's IT traumatized an entire generation of children.
The movie version scared the shit out of me. My mom was watching it with one of her friends and I chose to walk in the room right when the kid gets snatched through the storm drain.
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Mr.Rogers frightened me greatly. When my mom gave me the 'stay away from strangers, especially men' talk, I always imagined Mr.Rogers. It may have ruined a good part of my childhood.
That's lousy. My mom did something similar.
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Bobos in Paradise (http://www.amazon.com/Bobos-Paradise-Upper-Class-There/dp/0684853787)
I read that as Boobs in Paradise and wondered what the world was coming to.
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Bobos in Paradise
I thought it was going to be about clowns.
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I now feel enormously embarassed because I didn't realise it wasn't (and I've read the article, too).
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I have never seen IT and I am still heavily creeped out by clowns. There must be some other cause!
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there is:
clowns are scary!
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It's because the concept of clowns is just fucking scary.
(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee175/antithesis9/DUUUUUUUR.jpg)
THIS GUY IS FUCKING CREEPY AND SCARY OKAY?
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The only clowns that are not creepy are the more classic looking clowns. Like the ones that look more like jesters or Harley Quinn. The others are pretty scary.
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Clowns are just damned unsettling and disturbing. They don't really induce terror like waking up to see a psychopath with a butcher knife standing over you would.
Unless they're dressed like a clown. I'd just shit myself and die from horror.
ALSO.
Clifford The Big Red Dog was the bane of my existence as a kid.
(http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/images/cd/large/Clifford_big_red_dog_R278989.jpg)
The message these books always gave me as a child was " HAHAHAHAH, you're going to be eaten by horrifically mutated giant fucking red dog.
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Well, also, there was this guy:
(http://pascalrecords.com/store2/images/gacy.jpg)
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I've honestly never understood clown phobias, to be honest. I can see why someone with a heavily painted face can be disturbing, and films like that one certainly help to make people terrified of them, but there are far scarier things, IMO. Human statues always make me jump because I don't expect them to move, but it's not because they're all painted up.
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Those are some... lovely pictures. So... uh... how 'bout them important signifiers of age-level huh guys? I think 2 is a good one. Learning to not poop on yourself is important. That happens at two right?
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21 is a retarded age to serve as the limit for drinkin' b00z. Seriously? I'm 19. I've been allowed to drink for three years, because, well, Luxembourg aren't prudish jackasses about everything. Do you see me drinking and driving? Do you see me even getting horribly smashed once a week? No. Because I learned relatively young to respect the destructive power alcohol has on your ability to move.
tl;dr lower the drinking age, home country of America.
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Wow, interesting tommy - being American, I'd always thought as Patrick did, that we really ought to flip-flop our drinking age (21) and our driving age (16). Give 'em five years to get the drinking out of their systems before we hand them the keys!
But if that's a cause of the problem you outline, it bears re-thinking.
Dagnabbit, I thought this thread was just gonna be all casual party fun, and there you go making me think! :roll:
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I really don't think the number of teenagers drinking in the US would change all that much if the drinking age was changed from 21 to 16. Hell, I started drinking illegally when I was 15, and at college the amount of underage drinking is just incredible anyway. Make it legal and sure, for a few months there's gonna be panic in the streets. But then you'll have half of our youth hunover so bad they'll never want to drink again.
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@ Tommy: I'd disagree there. Your world view changes a lot from 16 to 18, and a lot more from 18 to 21. It also has a lot to do with the fact that drinking is a rite of passage into adulthood. You can vote at 18, you can drink at 18, you can drive at 18, and many other different age-dictated rights and privileges. And so when all of those things come at once, I am of the belief that you will inevitably want to try ONE of them just for the hell of it.
The thing is, I'm not even worried about alcoholism. I'm already at risk because alcoholism is rampant on both sides of my family. But I also learned early on what my limits are, and I have only pushed them once in three years, and the horrible embarrassment that came the next morning (and months later, when I met somebody from that night who reminded me how drunk I truly was) has served as a pretty excellent reminder as to why we don't do these things.
Maybe mine is just a special case, but I definitely think that when the age to drink is that young and that isolated from the point where you learn to be responsible with other things, it serves you better in the long run. You know how when your schedule at school is so cramped that you can't remember a damn thing you did all day? Similar concept.
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I really don't think the number of teenagers drinking in the US would change all that much if the drinking age was changed from 21 to 16. Hell, I started drinking illegally when I was 15, and at college the amount of underage drinking is just incredible anyway. Make it legal and sure, for a few months there's gonna be panic in the streets. But then you'll have half of our youth hunover so bad they'll never want to drink again.
You say that, but a hangover never stopped me or my friends from drinking, be it underage or of age. Definitely a flawed theory.
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flawed, yes. but it seems to hold more water, for me, than tommy's does. i think lowering the drinking age in america wouldn't change much of anything except maybe boost the economy alittle.
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Actually, if I had gotten a hangover the first time I drank I would have probably been turned off to it. Take my younger brother. He has one hangover/blackout at senior week and now he won't touch alchohol.
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Well, the initial drive to change the age to 21 was prompted by the founder of MADD. It was pushed through simply because it was a very hard issue to oppose. I am for raising the drinking age because it will save lives! but but States Rights!... oh shit, it is an election year. Save the drunken teenagers!
Supposedly, statistically, it has made some slight difference, but I didn't dig up any thing to support that. I still think there is something wrong when you can get join the Army or get drafted, but you can't drink a draft.
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Bonus: at Bitburg Air Force Base in Germany, you can buy alcohol on post at the age of 18. My sister still has the ration card to prove it.
Is it just me or does something smell really goddamn fishy there.
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The only thing I see happening by lowering the drinking age is to give teenagers a reason to be more stupid. Really. Think about it. The general populous of your average teenager is stupid enough, especially in the US. Getting everything (license, voting, drinking, legally adult, etc.) at 18 would make sense, but allowing alcohol at 16 is not a good idea IMO. (No offense to the teens on this forum, I just don't like the teens in my area. Most of you on here are cool, but ones I've met, particularly ones I went to school with, I would not trust with a lower drinking age.)
Also, I had my first hangover when I was...19? (Meaning the 3rd time I'd ever drank.) It didn't turn me off alcohol, it just made me realize the importance of drinking lots of water before bed.
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I sat here writing a big essay-type post about teenage drinking and the like, but realised it made me sound like my mother, and feel twice as old.
Basically, the limits shouldn't be moved because they're not wrong.
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Well, yeah, I think 16 would be premature. It just doesn't seem to add up that you can do every thing aside from drink at eighteen. Supposedly, people are claiming that it has saved lives. I think it is very likely true. Apparently, people on the opposite side of the debate are saying it is a result of the cars being better constructed and better safety regulation.
For me, put in the context of logic other responsibilities and rights gained at eighteen, it just doesn't make sense to have the drinking age at twenty-one, even though, it might technically be saving lives.
I think I am going to go home and enjoy a beer and contemplate how much of a bastard that makes me.
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You guys have no idea how disappointed I am that this isn't tangentially related to Paul Gilbert's last studio album.
I love making fun of shredders.
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basically if drive drunk, you are a fucking idiot no matter how old you are and lowering the drinking age would weed out these obviously inferior genetic specimens before they can reproduce. obviously, there will be collateral damage in accidents (my grandpa was killed by a drunk driver, unfortunately) but that's a risk i'm willing to take for the betterment of mankind.
if you're not prepared to take that risk, you are a freedom-hating commie.
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I don't think that society (and the law) saying teenagers are stupid is really constructive. If anything that's going to make more of them just say "Fuck you" and drink illegally.
The thing is, why do you think there's such a problem with underage people drinking? Because the law is there, they're of the age where rebellion is the only way they know how to express themselves, and even though excess ain't rebellion, it's excess when you're not allowed to even have a smidge that makes it rebellion. If you take away something to rebel against, such as drinking laws, young'uns will be less likely to rebel against it.
Seriously, how many people in here who've consumed alcohol underage would've ever done it if it didn't mean hiding something from The Man? That is the only reason I drank in Alaska this summer at all.
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I drank out of curiosity, not because of rebellion. I was all like, "huh, why do people like this stuff? *sip* No really, why do people like this stuff?"
I am a freedom-hating commie.
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damn! she saw through my cleverly veiled admission of communist tendencies!
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The first time I drank alcohol, I remember my motivation was largely because of the lame-ness of the other people at the party. Specifically, I wasn't planning to drink at first, but then I noticed that other people weren't actually finishing their beers and so there was a table of quarter full beers. This annoyed me so much that I was compelled to finish off all the beers; by the time I was done I was quite sick and ended up puking.
Incidentally, prior to this night I had a crush on the older sister of the girl who's house this party was at. The next day the older sister was actually impressed because I drank so much that I threw up. After that, I didn't have a crush on her anymore. Ironic huh? If she thought what I'd done was disgusting and stupid, I'd still have a crush on her, but I was turned off because she was impressed by something I was embarrassed about.
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I call my teachers by their first names, for example.
Um, what?
No.
When you get a college degree, or at least are a good ways out of high school, you may call an ex-teacher by their first name. Teachers demand respect, even if they personally do not call for it. They are their to school you, not to be your best buddy, and deserve recognition thus. They are either Mr., Miss, Mrs., Ma'am, or Sir. Behind their back, maybe, just their last name.
That's not a generation thing. That's just a you thing. And stop doing it, you're going to run into trouble one day.
I'm obviously touchy about this, sorry.
One of the most obvious differences in generation, which I only notices in my mother recently, is skirt length. Evidentially, four inches above the knee is too short, even with leggings. Another is the sense of responsibility. I've found that people in older generations got jobs younger, and did their work in school more than children do now. This might have something to do with the sense of morality in society becoming lax.
It also might have something to do with not hitting kids.
Er, never mind that.
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Most of my professors request that we call them by their first name, so I'm going to.
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Linds, for most its not the way it tastes, especially not at first, its the way it makes you feel after severl shots/beers. People like to drink because people love to get drunk.
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Oh God.
That's...
I couldn't do that.
I just couldn't.
I'd fall over twitching if I tried. I mean, there are reasons I can't learn from tutors.
But, I guess if it's there request. Blows my mind, though.
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I had one student who called me "Teach" for a month because she couldn't remember my name. *shrug*
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I'm horrible about learning professors names, especially in a large class, because I never have to address them directly so it hardly matters.
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I usually call my teachers Ma'am, or Miss if they're young to mid-life and might be touchy, and Sir.
My English professor teases me about it every time, but I can't help it.
Respect was pounded into my brain by midcentury British authours.
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The thing is, people who are going to drink are going to drink, whether it's illegal or not. 16 is too young, but 21 makes no sense. The law says that at 18, an individual becomes responsible for himself/herself and is fully in control of their life and has to deal with the consequences of their actions. They're an "adult" in the view of the law in almost every way --but apparently not to drink. It's just contradictory. A person is old enough to be forced to go fight and die in a foreign land, mature enough to be thrown into a maelstrom of death and chaos, to watch their friends die, but they're not mature enough to drink?
A lot of people are never mature enough to drink. There are plenty of 50 year olds who can't hold their liquor. I've never been much of a drinker. Again, with that sort of thing, I'm a bit lame. The only hard stuff I like is vodka. Can't stand things like tequila, brandy, etc. Mostly I'm a wino. Champagne and wine are generally the only alcoholic thing I drink on a regular basis. When I'm with a large group of friends and there's beer, I'll have enough to loosen up, but I've never gotten plastered. I've seen plenty of 17 year old girls so drunk that they're passed out for an hour until they wake up to projective vomit on the wall and then pass out again.
As far as teacher names go, it really depends on the teacher and your relationship with them.
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In high school, I never called my teachers by their first names. If they had a nickname, like my calc teacher was G.Faul (his last name was Faulhaber and he didn't care if we used a nickname) and a history teacher was Ms. G, but it would have been so weird to call them by their first names. Now, as most of my profs prefer being called by their first name, I use their first name OR whatever title they specify. If I forget their names, I don't bother with titles, but usually these are the professors that teach lectures or whatever.
Linds, for most its not the way it tastes, especially not at first, its the way it makes you feel after severl shots/beers. People like to drink because people love to get drunk.
Well that was when I was 17, when I had my first drink. It was vodka and Mt. Dew, which was what the people I was with were drinking. Seriously one of the worst combinations on the planet. But then again, most high schoolers don't know shit about mixing drinks properly or knew what types of alcohol went in what. Other than doing shots or drinking cheap (read: awful) beer, typically the people I knew favored vodka and either Mt. Dew or Red Bull, the other worst combo ever. I have actually discovered what I do and don't like now and none of the above are appealing. But there was one good underage combination that worked out: frozen berries, Propel (flavored water, for those who don't know what that is), and vodka thrown in a blender. It's like a slushie with a kick.
Also, I don't like to drink to get drunk. I like to drink because I found a drink that actually tastes good.
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His books are all pretty terrible, why highlight one specifically?
There are at least five Stephen King books I will actually stand behind, a number of his short stories and a few of his novellas.
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As a highschooler, i think the drinking age of 21 is pretty ridiculous, but it doesn't affect me that much. The only time I drink is at parties, and its fairly easy to get some bottles of vodka and some beer, along with punch and orange juice for mixing.
The reason for drinking, at my school atleast, is because of the social effects of alcohol. It does make relatively lame parties fun, especially when there are just a few people. Peer pressure isn't that big of an issue, more than a few people dont drink at the parties and no one really cares, though this could be different with different people.
As well, we have a German exchange student, and apparently you can buy beer at 15 there. Hes 16 and is probably one of the more responsible drinkers at the parties. Don't know if that means that a younger drinking age instills a sense of respect for alcohol(a theory I subscribe to), instead of the more common american teenage attitude of 'lets just get fucked up', which i will admit is also fun.
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I returned to the continental US when I was 26. Prior to that, I moved a lot and spent quite a bit of my youth in Europe. One of my stints back in the US came when I was 17 after having just come back from Germany. It was, I tell you, damn odd to be legal to drink one day, and illegal the next. (Of course, it was nice to be able to drive again)
Though I'm not sure I would say that the younger drinking age made me significantly more responsible a drinker (I still got shit faced and acted like an idiot regardless of what continent I was on) there was certainly less pressure to binge in Germany than there was in the U.S.
I believe I probably drank more often --ok, let's admit it, daily-- in Germany, but because there wasn't any concept of "we might not be able to do this tomorrow" there wasn't any incentive to drink as much as I possibly could. There were certainly nights I drank like a pledging frat boy over there, but it was generally a more relaxed attitude. Have a beer or two after school, have a beer at dinner, and maybe three or four drinks in the evening. As soon as I got back to the states the concept was "Let's get two cases of beer and get out the beer bong". Because even though I quickly made friends with a guy who was 21, there was still this culture that we were doing something we weren't supposed to, so we better do it to excess... Tomorrow may never come.
So where does that put me on the concept of drinking age? Honestly, I don't know. I would agree with the general concept that if you can vote and serve in the military, you should be able to buy a beer. So is the drinking age in the US too high or the voting/service age too low?
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I drank out of curiosity, not because of rebellion. I was all like, "huh, why do people like this stuff? *sip* No really, why do people like this stuff?"
Ha! My parents did that to me on purpose. They had, sitting in the fridge, some boxed wine that had probably gone bad, and a couple cans of the cheapest nastiest beer. I remember, maybe age 12 or 13, stealing one of the cans of beer with a friend of mine. We each took like two sips, and couldn't stand it - we poured the rest down the toilet! The worst part about it was worrying about getting in trouble for something we'd really hated!
Talked to my dad about it years later, having thought that we'd gotten away with it, and he confessed that, no, they knew we'd done it, and had gotten a good laugh imagining what our faces must have looked like. :laugh:
Edit, to avoid double-posting, and in reply to A Wet Helmet:
The "pressure to binge-drink" bit is what's hardest about lowering the drinking age now that its high: I'd worry about, at least for a time, that pressure leading to a wave of binge drinking amongst those for whom it was illegal.
"Duuuude! We're legal now! Let's get wasted to celebrate!"
I'd expect that to taper off in time, but the initial wave of it .. *shudder*
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I celebrated my 21st birthday in Germany. It was a Sunday, and I don't think I drank anything. Had I been in the states, there is no doubt (based on the number 21st birthday parties I attended) I would have drank myself nearly comatose.
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My great-great-something uncle used to keep a still. I do not remember when I had my first alcohol. (Sometime after I was 10-ish, I guess.)
I can remember when I started drinking socially, though, and it wasn't so much social drinking as curiosity about why everyone else was, and if the stuff they were drinking (rum, I think, was my first proper drink) was as good as whisky. Some of it was, some of it wasn't. I made myself sick enough the morning after at one weekend party when I was 13 on rum and cheap beer that I decided I wouldn't do that again. 7 years later, I have pretty much held to it.
I don't really have any opinion on the drinking laws, except that if people thought more like I do they wouldn't need to be as harsh, but since they don't, whatever. One thing I do question is how in the States you cannot take your kid into a restaurant and buy them a beer or a glass of wine with their dinner, even though you as their parent sanction such reasonable, measured consumption.
Also, losing my beloved Integra to a drunken shit ass bastard who tried to fucking drive away doesn't change my opinion on the drinking age laws, but it makes me want harsher punishments for driving under the influence of anything. Fucking shitcock.
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I guess it doesn't make that much sense legally speaking not to have the drinking age be 18 in the U.S., just because at that point you are no longer a minor. Is there any justification for it beyond that legislators just like it better that way?
Also, I really hope the driving age here stays as low as it is. This is a giant country with lots of wide open spaces and, for the most part, terrible transportation even if you do live in or near a city -- if you raised the driving age to 18, it would really suck for a lot of kids just on a personal level, you'd probably be removing or at least seriously limiting part of the workforce (no 17 year olds driving to after school or summer jobs), and it would put a number of unnecessary strains on their parents.
I can't help but wonder if for both driving and drinking the case isn't just that newbies to these things tend to suck much more often than experienced people. Surely youth are more prone to risky behavior than middle-aged people, but I'm not sure, on balance, that there's that much difference between how risky people are willing to be at 18 and at 21 (-- surely it does change for individual people, I mean the entire demographic on the whole).
Also, losing my beloved Integra to a drunken shit ass bastard who tried to fucking drive away doesn't change my opinion on the drinking age laws, but it makes me want harsher punishments for driving under the influence of anything. Fucking shitcock.
Yeah, definitely with you on that.
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When I was eleven, one rainy evening during Thanksgiving weekend, my mother put my brother and I through a terrifying twenty-minute ride (on the wrong side of the road, sometimes) before running a red light, crashing into another car, then spinning around and hitting a stoplight so hard it fell over. I had known, when we got into the car, that she was too drunk to drive, and I felt awful knowing that I had almost asked my dad not to let her drive us but didn't have the balls to follow through.
Thankfully, no one got seriously injured, and spending a couple of hours in jail and losing her license actually allowed my mom to realize that she'd been an alcoholic for seven or eight years and needed to stop drinking, but at that point, I promised myself that I'd never drink. At about the same time, because my parents both smoke pot, I vowed never to smoke. It's hard to rebel against a couple of hippies, really.
I've managed to politely decline the now-almost-weekly invitations that I get to smoke pot with my increasingly drug-minded friends (one close friend and one acquaintance have started dealing in the past year), and I've kept my drinking so far to very occasional, very light social drinking. Will I continue to be such a prude? I don't know. But for now, that's how I'm different from my parents.
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I call my teachers by their first names, for example.
Um, what?
No.
When you get a college degree, or at least are a good ways out of high school, you may call an ex-teacher by their first name. Teachers demand respect, even if they personally do not call for it. They are their to school you, not to be your best buddy, and deserve recognition thus. They are either Mr., Miss, Mrs., Ma'am, or Sir. Behind their back, maybe, just their last name.
That's not a generation thing. That's just a you thing. And stop doing it, you're going to run into trouble one day.
I'm obviously touchy about this, sorry.
I call people by their first name, or the name i find more appropiate for them. This is obviously due to a fundamental difference in how we look at life, I don't think I should give respect to anyone by their mere position, how we interact swill determine whether or not i give you respect.
Teachers were paid to teach me, the tuition i paid provided for their wages. They were given a payment for their services, expecting a special treatment above that seems ludicrous to me.
In any case, my teachers would be more concerned about me learning to use "their/there" correctly than how I address them.
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You guys are weird. I only address my professors as "Professor". I used to address the ones I knew outside of class as "Coach" instead, because they were generally coaches of intramural stuff. The only people who get addressed as some equivalent of "sir" or "ma'am" are my spanish professors, who become "señor" or "señora", which is actually like saying "mister" or "misses" (sir would be "don" and ma'am would be "dama", and that is antiquated and weird).
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I call people by their first name, or the name I find more appropiate for them. (emphasis added)
Whoa whoa whoa! Call people by whatever name that they ask you to call them by, not whatever you decide on. Jeez.
This is obviously due to a fundamental difference in how we look at life, I don't think I should give respect to anyone by their mere position, how we interact swill determine whether or not i give you respect.
Teachers were paid to teach me, the tuition i paid provided for their wages. They were given a payment for their services, expecting a special treatment above that seems ludicrous to me.
In any case, my teachers would be more concerned about me learning to use "their/there" correctly than how I address them.
And if you don't like dealing with certain things like being asked to call people by their last names, you can leave and take your money with you and give it to whatever crazy hippie school is letting you call people by their first names only. Also, you're totally wrong on the "respect" issue too -- other human beings in general but especially your ostensible superiors should start out with some amount of respect from you in whatever way is relevant. From that point forward, they can gain a special amount of respect from you if they do something especially excellent, or they can lose respect if they treat you badly. I always worry about people who seem to think everyone walks around having no respect for each other from the get-go. (Alternately, I don't like it when such people say things like that to me directly, because of the implied demand that I start thinking about how to impress them and gain their respect. Ew).
Also, if your idea of what teachers have to offer is still in the realm of there/their/they're stuff, then... wow. Well, keep plugging away and maybe some day they'll let you read a whole book.
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God, who cares
Call people by whatever they want to be called by! Most of my lecturers prefer to be called by their first names. Why the fuck wouldn't you do that. One of them likes to be called "Professor _________". Why the fuck wouldn't you do that either? I want to be called Carl Weathers, why the hell won't an admin change my name to Carl Weathers, is what I am trying to get at with this.
It's common fucking courtesy to address a fellow human being the way they would like to be addressed, theres no need to be formal if they don't want it, and there's no need to be informal if they do.
What the fuck are we even arguing about anymore, we sound like a bunch of fucking old people.
(I'm not agreeing with you either, idiolect. You are an insufferable prick! If you asked me to refer to you as Mr _______ I would probably refuse to do so out of sheer spite)
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What the fuck are we even arguing about anymore, we sound like a bunch of fucking old people.
So the answer to the OP is none whatsoever, then.
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Whoa whoa whoa! Call people by whatever name that they ask you to call them by, not whatever you decide on. Jeez.
why?
And if you don't like dealing with certain things like being asked to call people by their last names, you can leave and take your money with you and give it to whatever crazy hippie school is letting you call people by their first names only. Also, you're totally wrong on the "respect" issue too -- other human beings in general but especially your ostensible superiors should start out with some amount of respect from you in whatever way is relevant. From that point forward, they can gain a special amount of respect from you if they do something especially excellent, or they can lose respect if they treat you badly. I always worry about people who seem to think everyone walks around having no respect for each other from the get-go. (Alternately, I don't like it when such people say things like that to me directly, because of the implied demand that I start thinking about how to impress them and gain their respect. Ew).
I did, there I learned that people are idiots and that questioning is an essential thing if you don't want to be an utter sheep.
As for respect, everyone gets some by default, this is intrinsic to their status as human beings. A sad fact is that most of my ostensible superiors have never been more than ostensible. Politician or McDonalds server, I don't think differently about you because of the position, I won't give you any more respect for it, only through your actions or inactions. On a slightly more lighthearted note, I must say that never have I met someone who demanded respect who was actually deserving. All the people I respect, and there are a lot, are humble about it.
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I'm with Hat. Though there are probably class issues between ideolect's and emilio's differing views on authority figures and respect. Schools in lower-income areas tend to be much more formal, and higher-income schools tend to be much more relaxed.
I also loved drinking more when I was 14 than when I hit 21.
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I don't have money to afford things like "university", if that is what you mean.
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Very very true Emilio, I have found the people that demand respect are stuck-up pricks as well. Most of them are teachers, but I am sure that will change once I start working for people other than my father.
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Neither could I if I applied at the places you got accepted.
I was meaning more primary schools. It's kind of a well-known thing-at least in the US-that both parents and schools that are in the lower-incomes (classes?) teach more authority, which is kind of the opposite in the more affluent areas, in which they teach to question authority. For the most part, of course.
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My tuition at mcgill .amounted to 14k a year, which from what I hear about most US places, is prety low
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I think he means school before university. Didn't you go to a school that had mostly upper-class kids? Sorry if I'm wrong, I don't really remember.
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Yes i did, I found most of them the worst people I've ever met
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For the record, we in Oregon must be total and complete hippies; Through two different universities, I have had every single professor insist that we call them by their first names, and correct students who said Professor.
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Fucking shit, quote =/= modify.
I guess I will use this double post to say that the drinking age should be lowered. In general, I have found that the more liberal a parent is about alcohol, the less likely the child will go out of their way to get wasted.
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Incidentally, prior to this night I had a crush on the older sister of the girl who's house this party was at. The next day the older sister was actually impressed because I drank so much that I threw up. After that, I didn't have a crush on her anymore. Ironic huh? If she thought what I'd done was disgusting and stupid, I'd still have a crush on her, but I was turned off because she was impressed by something I was embarrassed about.
Heh. I couldn't even begin to tell you how much better I feel thanks to this. You've been helpful.
First time for everything OHHHHH ICEBURNNNNN
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Interestingly enough, When I was in college my lecturers flat-out DEMANDED that we call them by their first names. The same is true on my university degree at the moment. It was only in school that we were required to refer to our teachers as "Sir" "Miss" or "Mr. Ormerod" or whatever, and even then a couple of them (like my English teacher) waived that restriction when we hit sixth form.
Some teachers (and I would tend to agree with them on this point) seem to believe that the best way to teach is to be friendly, approachable and strike up a conversation with your class, rather than being an aloof authority figure at the front dispensing information. A lot of my secondary school teachers were like that but still preferred an honourific (The aforementioned Mr. Ormerod being the best example)
It's not disrespectful if the teacher asks you to call them by name, rather than by title. On the other hand, if they haven't given permission, then I'd consider it extremely rude.
Chapter 2: drinking
My first introduction to alcohol was around about the age of 12, when my parents gave me a glass of sherry to ring in the New Year with. It was a small glass, and when I asked if I could have more, they explained that drinking too much of it could be very bad for me. The next day, in fact, my Dad sat down with me, fired up the Internet (man, is the Internet really that old now? shit...) and researched with me the precise Goods and Bads of "That them thar alcomohols". We researched cannabis at the same time, which is why I've never touched that stuff either, and never will.
Result? I've been drinking in a measured, sensible way since that point. UK Law allows minors of age 14 or over to drink with a meal provided the parents consent to it, and they always gave their consent. In return, I made a point of drinking in moderation.
I don't think that you need to "trick" kids like Amaroq's folks did. It's a valid tactic if you don't want them to drink at all, sure, but I'd say that providing enough information for the kid in question to make a sensible, informed choice on the subject is by far the better angle to take.
One of the most obvious differences in generation, which I only notices in my mother recently, is skirt length. Evidentially, four inches above the knee is too short, even with leggings.
Hehe... weirdly, my Mum grew up in the 60's, and fell into the "miniskirts" crowd. For the short stretch of her life where my Sister was experimenting with short skirts, our Mum turned out to be unflappable on the subject. No matter how long (or not) the skirt in question was, Mum had worn a shorter one.
I think it was frustration that drove my Sister back into jeans.
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my professors let me call them by their first name. some professors don't let you call them by their first name. obviously there's no right answer here. the argument "you do it just because it's just the way it's done" is really kind of a ridiculous one. things change. eventually people are going to stop and question things. there's no point in continuing a tradition that doesn't serve any real purpose anymore - in this case, professors who don't want to be called by their last names because it makes them feel uncomfortable.
the drinking and smoking age in canada is 19 which sounds pretty reasonable to me. i've never heard any complaints. i don't know anyone who has a drinking problem.
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Teachers were paid to teach me, the tuition i paid provided for their wages. They were given a payment for their services, expecting a special treatment above that seems ludicrous to me.
You obviously understand little about the economics of teaching. Teachers are paid very little, especially considering the amount of training they have to receive (well college professors anyway, maybe not middle school or something.) Certainly in my case if I didn't have a significant source of income in addition to teaching, there's no way I could afford this. And I'm not saying teachers expect to be paid more, but the simple fact is that people get into teaching for reasons outside of money. These people are consciously forgoing a significant chunk of income in order to better your life, and that deserves your respect.
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Here in the UK, people drink for an abundance of reasons. Depression is the number one cause. Social awkwardness or shyness not far behind. Somewhere down the line is the people who actually enjoy alcohol. They are pretty much a minority. I don't think many people drink to stick it to the man. To clarify, I think the drinking age in the UK should be 21. I am not suggesting a ban here. Other countries can do as they please. Here in the UK there is a serious problem and nobody is addressing it.
I agree the UK has a problem with the level of alcohol abuse but I can't see raising the legal drinking age having much effect beyond making it more of a hassle to put on gigs (although the inevitable increase in all ages venues would be good). The only thing that would really change things is addressing the reasons people have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I see things like binge drinking as symptomatic of something larger wrong with the culture. Alterations to the licensing laws will only effect what substances can be procured when, not stop people wanting to annihilate themselves and everything around them in a sea of alcohol at the weekend.
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This entire thread has gone stupid and fucking hostile. Time to contribute!
If you take away something to rebel against, such as drinking laws, young'uns will be less likely to rebel against it.
That's such a load, Patrick. Whether you make it legal or not, teenagers are still going to be irresponsible and the social stigma's still going to be there to rebel against.
I am of the mind that the drinking age is right where it needs to be. Honestly, my opinion lines very heavily with Tommy on this. Sure, kids are still going to drink, but it's going to be I want it to be as hard as fucking possible. I'll be the first to admit that I was an incredibly irresponsible teenager. Yes, many adults are not responsible either, but it's a simple fact of nature and growing up that a teenager is more likely to be irresponsible than an adult. This isn't meant as a knock towards youth, it's just part of growing up. When I was a teenager, I had a major caffeine problem. I didn't really process the effects it had on my body as I had that usual teenage invincibility complex. Nothing could hurt me and fuck the man! It took like six different doctors telling me that if I didn't curb it, it was going to lead to serious physical and emotional issues due to sleep deprivation. I wasn't addicted, per se, I just didn't give a shit cause I simply thought the doctors were wrong. It took three years of severe depression and health problems before I finally considered "Hey, maybe these guys are on to something" and I quit caffeine for a good three or four years. My health took dramatic leaps forward after that. I also developed a nascent fear of substance abuse to the point I went pretty much straight edge for a long while (I obviously didn't know my limits and decided it prudent to not test them). This was all just on caffeine, I don't even want to think about how I would've turned out if I drank as a teenager.
It's a matter of maturity, I guess. Most teenagers have that invincibility factor and a bit less foresight towards potential consequence of their actions. I won't say all teens are that way, but the majority most definitely are and I fell in that majority. It's a simple personality trait. It takes a certain sense of mortality to properly handle drinking and I really think it's that fear that keeps you in line. If you're not at least a little afraid of drinking yourself to death, it's a lot harder to be reasonable with your drinking. That's not to say one will automatically kick into it, when I first started drinking, I had one really bad summer as I went through a very harsh breakup only a couple months after I first started. Fortunately, my survival instincts kicked in and I realized that if I kept drinking at that pace I was either going to kill my liver, wind up with an STD or get someone knocked up (I don't have any figures, but I'd be willing to bet that at least 70% of teen pregnancies happen while drunk).
One of the other big things, though, is physical development. Booze is bad for you. It is, literally, poison. That buzz you feel is the poison slowly killing your brain. Once your body is fully developed, it's all damage that's going to grow back in time, but before that you can do serious, permanent damage if you overdo it. Now, I'm not sure when the female body completes its development, but the average male finishes up his physical development around twenty-two (I believe that females finish a bit younger). This actually, initially at least, had nothing to do with the drinking age, it's just baseline coincidence to my knowledge. Drinking heavily before that can cause damage that you're never going to fully recover from and can in many ways stunt your physical development, limiting your physical and mental potential (Not necessarily a definite, but you've got a decent likelihood). Couple this with the innate irresponsibility of youth and you're more likely to cause yourself serious harm drinking as a teenager. If you've gotta get yourself fucked up to enjoy yourself, smoke pot or something, that's not going to hurt you unless you're an idiot or an emotional cripple.
So yeah, like I said, i think the drinking age in the US is fine where it is. Teenagers have plenty of life ahead of them and they don't need the additional baggage that drinking brings. Yeah, it's fun, but you can have that fun when you're older.
In terms of voting/military service, I think the voting age is fine. In my experience, most teenagers responsible and mature enough to vote in a smart and informed manner account for most teenagers who actually take the initiative to vote at all (There's a small contingent who vote because someone else told them to, but a few years isn't going to get them over that attitude). Aside from that idea, though, raising it would make things even more a pain in the ass for youths who really want to vote with the infrequency of major elections. As it stands, this year would be my first presidential election (At the age of twenty-four) if they raised it to 21. As it stands, I honestly think they should lower the voting age to sixteen (Same as with eighteen, the only ones who would bother would be the ones mature enough to handle it), maybe with a limitation like requiring a high school elective on politics.
The military service age, however, is fucked. Needs to be higher. Honestly, I think it should be 21 to enlist and 25 to be deployed. Give these kids that college education these pricks are promising before you ship them off to die in a fucking sandbox. Smarter soldiers means less fatalities. Pushing the deployment age back to 25 would also mean more emotional responsibility and accountability. If we send in only heavily trained and mature soldiiers, we'll have less instances of PTSD/shell shock which means less homeless and psychiatric treatment which saves the government money in the end. Yeah, I get that disposable soldiers are a nice cheap idea to begin with, but if more soldiers survive and come back well adjusted and EDUCATED, we've got more responsible voters and more potential essential services employees for jobs that need more people (Like police, firefighters, etc). These extra workers then have to buy more shit: houses, cars, produce, electronics. You know what happens then? YOU STIMULATE THE FUCKING ECONOMY! Seriously, people. The economic boom from World War II was not a fluke. When you have a sudden influx of people who need homes, food and machines, you develop the need for more builders, farmers and engineers which means more jobs and more money and more purchases. URGH! Now I've gone and pissed myself off. I blame this hostile fucking thread.
P.S.: Teachers do not deserve respect. People deserve respect. Teachers are people, so they earn that base level of respect that should be afforded to all. From there, any additional alloted respect is based upon the quality of a person, not what job they perform. Beyond that, a title is not a measure of respect, it is a measure of authority.
Edit for counterpoint to Joe:
You obviously understand little about the economics of teaching. Teachers are paid very little, especially considering the amount of training they have to receive (well college professors anyway, maybe not middle school or something.) Certainly in my case if I didn't have a significant source of income in addition to teaching, there's no way I could afford this. And I'm not saying teachers expect to be paid more, but the simple fact is that people get into teaching for reasons outside of money. These people are consciously forgoing a significant chunk of income in order to better your life, and that deserves your respect.
As someone who wasted fourteen grand in an abandoned attempt to become a teacher (And has been reconsidering said abandonment while I still have time to), I empathize with what you're saying, but feel you're a bit off base. Not all teachers are in it for the sheer betterment of others. I've met more than my fair share who've done it for a laundry list of the wrong reasons: not being willing to let go of their youth, craving authority (And being aware subconsciously that being a teacher is a better way of getting that), etc. Even from there, you run into the issue of some teachers becoming just plain jaded and resentful towards the very youth they initially wanted to help. Despite all the jokes we all make regarding how old you are (Read: really, really old), you're young yet when it comes to teaching. Your ambitions are noble, but can you be sure that someday you won't just develop a hatred and resentment towards your students? Looking at things from your current perspective as, I'd assume, the young and cool teacher, would you feel you're afforded that same respect were you to eventually change and degenerate into a petty prick who's essentially only teaching because it's what you know?
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Oh man, I would. I fucking hate all ages shows. This stems from a large amount of hatred toward teenagers and a glaring resentfulness in the back of my head screaming "Yes, you were that much of a tit when you were their age too."
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I like them myself, the ones I've been to have had far more enthusiastic and appreciative crowds than the jaded old Leeds crowd with their arms staunchly folded against fun.
Back to the booze, I see where you're coming from tommy but to me it seems to be the wrong first step. It addresses the symptom and not the cause and what that generally leads to is the symptom being focussed on at the expense of addressing the underlying problem, so it just ends up popping up somewhere else as some other issue instead. Curtail the drinking and you end up with a greater abuse of other substances, or more violence, or twocking... whatever it might be. Besides, I'm always averse to any measure which curtails individual freedoms. Once you've reached the age of 18 I'd say it was your own business what you do with your body, not the state's. Not to say that what people choose to do is always well advised, like you and so many other people who grew up in the UK I've had my own problems with alcohol in my teens, but I don't think legislation is the answer to that.
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I appreciate all-ages shows because I'm not 21 yet, so they let me see some good music. I just wish more shows would be 18+ instead of all-ages because that would keep out the obnoxious 14 year old fangirls that seem to show up for everything.
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oh man there are too many posts and they are soooo long and whiny. but i just wanted to point out that hellooo, here in italy there is basically no drinking age at all and we are all a-ok! people still get drunk and act stupid when they are young but not nearly at the level that americans do. and when they get older they mostly just drink glasses of wine with their food and chill out. so i don't know if lowering the drinking age would help anything, but i thought i'd throw out an example of a country where 5 year olds can legally drink but where young adults don't get shit faced every time they go out.
maybe this is just a cultural thing? are people of anglo saxxon origin just predisposed towards being stupid alcoholics? maybe!
i think it couldn't hurt anything to lower the drinking age. teenagers in america are already getting drunk too much, and being really stupid while doing so. i don't know a single person (in the states) willing to obey the drinking age. maybe if people got used the fact that they could drink whenever they wanted when they were young then they would get the fuck over it by the time they got older.
personal anecdote: i've been offered wine at the dinner table since i was a kid, but i never grew to like it. my father is very disappointed in me. the only thing i can drink is bitch drinks because the fruit juice covers up the grossness. even then i would prefer a coke. the few times i got drunk was because "well everyone seems to have so much fun doing it that it must be kind of fun right?" after 3 or 4 tries i realized that i am a weirdo and have much more fun when sober. oh well, i save a lot of money that way!
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I agree with the 18+. The ONLY benefit of having younger teens at a show is because they are shorter and provide a better view. Other than that, especially for shows where the audience is dancing/moshing/squishing other people, it's not good to have younger kids, because they get trampled. I forget what the band was, but it was a metal band my friends went to see and they spent most of the show helping this couple keep others from crushing their kids, who were around 10. That and going to all ages shows makes me feel very old, because the kids look at you like, "OMG, WTF, she's leik so old."
For the teacher thing, I considered being a teacher until I realized 1) I didn't want to stay in school for an extra year and 2) I don't want to end up teaching art to people who don't really want to be there. I can only take little kids for so long, so I would have taught older kids, but then I remembered what shits I went to high school with who treated my teachers like crap. I would not be able to put up with that crap for 5 days a week. I gave my teachers a LOT of respect because they did deserve it. Putting up with shitty kids to try to help improve their life and give them the education they needed deserves respect. I happened to really like a lot of my teachers and I felt badly for them when some random idiot gave them shit. The teachers who were douche bags, though, I did not disrespect them, but I felt no empathy for them if kids decided to mess with them. If I ever decide that I want to teach, I will either teach community classes or I will get my MFA and teach college level. At least then I know that the people I'm teaching actually want to learn.
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The last time I went to an all ages gig with moshing the ten year olds were doing speaker dives. Let them get a little squashed, it's what being a kid's all about. After getting flattened by a large man falling over in a circle pit it will have taught them a valuable lesson to make sure they look where they're going or they could overbalance a gentleman of girth moving at speed.
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The thing is, I'm not even worried about alcoholism.
Good for you. However, this is of little comfort to the rest of the world. I'm going to go ahead and suggest that possibly the reason you don't drink as much as you might because you don't have the opportunity very often.
All it takes is me calling some friends and going downtown (a 30 minute walk from here, 5-10 minutes by taxi depending on traffic) and hitting up a bar. You do have a point regarding the living-with-my-mother thing, and I'll give you that, but when I was in Alaska I had people who would've bought me beer if I had given them the money, but it never happened. I drank on two occasions there and was never past a good buzz (probably had something to do with the fact that MGD is shit, but whatever).
but i just wanted to point out that hellooo, here in italy there is basically no drinking age at all and we are all a-ok! people still get drunk and act stupid when they are young but not nearly at the level that americans do. and when they get older they mostly just drink glasses of wine with their food and chill out.
I swear Italy and Albania are clones of each other in this respect. Even the foreigners (Yanks, Canadians, Brits and the like) will sometimes let their 10-and-up kids drink occasionally.
I honestly believe that if you don't make a big deal out of alcohol when kids are young, there isn't so much mystery behind it, and there isn't such an air of "Drinking is exclusive because it's only for the cool adults" surrounding it. When I was a little kid in elementary school, there were the kids who would be like "Yeah my dad let me have a sip of his whiskey" and other kids would be like "OH LUCKYYYYY". I was one of the kids saying how lucky the other kid was.
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As someone who wasted fourteen grand in an abandoned attempt to become a teacher (And has been reconsidering said abandonment while I still have time to), I empathize with what you're saying, but feel you're a bit off base. Not all teachers are in it for the sheer betterment of others. I've met more than my fair share who've done it for a laundry list of the wrong reasons: not being willing to let go of their youth, craving authority (And being aware subconsciously that being a teacher is a better way of getting that), etc. Even from there, you run into the issue of some teachers becoming just plain jaded and resentful towards the very youth they initially wanted to help. Despite all the jokes we all make regarding how old you are (Read: really, really old), you're young yet when it comes to teaching. Your ambitions are noble, but can you be sure that someday you won't just develop a hatred and resentment towards your students? Looking at things from your current perspective as, I'd assume, the young and cool teacher, would you feel you're afforded that same respect were you to eventually change and degenerate into a petty prick who's essentially only teaching because it's what you know?
Oh I definitely agree with you about some teachers being in it for the wrong reasons. Lord knows my students tell me dirt all the time about other teachers (not that I take all of it at face value; these are after all young people complaining about authority figures.) And ultimately, if I'm being honest with myself I know that my own desire to help others is more than a little due to selfish motivations like prestige. However, I was reacting to Emilio's statement that being payed negates the accordance of respect.
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Patrick, I don't think that people drink because it's "mysterious". I do know a lot of kids who drink because they're pretty self destructive and unstable. Making it easier for these kids to obtain alcohol is just about the worst idea in the world. The more difficult it is to obtain alcohol, the fewer people will drink it. Raising the legal drinking age certainly isn't going to cause more people to purchase alcohol.
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If you're inclined to destroy yourself, alcohol is just one of a variety of options open to you. There's no reason to think that making alcohol less accessible reduces self-destructive tendencies in young adults or makes it more difficult for them to harm themselves.
What rendering alcohol less accessible does do is makes it more likely that a young adult will be less experienced with alcohol when he or she does encounter it, and gives the teen a great incentive to binge since if you can't go to the corner store to get it, you have to take advantage of it while it's there right? And the damage that alcohol does to teens isn't most frequently through gradual every day use, it's through binging and doing something stupid or something you can't help: driving, putting themselves in a dangerous situation, aspirating their own vomit, passing out outside and dying of exposure, etc.
For instance this news article (http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=341729) cites experts who suggest that a higher drinking age had a significant effect on lowering car accident related fatalities in teens but has a number of negative effects including raising the likelihood that teens would drink more alcohol in a shorter period.
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When I was eleven, one rainy evening during Thanksgiving weekend, my mother put my brother and I through a terrifying twenty-minute ride (on the wrong side of the road, sometimes) before running a red light, crashing into another car, then spinning around and hitting a stoplight so hard it fell over. I had known, when we got into the car, that she was too drunk to drive, and I felt awful knowing that I had almost asked my dad not to let her drive us but didn't have the balls to follow through.
:cry:
That suxx. Sorry to hear about it; glad nobody was hurt.
I hope you're not still blaming yourself for that. You were eleven, and not responsible for her actions!
At that point, I promised myself that I'd never drink. At about the same time, because my parents both smoke pot, I vowed never to smoke. It's hard to rebel against a couple of hippies, really.
:laugh:
My friends and I have a long-standing joke about this: really, the only way to rebel against a pair of hippie parents is to become a Republican!
I've managed to politely decline the now-almost-weekly invitations that I get to smoke pot with my increasingly drug-minded friends (one close friend and one acquaintance have started dealing in the past year), and I've kept my drinking so far to very occasional, very light social drinking. Will I continue to be such a prude? I don't know. But for now, that's how I'm different from my parents.
I totally empathize.
When I was 13, a close friend of mine got so into hard-drug addiction that he wound up stealing from just about everybody he knew, but loathing himself for it. The epitome of low self-esteem perhaps? Anyways, I promised him I'd never ever start, and then he died of an overdose. So .. the promise had a lot of weight for me.
I had a ton of druggie friends throughout high school, and, as you can imagine, it was important to me to "take care of" them. I was always the one baby-sitting. From pot and acid to dabbling with crack and heroin, I sat through their experimentation with them - I figured I had more experience with drug use and side-effects than any non-user outside of the medical / counseling professions. I certainly got very good at talking people down out of a bad trip!
Then, as though to challenge my ability to say "no", I went to pot-haven U.C. Santa Cruz .. and played for the Ultimate team. ;) At least I got away from the people doing the hard drugs!
Just figured I'd offer my own experiences and support for your choice: I don't think it makes you a prude. It just shows that your word (to yourself) means something.
If you've got that kind of personal integrity, you're "good people" in my book.
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Oh I definitely agree with you about some teachers being in it for the wrong reasons. Lord knows my students tell me dirt all the time about other teachers (not that I take all of it at face value; these are after all young people complaining about authority figures.) And ultimately, if I'm being honest with myself I know that my own desire to help others is more than a little due to selfish motivations like prestige. However, I was reacting to Emilio's statement that being payed negates the accordance of respect.
No no, i respect a lot of teachers, however I don't respect then because they are teachers, just like I don't respect anyone for whatever employment they may have.
Jon summed up my opinion here
Teachers do not deserve respect. People deserve respect. Teachers are people, so they earn that base level of respect that should be afforded to all. From there, any additional alloted respect is based upon the quality of a person, not what job they perform. Beyond that, a title is not a measure of respect, it is a measure of authority.
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like mentioned earlier, i don't know anyone with substance abuse problems, but this probably has something to do with the fact that most of the people i associate with are fellow university students who are paying a lot of money for their degree and can't really afford to fuck it up.
the thing is, i drank far more before the age of 19 than i did after turning 19 and also had quite a few friends in high school with substance abuse problems. using maiada's example, i'm guessing social context plays a much bigger role here than the law. while raising the drinking age does help in that it makes alcohol harder to acquire (personally i wouldn't complain if for some reason or another the drinking age here was raised to 21, even though i am 20), it isn't going to accomplish much if situated in a culture where binge drinking is seen as acceptable regardless.
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Whoa whoa whoa! Call people by whatever name that they ask you to call them by, not whatever you decide on. Jeez.
why?
Do you seriously not understand that? I really don't know how to put it any more clearly. I mean, if you told someone to call you X, and they said "Nope, I think I'm going to call you Z. How's it going, Z?" wouldn't you find that annoying and disrespectful?
people are idiots and that questioning is an essential thing if you don't want to be an utter sheep.
Oh no! I don't want to be a sheep! Please tell me how to be different! Will certain kinds of music and perhaps fashion help? Are there other different people I can be just like?
/snark
Anyway, sure, okay, an active and inquisitive mind is a good thing, generally. It's also much better if that energy is put into asking interesting questions, like how the world works, what the purpose of life is, how to be a good human being, etc etc, instead of all this impertinent "questioning" about why you should do something like call people by the name they'd want you to.
Also, I don't know what you guys are talking about with the "class issue" thing -- in terms of elementary and secondary education, the schools I went to were pretty upper-middle-class, and we had to call everyone by their last names and there were pretty clear rules and requirements and such, pretty standardized disciplinary procedures. Since then, I've worked in a couple of schools that were so bad off they didn't even have toilet paper in their bathrooms, and there, everything was WAY more flexible and strange and disciplinary procedures pretty much depended on whatever teacher was there at the time, and the atmosphere of the school suffered immensely for it. Even though kids could get away with a lot more in the latter situation, the whole atmosphere was WAY more tense and unpleasant.
Now I'm back in school myself at a terribly expensive college, and we call EVERYONE (students included) by their last names in class, which lends it this (imho) cool, formalized, old-school scholarly atmosphere. This particular school is kind of a unique case though, and I could imagine that somewhere like Marlboro for instance might prefer first-name-basis naming instead.
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The more difficult it is to obtain alcohol, the fewer people will drink it.
Yeah, uh, history has already showed us how that can backfire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States)
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what?! banning alcohol altogether isn't even remotely the same thing as having it available only to people of a certain age. everyone gets older eventually.
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When I was 13, a close friend of mine got so into hard-drug addiction that he wound up stealing from just about everybody he knew, but loathing himself for it. The epitome of low self-esteem perhaps? Anyways, I promised him I'd never ever start, and then he died of an overdose. So .. the promise had a lot of weight for me.
[...]
Just figured I'd offer my own experiences and support for your choice.
I'm sorry for your loss. But thank you. It's nice to hear that people have made decisions like that and truly managed to stick to them. Some of my friends seem to have a "well, that's fine for now, Elizabeth, but one day, when you're as mature and as cool as we are, you're probably going to try it" attitude, which has maybe started to get to me a little bit (actually, my mom, too--she's been offering me pot when I complain of menstrual cramps).
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The more difficult it is to obtain alcohol, the fewer people will drink it.
Yeah, uh, history has already showed us how that can backfire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States)
Oh man, but I'd love to go back to that time, in spirit if not in law. Going to a Speakeasy in the 1920's would be amazing. And Bootleggers, while not a pleasant lot, were probably much better than the drug cartels we've got nowadays.
ADDENDUM.
Whoa whoa whoa! Call people by whatever name that they ask you to call them by, not whatever you decide on. Jeez.
why?
So if you introduced yourself to someone and said "my name's John," and the other person responded "Yeah? Well I'm going to call you Alfonzo every time I see you," and then did that, you wouldn't be the smallest bit annoyed? It doesn't really have anything to do with the idea of respect, but with the idea of not being a douche.
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what?! banning alcohol altogether isn't even remotely the same thing as having it available only to people of a certain age. everyone gets older eventually.
The example is still valid though. If you make laws ridiculous, somebody's going to break them.
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If you make laws, lots and lots of people are going to break them.
fixed
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I'm sorry for your loss. But thank you. It's nice to hear that people have made decisions like that and truly managed to stick to them. Some of my friends seem to have a "well, that's fine for now, Elizabeth, but one day, when you're as mature and as cool as we are, you're probably going to try it" attitude, which has maybe started to get to me a little bit (actually, my mom, too--she's been offering me pot when I complain of menstrual cramps).
You're welcome; and thanks, its been 20 years but as you can tell I still think about him sometimes.
That's a subtle form of peer pressure; I've heard it applied to sex as well. Maybe hearing it in that context will help: some swingers I knew used it to argue for the swinger lifestyle: "We're just so much more well-adjusted than the typical judeo-christian-ethic American sex hang-up; when you're as well adjusted as we are, you'll want to try it too."
Its a classic trick of debate: the statement starts with the postulate that their choice about drug use, or swinging, or whatever, is inherently more "right" (sophisticated, mature, etc) than the choice not to. They take that postulate as a given; you don't. Neither is right or wrong - but the way they're phrasing it is: "Because we're right, the fact that you disagree with us implies something is wrong with you." That stems from our human tendency to "want to be right". And of course, by using words with high positive connotation (cool, mature) its playing on your emotions and natural desire to want to fit in.
I got that a bit, about the drug use thing, but for the most part I was lucky: I surrounded myself with people who respected my choice, even if it wasn't the same choice they'd made.
It still trips me out a bit to know that my mom's done more drugs than I ever will.. :laugh:
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Oh man, but I'd love to go back to that time, in spirit if not in law. Going to a Speakeasy in the 1920's would be amazing. And Bootleggers, while not a pleasant lot, were probably much better than the drug cartels we've got nowadays.
Man, That is the best party idea I've heard in a while. I'm going to have to pull it off. Invite two groups of people, the first has to dress in 20's costume and then have mixed drinks in old bottles with labels like moonshine and absynthe.
Then about half an hour in have the second group show up in police uniform.
But yeah, You do know that Bootleggers are more or less the start of organized crime in the US? Nothing bad has ever come from any of that has there?
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It doesn't really have anything to do with the idea of respect, but with the idea of not being a douche.
To be fair, this is a pretty foreign concept to Emilio.
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So if you introduced yourself to someone and said "my name's John," and the other person responded "Yeah? Well I'm going to call you Alfonzo every time I see you," and then did that, you wouldn't be the smallest bit annoyed? It doesn't really have anything to do with the idea of respect, but with the idea of not being a douche.
One time I went to a boyfriend's family Christmas, and his drunk uncle decided to start calling me Isabel. "Jill, I'm never gonna 'member Jill. I'ma gonna call you Isabel." I thought it was pretty funny, actually. One of my friends had a similar thing happen to him, and now he has a great nickname that he has fully embraced, which we all call him by to this day.
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My grandfather calls all of his daughters and granddaughters names like "Oscar" and "Charlie". My only male cousin on that side is "Margaret" or "Ophelia" or "Susan", depending on the day.
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If you make laws ridiculous, somebody's going to break them.
but... they're not ridiculous because literally every single person on earth is capable of aging.
i just don't see what makes a drinking age of 21 so unfair.
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I wish I had strong feelings on this topic so I could get really involved in this discussion but as I pretty much despise alcohol I don't really give a damn what the drinking age is.
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Man, That is the best party idea I've heard in a while. I'm going to have to pull it off. Invite two groups of people, the first has to dress in 20's costume and then have mixed drinks in old bottles with labels like moonshine and absynthe.
Then about half an hour in have the second group show up in police uniform.
There's a bar in Manhattan that more or less tries to set out the speak-easy experience (http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-back-room-new-york). Unfortunately, it's filled with douchebags on the weekend. I'm not sure what would happen if you went there in 1920's police outfits. Could be tragic, could be awesome.
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Personally, speaking as a 16-year-old in the U.S., the only reason I give a shit about alcohol laws is that it would drive up the price if I wanted to buy any, since I would end up having at least one more middleman than buying from a liquor store. I am not afraid of the police catching me drinking, that is less likely than the alcohol spontaneously combusting. However, my dad would notice, he keeps an eye on me because he knows what teen-aged boys are like, having been one himself at some point in the mesozoic. I could get around him, if I tried, but I don't care enough to do so, I don't really see the attraction to doing something that gets you stupid, the only attraction for me is curiosity, I want to know what it tastes like, and maybe what it feels like to be slightly intoxicated, my self-preservation instincts are too well-maintained to find the idea of getting plastered attractive.
So, I suppose the laws work to stop me, but only because I do not care enough about alcohol to make enough of an effort to bypass the laws. While I do not have any evidence either way, I would guess that the people that care enough to get around the laws are also far more likely to be the people that get dangerously drunk, and I also believe that not knowing when you would be able to drink next would make it more likely for someone to drink as much as they can, which is obviously dangerous.
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On the subject of the "we make our decisions to use drugs because we are more sophisticated/mature" attitude that some people have, I have to admit to having been distinctly guilty of this in the past to varying degrees, and furthermore not really feeling bad about it. I've personally had such powerfully positive and meaningful experiences using drugs that I find it damn near impossible to shake the idea that in some way, somehow, someone who's never taken mushrooms or LSD (or for that matter smoked weed) is legitimately missing out on something important.
I know that in reality, there isn't a single reliable advantage that doing drugs offers anyone. For me personally, it absolutely has been advantageous to take drugs and I feel as if I'm much better off for having done so, but under no circumstances can that sort of thing be generalized beyond my personal experience (obviously). Still, there's a part of me that honestly feels as if there's just something about tripping that helps a person develop their mind, and that the only way someone can take psychedelics and not benefit from the experience is if they somehow manage to completely ignore or even consciously deny that opportunity for development. Sometimes I feel like no matter how objective and sensible I try to be about it, my faith in the potential offered by drug use still kinda puts me in the category of people who consider themselves to be somehow more mature or mentally sophisticated or emotionally healthy because of a lifestyle choice to take drugs, and that's not a category that I am particularly proud to be in ... even though I'm quite happy to credit a significant portion of my personal development to my (entirely subjective and unique to me) experiences with drug use.
It's weird ... the reason why I can't generalize my own positive drug experiences is that I know they're personal to me, but at the same time the reason why they're so powerful is that they've given me the distinct feeling that drugs actually do have some sort of universal power to do good. I guess this is what it feels like to be religious ... you know in your mind that your own choice clearly wouldn't work for everyone on Earth, but you only follow it as closely as you do because it keeps giving you the unshakable impression that somehow it could.
TL;DR I think some drugs are awesome, and I respect and support people's choices not to use them but I'll probably always hold a little hope that someone who doesn't want to use them will change their mind sometime and take the plunge.
(My parents have grudgingly accepted that I do drugs. It's not their favorite, obviously, but they know I'm OK and so they're not worried.)
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but... they're not ridiculous because literally every single person on earth is capable of aging.
i just don't see what makes a drinking age of 21 so unfair.
It's just far too old in my opinion. The idea that you'd get up, go to work, come home and then would have to break the law to have a beer while you watched a film or have some wine with your meal is utterly ridiculous to me. Even though you'd be able to get access to alcohol without too much trouble, just as it was no real hassle for my friends and I to buy booze every weekend from the age of 15, the principle that you aren't allowed it until the arbitrary age of 21 is wrong. Plenty of people I know had been working full time for five years by that point in their lives, or were parents, or at least had been living away from their own parents for years. They were adults, but a drinking age of 21 would treat them like children.
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but... they're not ridiculous because literally every single person on earth is capable of aging.
i just don't see what makes a drinking age of 21 so unfair.
Do you not agree in a place with a drinking age of 21, a young person of 20 has all the responsibilities of an adult, and yet doesn't have this adult privilege? I would say it is reasonably unfair to expect all the qualities of adulthood out of a 19 year old for legal purposes while denying them this basic adult pastime.
Quite frankly, I just don't see what makes a drinking age of anything above 18 justified in the first place.
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Well, I have heard that before then the brain is still developing, and the alcohol can harm it, but I haven't seen the studies that said that, and if any actually did, I would not be in the least bit surprised to see that they were done in the U.S. and had some government sponsorship.
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It's not like anybody actually ends up waiting for the legal age anyway, be it 18 or 21.
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Some people do, but those are the ones that wouldn't be problematic in the first place.
I honestly do not think that the drinking age is effective in the least, it is not well enough enforced to intimidate people into obeying it, which is how a law does its work, fear.
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If you make laws ridiculous, somebody's going to break them.
but... they're not ridiculous because literally every single person on earth is capable of aging.
i just don't see what makes a drinking age of 21 so unfair.
It's not the drinking age at 21 that weirds me out, personally, so much as all the other legality ages relative to it. Specifically, the gun laws.
To me, it's purest industrial-grade Madness Oil that any country is willing to let it's citizens legally buy lethal weaponry before they can engage in such a comparatively benign action as drinking.
The driving at 16 thing I can understand - it's a big country. But I'm consistently bemused by the fact that, Quote: "An individual 18 years of age or older may purchase a rifle or shotgun from a federally licensed dealer in any state."
I've heard the arguments in favour of this arrangement - that somebody who's had three years to get used to proper, safe handling of a firearm is less likely to do something stupid with it when they get drunk for the first time. But, the same argument works the other way round - somebody who's used to drinking and has built up a degree of experience and immunity will be more able to handle the alcohol, and is therefore less likely to do something stupid when he finally gets his hands on a gun.
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Exactly. You have time to learn exactly how idiotic alcohol can make you, because with alcohol there's a world of possibilities as to what kind of ridiculous stupid shit you can get up to.
With guns, however, I can think of only 4 possibilities as to what kind of stupid shit you can get up to:
1. You hurt yourself
2. You maim yourself
3. You kill yourself
4. Any of the above, but applied to somebody else
Those are things that you don't really want to learn about by example, I am pretty sure! Starting off by learning how to handle guns and THEN throwing alcohol into the mix is just a recipe for disaster. Your judgement is fucked up, your inhibitions are fucked up, your motor skills are fucked up, and either of those things behind a trigger would make me crap myself. Better to learn how alcohol affects you BEFORE you learn how to handle a gun.
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It's just far too old in my opinion. The idea that you'd get up, go to work, come home and then would have to break the law to have a beer while you watched a film or have some wine with your meal is utterly ridiculous to me.
this just made me think of another point (which has already been touched on but oh well):
if it's illegal for you to drink alcohol then there is almost no way you are going to treat it as something normal. the only way you will drink it before you turn 21 will probably be by going to house parties and drinking as much of it as you can, because it is a novelty. you never get an ingrained concept of just sitting down and having an alcoholic drink with your food, or at a calm social gathering with friends. this makes it far more likely that not only will you abuse alcohol when you are younger, you will continue to abuse it even once you are legal to drink because that is the only way you have experienced drinking alcohol before.
this is painfully obvious with american college students here in rome. even though they are living in a culture where most drinking is done in a relaxed setting that is not centered around getting drunk (such as having aperitivo or having a glass of wine with dinner) they seem to feel like they have to drink as much as possible every time they go out. somehow, i feel as if they had grown up with it being normal to be able to order a beer with their meal when going out to eat then they might be more inclined to approach drinking in a different manner.
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You should have to be a lot, lot, lot older to buy a gun. They need to bring that age requirement up by a decade or so.
Heh, here's where we start the gun control debate. Second Amendment #4 lyfe
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Yeah, let's not start on that one. I've seen far too many flame wars kick off over that particular topic.
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Yeah, I've been afraid of this for like three pages. This thread is getting entirely too political. We should either veer back to the subject of "how do you know you're getting old" or just lock this fucking waste of a thread (This thread has gotten progressively more idiotic for a few pages now).
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I wouldn't go that far... There's nothing wrong with a little bit of politics here and there, and I'm yet to see anyone actually be "idiotic".
Believe me, this thread is a haven of sanity and rational discourse in the greater madness of the internet. It's a lot like being in a Lovecraft novel.
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So we want to talk about politics. I haven't seen any personal attacks or "You are wrong and that is that" crap in the political debate that this thread has turned into. If you ask me, I think the thread has greatly improved, because while we were on the subject of parenting, it was nothing but a couple of people saying "I think you're wrong, this is why, conversation OVER" for two pages.
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Well that's not saying much, considering the discussion of parenting was itself an annoying digression from the topic of the thread.
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You better listen to the OP folks. He could always change the thread subject to "Everyone who posted here is a douche other than myself."
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So we want to talk about politics. I haven't seen any personal attacks or "You are wrong and that is that" crap in the political debate that this thread has turned into. If you ask me, I think the thread has greatly improved, because while we were on the subject of parenting, it was nothing but a couple of people saying "I think you're wrong, this is why, conversation OVER" for two pages.
We also had a big fuss about what to address people as and people bitching back and forth at each other about other stuff. A little politics is fine here and there, but shit like "gun control debate" is asking for a fucking shit storm of heat, especially when we were just warned not to debate that shit here not even two months ago (The school shooting thread). This is seriously going to lead down a path we do not fucking need. Enough people have been walking on pins and needles in this thread as is.
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The point I was making is that it is absolutely bizarro world ridiculous to think that age at which you are allowed to purchase a gun has anything to do with the drinking age being at 21.
I don't see why that is ridiculous. Only a Nazi would fail to see the connection.
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I worship Hitler.
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Well that's not saying much, considering the discussion of parenting was itself an annoying digression from the topic of the thread.
Okay, well, on-topic then, one of the important things signifying age and maturity, I think, is the ability to have a discussion about issues that are potentially sensitive and still manage to keep it all civil and sensible.
Obsessions, I really mean no offense by this, but I think that exclaiming "OH NO we can't talk about politics! It's a sensitive issue!" every time a thread so much as hints that it might be headed in that direction is counter-productive. What else are we supposed to do? Swap vaguely interesting news stories that are unusual in some way? Pose in a variety of retro-themed clothing? Chime in on how much we think dogs are awesome? Discuss the unique aroma of our most recent farts? If we avoid anything that might be in even the faintest way slightly political, then this board becomes a bland zone of people bleating out the most monotonous, inane shit because we aren't allowed to discuss the interesting stuff that's going on in the world in case we offend somebody.
It's all very well and good trying to avoid stepping on each others' toes, but in the end it's impossible to entirely avoid saying something that somebody else disagrees with. I like unbaked cookie dough, for example. I'd wager that a lot of people do. But it's pretty much inevitable that somewhere out there is somebody who simply hates cookie dough, and disagrees with my assessment that it is (in my sincere opinion) yummy.
In the end, it's better to just say "screw it" and chat about whatever we want to (within reason) and use our differences of opinion as raw material for an enlightening and interesting discourse, as opposed to turning it into fuel for a flame war. You disagree with my opinion - that's fine. So long as we both try not to be dicks about it, I don't see the problem. It's nice that we can honestly look at most of the members of this board and say "I trust you not to be an asshole".
That said, the issue of gun control really is one of those cases where I can count the number of threads I've seen on the subject that remained rational and level-headed for long on one hand, so if we are going to discuss it, we really should tread carefully....
Also, to balance the unrelenting seriousness of this post, boingo boingo whoopsee knickers. (Apologies to Yahtzee)
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That said, the issue of gun control really is one of those cases where I think Hitler had it right.
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You know who else edited quotes from other people's posts to include hitler-worship? HITLER DID.
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i... worship... HITLER
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I noticed that many 'generation divides' can be marked through lists of your favourite childhood TV shows. All these young folks today, wearing T-shirts with the ThunderCats logo? Can't even sing the theme song, or name all of the Thunderians living on Third Earth! Poseurs!
Of course, this method is not as reliable as it used to be, thanks to the use of the internet in order to easily obtain all these old shows. Nowadays, a persons favourite videogames and sitcoms are much better indicators of age.
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Blah blah blah politics are fun blah blah but I apparently agree with you anyway.
Seriously, what was the point of that even? I never said politics are bad and should be avoided at all costs, I said that certain political subjects are a disaster waiting to happen...and then you pretty much backed up my argument. A gun control debate will, nine times out of ten, devolve into a pissing match between liberal and conservative viewpoints. This entire thread has been about 90% pissing match and it should be pretty obvious that with the overall tone of said thread, a subject like that is only going to get worse. I mean, fuck, it should be obvious based simply off of the sheer polarization of people on even discussing the idea of maybe considering talking about the possibility of discussing gun control.
That in its own should be enough, but I also submit exhibit B:
FORUM RULES (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,4161.msg235725.html#msg235725)
RELIGION AND POLITICS:
Threads about religion & politics are undesireable in this forum because they are two topics that make Jeph angry/set off his depression. He has specifically asked us to kill these kinds of topics, especially if they are veering into argumentative or "DOOOOM!" modes.
If you would like to talk about these topics then I am sure that there are plenty of other places you can do it. There are many fine political and religious sites around, some of which are sure to have forums almost guaranteed to be politics/religion friendly.
If the forum admin says "hey, don't do that shit," I tend to think "hey, I better not do that shit. Especially when it's a rule that's widely known to have been passed down by the dude with his finger hovering over the "delete entire fucking forum" button.
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You know who stifled political discussion with warning of it being "dangerous"?
JEAN-BEDEL BOKASSA, dictator of the Central African Republic.
Probably Hitler, too.
Really though-- I understand the reason for the aversion to talking about things like politics and religion, but we've only been discussing a few contentious topics in here. It's had nothing to do with political parties or idologies, and I think everyone's been relatively civil thus far. It can't hurt to have a semi-intelligent discussion about things that actually are important.
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I miss the Nazis.
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GUYS
We're having a flamewar over flamewars. DO YOU NOT SEE HOW FUCKING IDIOTIC THIS IS.
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GUYS
We're having a lovefest over Hitler. DO YOU NOT SEE HOW COMPLETELY OFFENSIVE THIS IS.
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herpes isn't really all that bad
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PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS
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If (like Jhocking) you are old enough to remember Hitlers sweet embrace, you KNOW you're pretty old.
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Wow, I'm not around for two days and look at how much I miss. Teach me not to use my study periods for study instead of forumming, I guess!
Jill, maybe I wasn't clear enough. The staff at my college ask us to call them by their first names. It's college policy, I think the reasoning behind it is that if they treat us like young adults, we'll act like human beings (it doesn't always work, but I think it does help).
I would never, ever call a teacher by their first name if they had not asked me to. I'm good friends with an ex-teacher, we email regularly and meet up whenever I'm in the area, and I still call her (and think of her as) Miss Roberts.
Actually, I did just think of an instance where I refused to call a teacher by their name. I had a drama teacher who insisted on calling me Mavis (that is not my name. It's not even similar to my name. It wasn't a mistake, or a cute nickname, it was deliberately irritating). I asked him several times not to, politely, and then when he carried on doing so I started calling him Derek. He got the message, and we went back to real names.
On the respect issue in general, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I agree that everyone deserves respect until they do something to prove otherwise. At the same time, I don't think that anyone deserves more respect than anyone else purely on grounds of age, income or anything similar. I respect many people because they are particularly good at what they do, or are very nice or impressive people, or have managed to cope with difficult circumstances. I think respect is both an inherent right and also earned, and the best bet is to assume that someone does deserve a level of respect (not boot-licking, crawling respect, just common courtesy).
I've only skim-read the alcohol debate but it seems to me that opinions are differing along vaguely geographical lines. I've never been to the USA or anywhere outside of Western Europe, so I can't comment on those places, but the drinking limit in the UK doesn't seem to be overly observed. I'm an oddity amongst my friends because I don't, and never have, drink any alcohol. I've only met three or four people between the ages of about 11 and 17 who haven't drunk at some point. When I'm asked why I don't drink, "it's not legal" is never my answer because to be honest, most people don't seem to remember there's an age limit.
A friend who lives partly in Holland and partly in England says that in Holland, where the limits for most things are lower and cannabis (I think) is legal, people are more sensible with drugs and alcohol. I'm not convinced it's possible to be sensible with cannabis unless you don't touch the stuff but I have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs. I suppose it's like the prostitution argument: it's easier to regulate something if it's legalised. But there has to be a sensible threashold below which it's unacceptable to go.
And it's fairly easy to lower an age limit but very hard to raise it, as proven by the recent change in law in the UK. You now have to be 18 to buy cigarettes et al, whereas you used to need to be 16. From the people I know at school and college, no one has taken the blindest bit of notice. I've been with 16 year old friends who have bought cigarettes without any trouble. I'm not in favour of this either, I'm just citing it as an example of how it can be hard to reverse a lower limit.
Like I said, I've never drunk so I'm fairly hazy about the different types of alcohol. But when I've seen people at parties, I've noticed that the ones who end up trashed are the ones who have been drinking vodka and other similar things. The ones going slowly with a beer seem to be fine. How about doing it the way the German government do and having different age limits depending on alcohol content and the likelihood of ending up vomiting in a bush?
I hate the pressure I sometimes get from friends who find it odd that I don't drink. None of my close friends do it, but some people who don't realise how big a thing this is for me will say things like "on your birthday, we're going out and you're going to get wasted". No, no I am not. And I will not be going out with you on my birthday, now that I know I can't trust you to respect my choices. Incidentally, I'm also vegetarian and a friend once tried to force a ham sandwich into my mouth. We're not in touch any more.
I can see the point that's being made about 21 being too old. Yes, it seems odd that you can legally be a parent to a four year old (I'm not sure what the age of consent is in places with a 21 drinking age, so I'm going with the UK's 16) but not drink a beer. But then again, I know many many 18, 19, 20 year olds who I wouldn't trust sober. Adding alcohol into the mix seems like a bad idea. You can't make laws to suit a minority who will follow them, they're designed to punish the ones who don't. So they have to go with the lowest common denominator.
Also, please don't get this forum locked. It was quite interesting til you brought Hitler into it (which could also be said for my history class, but that's another subject).
And I've just thought of a big one for the OP: gardening. I've yet to meet someone my age who likes it. I've yet to meet someone my mother's age who does not. All of the latter group say they didn't when they were my age. Is it hormonal? Do I have a dormant gardening gene that's going to kick in when I'm 30? Heaven forbid.
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I know folks in their mid to late 20s who like gardening. Or at least the idea of gardening (gardening in the city can be challenging ... though not impossible). Also, I've lost track of how many women I know in their late 20s, professionals, who are knitting or chrocheting. I can't wait for pipe smoking to come back. Also: capes.
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I can see the point that's being made about 21 being too old. Yes, it seems odd that you can legally be a parent to a four year old (I'm not sure what the age of consent is in places with a 21 drinking age, so I'm going with the UK's 16) but not drink a beer. But then again, I know many many 18, 19, 20 year olds who I wouldn't trust sober. Adding alcohol into the mix seems like a bad idea. You can't make laws to suit a minority who will follow them, they're designed to punish the ones who don't. So they have to go with the lowest common denominator.
I know plenty of people in their twenties and thirties I wouldn't trust sober. If you want to go with the lowest common denominator you'd have to ban alcohol outright. As well as driving, contact sports and anything else potentially harmful. Not really a very good idea. Once you're an adult you have to take responsibility for your own choices, and the law should not prevent you from doing anything that might be bad for you.
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I've got a better idea:
Underagers: Sack up.
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Jeph smokes a pipe.
I'm waiting for Snuff to come back.
We might not be talking about the same sort of pipe. Also, I thought you were off inhalants.
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Is it possible to set a word filter for just a single thread? I suggest replacing any instance of "alcohol" in this thread with "Hitler worship."
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seconded!
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I'm not convinced it's possible to be sensible with cannabis unless you don't touch the stuff but I have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs.
::wince:: You really don't believe it's possible to safely and responsibly use cannabis? Yeesh.
With all the talk of alcohol and the problems it causes on this thread, that one seems like a no-brainer by comparison.
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Also, I've lost track of how many women I know in their late 20s, professionals, who are knitting or chrocheting. I can't wait for pipe smoking to come back. Also: capes.
Knitting is boring. How many women do you know who do this (http://www.wearfiberart.com/images/studio/rak_henson.jpg)?
(I really like capes. I was thinking about putting one on my project list some time, but that is long enough already.)
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None, but then looms are really hard to use on a crowded subway.
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I know someone who spins and weaves. She's all around a pretty cool lady.
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(Dawg that is a spinning wheel, not a loom. Plus drop spindles (http://www.ydalir.co.uk/gallery/2005/denbigh/spinning_big.jpg) are pretty good on busses, at least, and they do the same thing. I have never tried it on the train. I think this (http://art-smart.ci.manchester.ct.us/images/fiber/loomslideshow/images/rug-loom-usa.jpg) would be hard to take anywhere, personally.)
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::wince:: You really don't believe it's possible to safely and responsibly use cannabis? Yeesh.
With all the talk of alcohol and the problems it causes on this thread, that one seems like a no-brainer by comparison.
Seconded. I've shown a rather conservative stance on the alcohol laws, but I think laws regarding pot are absolutely ridiculous. It's cheaper to make than booze, less damaging than booze and is all in all much safer than booze.
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Probably so, but I'm against anything that alters my mind and/or chemical structure more significantly than chocolate. I probably err too much on the side of caution, but I've heard some pretty scary tales about cannabis that may or may not be true and I prefer to keep my brain unmushed.
Having said that, I agree that the law can be a little bizarre. I find it strange that here in the UK, the guideline sentencing for actual bodily harm is a maximum of 6 months imprisonment, but for possession of cannabis you can get 2 years. Admittedly you're unlikely to, but it depends on the judge. The fact is that assaulting someone by definition hurts someone else. Possessing cannabis hurts only the user (providing they don't commit a different crime because of the drug) and therefore surely the penalty should be less harsh? Like someone said earlier, the law shouldn't be preventing adults from making stupid decisions.
Edit: gah I clearly need more sleep. How is it possible to read "2 years" and write "14 years"?
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To my knowledge, pot doesn't have any actual effect on your brain and about 90% of all shit you hear is propaganda to make anti-marijuana laws look slightly less ridiculous than they are. Even if it does affect it, it's not anywhere near as bad as alcohol.
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Seconded. I've shown a rather conservative stance on the alcohol laws, but I think laws regarding pot are absolutely ridiculous. It's cheaper to make than booze, less damaging than booze and is all in all much safer than booze.
I'm afraid that if you think that, you're wrong. The information I've gathered on the subject (and that's a lot - I've read British Medical Journal articles on this particular subject in fact) concerning weed agrees that it's more addictive than Alcohol (Hitler worship), and has far more severe long-term health implications. Alcohol really only affects you in the short term, unless you drink enough to poison you in one go, or keep drinking consistently for so long that your liver just gives up.
Weed, on the other hand, can addict with a much smaller dosage than alcohol, and puts about five times the carcinogens, tar and other crap that you get in cigarettes into you on top.
So no, it's not less damaging or safer than booze. Weed is way worse for you, and way more addictive. Whoever convinced you otherwise either has their facts muddled up, or else was outright lying to you I'm afraid.
Personally, I do think that the marijuana laws in the States are overly draconian on the subject - if people want to fuck up their brains, I say we should let them - But please don't make the mistake of assuming that it's 90% propoganda. Weed REALLY IS as bad as people say it is, and worse.
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My main problem with it is that we don't know enough about it.
Alcohol has been around a long time. OK, it's getting generally stronger (or the strong stuff is more easily available, I'm not sure which) but at least we know what's going on with it. Cannabis is different. Because it's illegal in most places, there aren't many tests being done and it's gradually coming to light that there may be bigger problems caused by long term use than anyone ever guessed.
Maybe it is propoganda. But the thing is, if there's a risk that inhaling the smoke of a burning plant rolled up in some paper might decrease my chances of reaching 80 and still having a fully functioning brain, then I'll not take it, thanks. Whether or not it should be illegal for me to take that chance, I'm not sure. We have many debates about it in Law, but we've never come to a conclusion.
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See and here I thought the tar came from shit they put in cigarettes as fillers. Is there tar in cannibis? I don't think so. At least, chemically speaking, I am pretty sure it is all mostly cellulose and stuff. And the cops from the drug unit who gave presentations every month or so at my high school said weed was dangerous because it isn't addictive, and thus you feel you can safely carry on smoking as much as you want.
I could be wrong, I guess.
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Actually, the "tar" is partially-burnt and caramelized sap and resin released when the leafs burn. Cannabis contains about five times as much as tobacco.
As for the cops saying it's not addictive - that conflicts with a lot of what I've read and researched on the topic. As I understand it, cannabis causes pretty massive neurochemical shifts when you smoke it. Repeated exposure to these shifts trick the brain into thinking that its own natural levels are off, and it adjusts them. The result is that when you aren't "on", the brain's experiencing a shortfall of those specific chemicals.
That's the other danger behind weed, though. There's so much conflicting information out there about it - the dealers and enthusiasts constantly flood the air with their own positive propoganda, and play down the medical dangers, and the medics and law-makers spread the negative press about it. Unless you spend a LOT of time researching it, you can get entirely the wrong impression.
I have two reasons for avoiding the stuff like the plague -
one; I'm more inclined to trust the word of a doctor who's primary concern is my health and safety, than I am the word of a guy who's trying to push the stuff so he can profit.
two; I feel disinclined to trust my health with something so barely-understood. I'd rather stick to alcohol, the benefits and drawbacks of which are well-documented, than try something so controversial and potentially dangerous, especially when it's illegal. The way I see it, better the legal not-very-evil-at-all that you know, than the illegal potentially-very-evil-indeed that you don't.
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Well said, Switchblade.
The fact is, I've known some people who seemed like they were cannabis users the same way I'm an alchohol user: occasionally, in moderation, for enjoyment, and not to excess. These people have, in my opinion, shown no negative long-term effects.
However, I've also seen alchohol addiction close-up, and been close friends with people who seemed cannabis-addicted to me: they started out occasional users, but eventually they smoked every day, several times a day, and more than once I heard the refrain
"We're not addicted. We could stop anytime!"
"We just don't want to!"
Which sounds a heck of a lot like what the alchoholic in my life would say about alchohol.
More worrisome to me was the fact that the cannabis-addicts, in my experience, had started out as feeling very intelligent and articulate, and became less so over time, as well as less motivated to do anything other than sit around and smoke out.
Nope, that's no medical study, and I'm not qualified to diagnose addiction medically - but remember, I spent something like ten years being the sober guy around a bunch of druggies. I'm not coming to these conclusions from acquaintance with a one or two stereotypical stoners, but from long-term observation of people whom I considered good friends over many years.
Onewheelwizzard, your post back at the top of pg6 was very well articulated. I particularly like the way you came at it from your personal experience; that really helped it feel not-preachy. I hope I'm doing as well; you set a great standard for having a real conversation and exchange of views, rather than a debate.
I've been with friends who said that they felt that they had a great spiritual awakening while under the influence. However, none of them have been able to articulate what that was to me, either under the influence or after. I wouldn't describe them as being more "spiritually aware" after either, but keep in mind that these were people I already liked and respected. It sounds like your experience was a bit more concrete, and perhaps subtly different; to my mind "personal development" and "spiritual awakening" are very different feelings.
I've also sat with people who were just having fun, and didn't seem to be getting any spiritual or mental development, just a good time; just treating it like a recreational experience. "Oooh, look, sparkles!"
I've also talked people down out of a "bad trip" when their experiences were very terrifying for them. Regarding that latter, it certainly, in my mind, helps to go into them without hesitancy or fear, in a comfortable or naturally beautiful environment, and surrounded by people you trust, who won't fuck with you just to fuck with you.
So, I'm not sure whether your experiences are generalizable to the idea that psychadelics have a universal power to do good - but I appreciate you sharing that feeling and putting it as well as you did!
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one; I'm more inclined to trust the word of a doctor who's primary concern is my health and safety, than I am the word of a guy who's trying to push the stuff so he can profit.
two; I feel disinclined to trust my health with something so barely-understood. I'd rather stick to alcohol, the benefits and drawbacks of which are well-documented, than try something so controversial and potentially dangerous, especially when it's illegal. The way I see it, better the legal not-very-evil-at-all that you know, than the illegal potentially-very-evil-indeed that you don't.
If you think doctors don't push drugs to get money from big pharmecutical companies then you're living in imaginary land my friend. At least here in the U.S. medical organizations and care providers get BIG MONEY for pushing certain drugs. Doctors are people too. People with irrational beliefs and opinions. There have been lawsuits here in America because certain doctors refuse to supply the plan-B contraceptive pill as a result of their religious convictions. They're looking out for their patients soul, not their body, a decision that hardly points toward a rational care for safety. The same sort of opinionated thinking is used in the villification of pot.
The whole argument that alcohol is less dangerous seems ridiculous as well. First hand experience with pot heads and drunks can attest to this. I've never met a pot head who beats his girlfriend when high, pushes holes in windows or walls, starts fights in bars ect. I've met a lot of drunks that are just as dangerous to others as they are to themselves. When it comes right down to it alcohol makes a lot of money for the government and is socially acceptable. Marijuana makes an obscene ammount of money for the government by being illegal, so it will stay that way.
Also, the idea that just because something is illegal that it is absolutely wrong or bad for you is just plain stupid. In about 2 minutes of thought you should be ablet o come up with myriad examples of things that have been legal and terrible, or illegal and correct. Laws are dynamic, and they do not always reflect what is right and wrong.
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As someone who has drank and smoked pot in limited quantities in the past, I have to say that in my experience I've found at least part of what you claim to be wrong, Switchblade. Alcohol is much more dangerous in terms of how it affects you, in the short term at least. When you're high, you can still maintain a modicum of rational thought. Generally, you feel relaxed, a bit hungry and all around contented, with a tendency to laugh at stupid things. With alcohol, though, drink enough and you don't "feel" anything; you're just blacked out until you wake up the next morning on the bathroom floor. That's never happened to me, but it's happened to plenty of people I know. Alcohol has a much higher potential for long-term addiction, because while people who smoke in response to emotional stress do so just to get rid of tension, most people who drink for that same reason do so to get completely plastered and get to the point where they're not consciously in control of their body at all.
It's great that you've read so much on this, but when it comes to the issue of drugs like pot and LSD, there are plenty of scientists and doctors who have vested interests in perpetuating the exaggerated dangers of the drugs. I don't think anyone will argue that something like crack, heroine and meth are harmless or nonaddictive. There's a general consensus that they generally are. But pot? Not really. What about people entering their 50's or 60's now, who were part of the 60's movements and were perpetually smoking a joint? Why haven't we seen massive health repercussions with these people? I know the THC in today's marijuana is astronomically higher than it was back then, but most people smoke in moderation nowadays, while back then for a lot of people it was a daily, habitual thing, like drinking a can of pop.
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-my dad has smoked pot almost every day since he was 16 and he's totally fine. hell, he's a fucking athlete.
-my friend johnny is only 20, gets blackout drunk everyday he can afford to and he's a fucking babbling retard now.
i think pot is probably ok.
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I know the THC in today's marijuana is astronomically higher than it was back then, but most people smoke in moderation nowadays, while back then for a lot of people it was a daily, habitual thing, like drinking a can of pop.
Maybe the people you know only smoke in moderation but I've known a lot who smoke every single day, and plenty who're basically permanently stoned. The good old wake and bake technique. Simply smoking every day isn't necessarily a bad thing any more than drinking every day is, but I've known a fair few people who've screwed their lives up a fair bit on account of getting high all the time. But I've known people who've fucked up because of all kinds of things. Getting addicted to videogames for example, and that isn't a good reason to control the supply of them.
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i'll pretty much always defend the idea that people should have the right to put any drug they'd like into their body as long as it doesn't hurt others but i'm not so sure alcohol fits that criteria. a substantial amount of fatal car accidents in the states are the result of drunk driving. alcoholism is one of the biggest factors in spousal abuse. there is a huge correlation between homicide or assault offenders and whether or not they were drinking at the time they committed the offense. and so on.
i don't actually smoke pot at all and yeah, i understand there's just as many people who abuse alcohol as there are people who are intelligent and responsible but really, i find it hard to believe pot is a worse drug than alcohol.
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To date, everybody I've known who smoked weed wound up doing one of two things:
1: quitting before it became a problem.
2: getting hooked and dropping out.
There have been far more of the latter than of the former. I'm yet to encounter anybody who smoked it on a regular basis and wasn't affected by it in some fairly significant way.
while it may be to some extent true that quote: "medical organizations and care providers get BIG MONEY for pushing certain drugs" I think I should point out that I'm not aware of any medication designed for weaning people off cannabis. Heroin, yes, there are plenty of mild opiates designed to wean people off Heroin and suchlike, but there aren't such medicines around for Marijuana (to my knowledge). As such, it's difficult for pharmaceutical companies to make a profit off helping people quit cannabis addiction, because there's no product they can sell for that purpose.
So, if there's no drug being sold to help people quit, and therefore no money being thrown at medical organizations to promote certain products, then ulterior motive goes out the window. With no incentive, those medical groups fall back on the old standby of actually recommending what's best for the patient's mental and physical health.
I'm all for letting people fuck up their own brains and lives if they so want. It means that they aren't competing with people like me, which makes my life easier. I do, however, think that it's vitally important that people be presented with ALL the facts so that they can make their decision with all of the evidence in front of them. That way, we can reasonably blame their own stupidity rather than misinformation or lack of clear facts.
And let's just say that when it comes to trusting information that is given to me, I tend to feel more secure placing my faith in the say-so of a law-abiding, intellectual professional than in the say so of an addict or dealer, either one of which is willfully breaking the law. It's Occam's razor again. I can either make the far-fetched and paranoid assumption that every doctor and medical paper in the world is out to stop me from having fun for no good reason, or make the not-very-far-fetched-at-all and quite reasonable assumption that marijuana is actually bad for me, and that the people who are promoting it are doing so because they want to sell it and get rich.
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Once upon a time there was a guy that I knew and his roommate. They went to Georgia Tech. One got hooked on crack. The other got hooked on Evercrack. Guess which one lasted longer!
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I'd rather stick to alcohol, the benefits and drawbacks of which are well-documented, than try something so controversial and potentially dangerous, especially when it's illegal. The way I see it, better the legal not-very-evil-at-all that you know, than the illegal potentially-very-evil-indeed that you don't.
This is culturally relative. Also, marijuana was made illegal only recently in most places.
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Oh sweet, this thread is about drugs now?
To date, everybody I've known who smoked weed wound up doing one of two things:
1: quitting before it became a problem.
2: getting hooked and dropping out.
Maybe you just know a lot of losers! I for one have not had this problem since around about 2003, when I made a point to stop hanging out with losers. Since then, the people I have met that smoke weed do so in a socially and emotionally healthy manner.
I'm sorry you know so many losers I guess?
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If you look around, it isn't hard to find clinical studies that back up the fact that alcohol and tobacco are worse for you then Marijuana. The smoke from pot is not good for you. It is fucking up your lungs, but people don't really smoke pot like they do cigarettes.
Now, to back up my statements, I am going to use wikipedia, since it is always 100% factually accurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_%28mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence%29.svg
If you want to do some leg work, you can find plenty of other sources that provide similar results from peer reviewed papers.
Personally, I could care less about pot. On principle, I believe it should be legal if alcohol is legal. I don't like it and wouldn't use it even if it was legal.
Some one should create a Law similar to Godwin's Law. Instead of nazis references, it could mention that the longer a discussion progresses the higher the chance that some one will use Wikipedia to support their point. Now, we just need a name for it.
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Me and my dad are pretty much the same, except I don't plan on drinking and he isn't ocd.
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OK, a few things. (Do not bother reading this post if you're not interested in drugs. I go to school to study this kind of stuff and I do a lot of extracurricular research so I have a lot to say about the subject, so this will be tl;dr for a lot of people here.)
First of all, on the "addictive" power of marijuana. From a medical standpoint, one of the most important measures of the damage done by an addiction is the intensity of withdrawl symptoms. Basically, something is addictive if the user experiences negative symptoms like pain or health problems if they are denied the drug. Cigarettes are extremely addictive because nicotine binds to receptor sites all over the body, and therefore the entire body's nervous system is calling out for it every time a hardcore smoker goes too long without it (I've heard that it's absolutely terrible). Opiates (OxyContin, morphine, heroin, Percocet, etc.) are extremely addictive because of the neural pathways they affect, and the resultant fact that withdrawing from painkiller addiction feels a bit like having third-degree burns all over your body for days. Alcohol is actually the worst when it comes to addictions because it's the only widely abused drug that can and will actually flat-out kill you if you try going cold turkey after delving too deep into addiction. A hardcore heroin junkie will probably want to die for an entire month after going cold turkey on heroin (and as such will probably relapse) but a hardcore alcoholic (we're talking lifetime) who tries to go cold turkey will just die, their heart will give out and they will drop like a rock. A slightly less harder-core alcoholic will suffer delerium tremens. Alcohol is really, really destructive from the standpoint of addiction.
A hardcore stoner, the hardest-core stoner, someone who smokes superstrong crazy weed 10-15 times a day despite having zero medical reason to do so (of which there are several, by the way, including glaucoma, arthritis, and appetite stimulation during chemotherapy) will probably suffer some pretty serious irritability problems for about a month or two if they stop smoking pot. They won't be happy about it, but they won't suffer anything even remotely close to the magnitude of seriousness that is heroin, nicotine, or alcohol withdrawl. Even withdrawing from caffeine is more difficult than withdrawing from weed, at least on a purely biochemical level. It's quite true that lazy losers have a tendency to be severely enabled by smoking weed and as such you see a lot of very unwise use of it, but this is a problem with the attitude people take towards using it, not a property of the drug itself that causes this phenomenon. Basically the risk of serious cannabis addiction is virtually zero, if addiction is defined according to medical symptoms associated with use and withdrawl. "Addiction" to cannabis is a bit like being "addicted" to coming in to work late (which, I'm sure someone will argue here, can be a serious problem for some people).
Oh, and the last study done on the link between weed and cancer found literally zero indication that weed increases cancer risk. That's not as huge and amazing as it sounds, because they had to control for cigarette smoking among their subjects and so there was a pretty serious confound, but if you trust statistics as a discipline, the fact that they found a 2000% (20X) increased risk for cancer due to cigarette smoking compared to a 0% or even negative risk associated with weed, it starts to make you think.
(Source) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html)
Oh, and the second-largest organization of medical professionals in the nation just endorsed medical marijuana and called for research!
It's not physiologically addictive (unlike caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and a great many pharmaceuticals), it's not neurotoxic, it's not associated with cancer risk, lots of doctors are ready and willing to accept it as legitimate medicine ... the evidence pretty strongly suggests that marijuana usage is effectively harmless if treated with a modicum of sense, and minimally problematic even for people who don't give enough of a shit to treat themselves with respect as they use drugs.
On the subject of psychedelics ...
I am certain that psychedelics hold a universal potential for personal development (which I define as self-directed improvement in quality of life). What little research that has been done on them has shown that they are surprisingly effective at a wide range of psychologically therapeutic tasks if used correctly, including treatment for alcoholism and opiate addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, cluster headaches, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and maybe even anxiety and depression (It's important to point out that different psychedelics are useful for different things. I'd need to go into specifics if I were to explain each of the treatment possibilities I mentioned but you can rest assured that I'm not making any of it up.) So from a medical standpoint, they at least have potential as treatments for certain disorders.
However, they also have the unique capacity (among drugs) to make a person who is physically and mentally healthy somehow even more well. This was actually researched recently ... Johns Hopkins published a study in which researchers gave psilocybin (the stuff in "magic mushrooms" that makes a person trip, more or less similar to LSD in effect and duration) to healthy, normal, middle-aged volunteers who had never taken psychedelic drugs before (but DID engage in spiritual practice or activity such as church worship, meditation, prayer, yoga, etc.) The results were actually pretty incredible. A full third of the people who participated in the study said that it was the most important thing that had ever happened to them. Another third ranked it in the top 5 (alongside landmarks like the death of a parent or the birth of a firstborn child). Here's the kicker ... at 2 months, 6 months, and 12 months after the study, exactly zero of the participants reported any sort of lasting negative effect (only 30% reported negative effects of any sort even during the experimental sessions), and they all performed equally well on any test given before and after the experiment. If nothing else, the study proved that it was safe for healthy people to take psilocybin in correctly controlled environments, which is a huge step towards further understanding exactly what it actually does. The last and most powerful result of the study, though, was that more than 80% of the people who participated said, a year later, that they were better off for having done so. More than 80%! That is HUGE. (If you want to follow up on this study, it was conducted by Roland Griffiths and published in the journal Psychopharmacology. I forget the date.)
Obviously, as with any other drug, positive results rely upon well-reasoned and responsible use, preferably with the help of a professional. Unfortunately there is a serious shortage of professionals who are trained in psychedelic administration (they just don't make shamans like they used to these days) and even the medical establishment knows next to nothing about how they could be reasonably used. So recommending psychedelics to anyone would be jumping the gun in a serious way.
But when 80% of healthy volunteers give resounding positive feedback and 0% give negative feedback, it's worth paying attention to. That never happens in drug trials. Those numbers would sound ridiculous to me if I didn't already know firsthand how much good mushrooms can do for a person.
Basically, the POTENTIAL for benefits granted by psychedelics is, I think, universal. But there are a LOT of counterindications that would make me advise against recreational use, and until we have a lot of sound scientific research on it and a system set up to handle it therapeutically, recreational use is all we have.
I pay a lot of attention to the research that's been done on illegal drugs. I think it's really important. I hope nobody minds if I get long-winded about it.
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To date, everybody I've known who smoked weed wound up doing one of two things:
1: quitting before it became a problem.
2: getting hooked and dropping out.
There have been far more of the latter than of the former. I'm yet to encounter anybody who smoked it on a regular basis and wasn't affected by it in some fairly significant way.
Anecdotal evidence, confirmation bias, false dichotomy.
while it may be to some extent true that quote: "medical organizations and care providers get BIG MONEY for pushing certain drugs" I think I should point out that I'm not aware of any medication designed for weaning people off cannabis. Heroin, yes, there are plenty of mild opiates designed to wean people off Heroin and suchlike, but there aren't such medicines around for Marijuana (to my knowledge). As such, it's difficult for pharmaceutical companies to make a profit off helping people quit cannabis addiction, because there's no product they can sell for that purpose.
There's nothing like methadone for cannabis because cannabis isn't physiologically addictive. There's no withdrawal for cannabis like there is for heroin. Methadone (what I think you're referring to when you say "mild opiate") is used to treat opiate addiction because it doesn't produce a high, but alleviates withdrawal symptoms while blocking the opioid receptors so that using heroin won't produce a high.
So, if there's no drug being sold to help people quit, and therefore no money being thrown at medical organizations to promote certain products, then ulterior motive goes out the window. With no incentive, those medical groups fall back on the old standby of actually recommending what's best for the patient's mental and physical health.
This is incredibly cynical and insulting to the profession of medicine, in addition to being incorrect.
I'm all for letting people fuck up their own brains and lives if they so want. It means that they aren't competing with people like me, which makes my life easier. I do, however, think that it's vitally important that people be presented with ALL the facts so that they can make their decision with all of the evidence in front of them. That way, we can reasonably blame their own stupidity rather than misinformation or lack of clear facts.
You're not helping.
And let's just say that when it comes to trusting information that is given to me, I tend to feel more secure placing my faith in the say-so of a law-abiding, intellectual professional than in the say so of an addict or dealer, either one of which is willfully breaking the law. It's Occam's razor again. I can either make the far-fetched and paranoid assumption that every doctor and medical paper in the world is out to stop me from having fun for no good reason, or make the not-very-far-fetched-at-all and quite reasonable assumption that marijuana is actually bad for me, and that the people who are promoting it are doing so because they want to sell it and get rich.
It's not Occam's Razor, it's a false dichotomy. Whether cannabis is bad for you has nothing to do with the law, or people who push drugs with a profit motive. You just got finished calling doctors drug pushers because they just want to sell drugs, but you trust them over dealers because they just want to sell you drugs?
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I'm just passing on what I've been told, by people and sources that I trust implicitly (and with good reason), and what I've experienced for myself. Although you can't cite anecdotal evidence in a research paper, it really ought not to be discounted in this kind of a discussion because it's being used to underpin valid points.
My own experience and research tells me that Marijuana is Bad, Alcohol is Not Bad (it's not necessarily Good, but few things are). Clearly you have arrived at a different conclusion, and I suspect that there's little I can do to change your mind.
Nevertheless...
So, if there's no drug being sold to help people quit, and therefore no money being thrown at medical organizations to promote certain products, then ulterior motive goes out the window. With no incentive, those medical groups fall back on the old standby of actually recommending what's best for the patient's mental and physical health.
This is incredibly cynical and insulting to the profession of medicine, in addition to being incorrect.
You've misinterpreted me here, I'm afraid. I was actually refuting the argument that medical groups are biased by pharmaceutical corporations giving them money, not supporting it. My argument was "Even if that is the case, it cannot be the case in this situation because there is no drug for them to push that has any effect". Maybe the tone was cynical, but it certainly wasn't meant to be in support of the statement that
If you think doctors don't push drugs to get money from big pharmaceutical companies then you're living in imaginary land my friend. At least here in the U.S. medical organizations and care providers get BIG MONEY for pushing certain drugs.
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I agree with you, dennis, that this statement is incredibly cynical and insulting to the profession of medicine.
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I can't wait for pipe smoking to come back. Also: capes.
I smoke a pipe on occasion. It's really nice! I'm getting better at doing smoke rings but I'm kindof out of practice because I only really smoke my pipe once every 5 weeks or so.
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I have a cape.
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with your powers combined, you are Captain 1950s!
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I'd prefer Captain 1880s but I will take what I can get.
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If I am tipsy I find myself more sociable and I have a little buzz (desireable!).
If I'm drunk I slur my speech, think slower, and have bad fine motor skills (undesireable!).
If I'm very drunk I'll probably do things I'll regret, maybe hurt people or damage things, and have worse gross motor skills and lack the ability to communicate. I'll also have a hangover the next day (very undesireable!).
If I'm a little high I'll be happy and calm (desireable!).
If I'm stoned I'll be all 'it's an awesome day and you are awesome too,' hungry, and I'll probably be a bit slow (desireable!).
If I'm stoned off my tits I'll space out and go to sleep (not negative!).
I don't really drink any more (a couple of pints of nice beer or a few glasses of nice wine are nice on occasion though), and I've never gone out of my way to get weed except when I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about.
So there's some more anecdotal evidence for you.
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My own experience and research tells me that Marijuana is Bad, Alcohol is Not Bad (it's not necessarily Good, but few things are). Clearly you have arrived at a different conclusion, and I suspect that there's little I can do to change your mind.
The bulk of medical research disagrees with you sir. Give onewheeledwizard's post a read or go search through some journals.
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if we're going by anecdotal evidence now, i'll also add that literally every single one of my friends smoke pot and they are all smarter and funnier and better than me at just about everything, including school. both my sisters smoke pot too and they are incredibly intelligent successful people. i only ever met a couple of people who smoked so much that they let themselves get addicted (addicted in the sense that joe explained) and it started to interfere with their daily functioning.
this is one of those instances where the assumption is that correlation equals causation. lots of people who are lazy and probably not too smart smoke pot but that doesn't necessarily mean pot is responsible for them being lazy and unintelligent. it could just as feasibly go in the other direction - that people who are already lazy and maybe kind of dumb start smoking pot because it's easier to incorporate into their lifestyles. as demonstrated, lots of very intelligent people smoke pot too so there isn't really a lot of evidence backing up the conclusion that pot makes you stupid.
i realize this can also be applied to my argument about alcohol, that maybe people who are already sort of aggressive and violent are drawn to alcohol and not vice versa, but i still think this is a valid argument because i've yet to see any convincing evidence that pot causes harm to other people aside from those smoking it (and even that's debatable) in any way.
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I'd prefer Captain 1880s but I will take what I can get.
Sorry, the special effects budget won't stretch that far.
If you're willing to downgrade to cigars I think we can compromise on Captain 1920s though....
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Oh, and the last study done on the link between weed and cancer found literally zero indication that weed increases cancer risk. That's not as huge and amazing as it sounds, because they had to control for cigarette smoking among their subjects and so there was a pretty serious confound, but if you trust statistics as a discipline, the fact that they found a 2000% (20X) increased risk for cancer due to cigarette smoking compared to a 0% or even negative risk associated with weed, it starts to make you think.
(Source) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html)
Oh, and the second-largest organization of medical professionals in the nation just endorsed medical marijuana and called for research!
I read an article a few months back summarizing research attempting to explain the apparent contradiction that regular marijuana smokers don't have higher than normal cancer rates, and nothing approaching the cancer rates of cigarette smokers. Apparently, some researchers are speculating that antioxidants from the marijuana counteract the carcinogens in the burning cigarette. I'd love to find that article.
Dennis used the phrase confirmation bias and I think that's a very apt way to summarize much of the marijuana research to date. When you construe the situation as a "war on drugs" and demand research to sustain your side in this "war", it shouldn't be surprising that some of the research ends up one-sided.
Incidentally, the U.S. now has the world's largest prison population (http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/one-in-32-behind-bars-on-probation-or/20061129231209990014?cid=2194), with 7 million Americans or 1 in 32 in jail. Between 1995 and 2003, inmates imprisoned for drug offenses constituted 49% of the drug population. You can draw a direct line between the lies promulgated about pot in particular and drug use in general and the epic level of dysfunction in the U.S. prison system.
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I have known a handful of people who got "hooked" on pot. You know why? They were mentally infirm losers to begin with. Pot is not physically addictive, it's mentally addictive. The kind of people who get hooked on pot are the kind of people who can get hooked on anything because they're emotional cripples who need something to either dull the pain of their meaningless existance or fill the void left by something they're lacking (Nine times out of ten, that something is a fucking personality or they've waited too long between fucking ICP releases).
Alcohol, on the other hand, is physically addictive. You can develop a chemical dependance on it if you have the genetic inclination.
Yes, in a complete vacuum, pot is worse for you. One joint is going to be more unhealthy than one beer because you're depriving your brain of oxygen for a minute and inhaling something that isn't air (Though one joint is less harmful than one cigarette). The thing is, how the fuck often do you see someone drink "just one beer?" The calming and enjoyment effect of one joint would take you close to a dozen beers to emulate and a case of beer is definitely worse for your body as a whole than a single joint. A joint will harm your lungs slightly and have a minor chemical effect on your brain that will only have any lasting effects if you abuse it, which is the same as anything. Abusing caffeine will fuck you up about as bad, too much water can fuck up your bladder, sugar will harm you if you have too much. A case of beer, on the other hand, will fuck with your brain, your liver, your stomache and your circulatory system. You can also drink yourself to death, you cannot smoke yourself to death. You'd long since pass out before you could inhale the amount of pot it would take to somehow overdose on marijuana. One bad night of drinking can kill you or leave you brain damaged, though. The only times you run into shit with pot is when you get something laced with a harder drug and that's a different animal entirely and completely irrelevant to the discussion.
You can keep your studies for all I care. I've tried both. I've thrown up plenty from drinking, I've had many my share of hangovers, but I've never even SEEN a bad experience with pot. If you wanna tell me that pot is worse than me for alcohol I say you put up or shut up, try it and then tell me I'm wrong.
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It's true that an addictive personality will find something to get addicted to. A disproportionate number of overeaters who get gastric bypass surgery become alcoholics, gambling addicts, and obsessive forum surfers with really high post counts (probably).
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just to add to jon's point: the current estimate of how much pot you'd have to smoke in order to induce a lethal response is 100 pounds per minute, for 15 minutes straight. obviously this is not physically possible.
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I would like it noted that despite my comparrisons, I will be getting myself drunk tonight.
I know it's bad for me, I just don't really give a shit.
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Tommy, I will bet you $500 that you cannot smoke yourself to death on marijuana. Shit, what've you got to lose? With the American economy as it is, you're only losing like 1/400th of your paycheck if you lose.
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Pilsner raised a good point: if marijuana were recognized for what it is--a relatively harmless mind-altering substance, as opposed to the potentially devastating (mentally, physically and socially) alcohol--the problem of prison over-crowding would cease to be a factor.
I can't say--and frankly I don't think anyone can--that either side of this argument is flat out right or wrong. But a large proportion ofl the evidence, both official and anectodal, points to alarmism of the type encouraged by Switchblade being unfounded and baseless.
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A disproportionate number of overeaters who get gastric bypass surgery become... obsessive forum surfers with really high post counts
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Switchblade:
Just the first few articles/sites I found about doctors taking kickbacks from drug companies, and drug companies being more interested in sales than patient well being.
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_ethbio_prescript.htm
http://www.pharmaceutical-kickbacks.com/
http://www.naturalnews.com/001298.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/business/09anemia.html?partner=MW_CUSTOM
I wish this sort of thing didn't happen, but there is simply far too much money to be made in the health care business for corruption not to take place. Although not directly related to kickbacks, if you want proof that health care providers do not always act in the best interest of their patients, and are even grossly negligent, look no further than the recent case where care providers in numerous Nevada clinics used the same IV needles on many different patients. Somehow I doubt an action that causes an infection of Hepatitis C to a patient counts as being in their best medical interest. It may not be a case of kickbacks, but it goes to show that expecting a business to be moral simply because it ought to be is niave.
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Tommy, I will bet you $500 that you cannot smoke yourself to death on marijuana. Shit, what've you got to lose? With the American economy as it is, you're only losing like 1/400th of your paycheck if you lose.
Although by smoking 100 pounds every minute, you'd be literally burning a few hundred thousand dollars per minute.
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Shit, what've you got to lose? With the American economy as it is, you're only losing like 1/400th of your paycheck if you lose.
On the other hand, if he wins he dies.
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Yeah, and?
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On the other hand, if he wins he dies.
but $500 sure would buy a really nice bouquet for his funeral.
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I used to have some cigars.
But I took them to a 1920s seance and never saw them again. I think the ghost stole them.
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If you wanna tell me that pot is worse than me for alcohol I say you put up or shut up, try it and then tell me I'm wrong.
Guess I'm shutting up, then. I'm not about to try it just to prove a point.
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If you're willing to downgrade to cigars I think we can compromise on Captain 1920s though....
Depending on the cigar, that isn't necessarily a downgrade. I'll take it, mate.
I enjoyed smoking weed last summer. Smoking weed was fun. Holy fuck was I ever hungry! Smoking weed is probably good for me in that respect, because I could stand to gain about 20 kilos of weight.
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I do not and will probably never do pot.
The idea that it's less safe than alcohol, one of the biggest killers in the United States, is pretty much hilariously dumb. It's not safe to have on your person because you'll go to jail for carrying a fucking plant and you are a fucking idiot if you are constantly high, a condition you probably started with before the marijuana ever touched you. That's about as far as it goes.
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I do not and will probably never do pot.
The idea that it's less safe than alcohol, one of the biggest killers in the United States, is pretty much hilariously dumb.
See, this is the problem - Alcohol gets you killed quickly, weed doesn't. What it instead does is cause long-term health problems that don't show up until years or even decades later. I'd wager that the percentage of cancer-related deaths that were ultimately triggered by marijuana use is surprisingly high, for example.
The thing is, this serves to camouflage the risk it poses. Because it's not an immediate and obvious cause of death, it's easy to overlook.
Besides (this is purely my opinion this time, I have little to no evidence to back it up) I reckon that the major reason that alcohol is such a big cause of death in the States is at least partially founded in the country's attitude towards it. If you treat Alcohol as this Big Bad Scary Thing that should be avoided, Then the attitude towards it shifts. Round here, a single beer at lunchtime is nothing out of the ordinary (assuming you're having it as part of a meal, at least). On the other hand, from what I gather in certain social circles in the US, drinking quite often revolves around getting as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. I bet if you study the demographic of alcohol-related deaths, you'll discover a pattern - the vast majority will be in their early 20's, having only just been introduced to legal drinking, been thrust in at the deep end, and wound up doing something very dumb (like drinking waaaay too much) because they just didn't know how to cope.
Alcohol generally only kills people because they get stupid when they drink too much of it. That's not an inherent flaw with the drink, rather the flaw belongs to the way people treat the drink and handle its effects. Weed, on the other hand, does Bad Stuff to you even when you don't have a lot of it. It won't (usually) make you do stupid stuff, sure, but it will inevitably affect your health in the long term - Alcohol only does that if you don't handle it responsibly and drink far too much.
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You'd lose that wager on the cancer association, unless you've got evidence to refute the study onewheelwizard already cited which found no correlation between marijuana use and cancer rates and even a slight indication of it having a positive effect.
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I find that particular revelation rather surprising, if I'm honest. The correlation between smoking and cancer is very well-established by now. Yes, okay, there's a different plant involved, but that doesn't change the fact that you're incinerating it, sucking the smoke, half-burnt residue, carbon monoxide and god-knows-what-else into your lungs and breathing it back out.
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Marijuana. Tobacco. One of these things is still legal. It's not the less deadly one.
The illegalization of marijuana was a political maneuver starting in the southwestern United States during Prohibition and the Great Depression to have an excuse to arrest and deport Mexican migrant workers. Since it's much cheaper to grow and make than alcohol, poor people an immigrants would grow it and smoke it as an alternative to alcohol to relax. By criminalizing it, it allowed for the governments of these states to take action against them. [Source: the goddamned History Channel of all places]
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I do not do pot and have no desire to do pot, but when compared to cigarettes and alcohol, it's the safest of all three. Yeah, you're smoking it so of course it'll do lung damage and it makes you high so it'll kill some brain cells, but seriously it is the safest buzz out there. Alcohol can kill your liver and you can easily get alcohol poisoning. Cigarettes can ruin your lungs and give you various cancers of the lungs, throat, and mouth. I have yet to meet someone who chain smokes pot. Seriously. Yes it's a drug and it's not necessarily good for you (though I see it good for people with cancer), but I think it's one of the least harmful things you could do to your body.
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When people say "I don't do pot" I always laugh because that is like someone saying "I don't do cigarettes" or "I don't do apples" because you eat an apple and you smoke pot you don't do pot.
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I don't do drugs. Better?
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Yes, much. Thanks!
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Cookie dough is so disgusting to eat raw but for some reason I can't stop.
If I get fat because of this, do you think I can somehow sue marijuana?
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It's certainly one of the less harmful things you can do to your body, but it can be pretty seriously harmful in terms of psychological-behavioral effects. I've known a lot of people who have grown more withdrawn, more lazy, more apathetic, and more selfish directly correlated to their growing pot smoking habit :/ Tobacco generally doesn't interrupt your daily activities like that or cause any real changes to your general behaviors, and as such, I would argue that in short term usage at least it's definitely the least dangerous of the three.
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Yes it does. Have you seen someone when they get pretty attached to their cigarettes and can't have one when they really want one? It can make people neurotic, jumpy, and bitchy. It gets to a point where it stops being a leisure activity and turns into a necessity, just like caffeine, alcohol, and other drugs will cause down the line. Though my case wasn't as bad as Jon's, I did have a caffeine addiction and I was sluggish and bitchy until I had caffeine in the morning and through out the day. When I finally had a panic attack because of it, I cut it out of my diet until I didn't need it anymore. I do drink caffeinated stuff now, but not nearly as much as I did my 1st year of college.
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That actually served perfectly to remind me that I want a cigarette, but I don't want to go get one.
Dillemma!
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I can testify as entirely anecdotal evidence that I am so much more of a cunt when I try to quit caffeine or cigarettes than I am when I quit smoking pot but then again I have a legendary dependence on them whereas weed is just some shit I smoke whenever I have some spare time which is not very often and then I write crazy run on sentences and listen to Digitalism.
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I'd suggest that we lay off; we're dangerously close to - or past - turning this into a political debate.
I think we can pretty much agree to disagree:
In the interests of completeness sake, the number one link from Google searching for "Long-term effects of Marijuana use" is to (link offsite) http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/marijuana.html (http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/marijuana.html), which appears to me to contradict a number of onewheelwizzard's statements about the risks of marijuana use.
It includes a conclusion that it has addictive potential; can cause respiratory illness; increased the risk of certain cancers; and, unsusprisingly, could have negative effects on learning and social behavior. It includes citations to each study.
This isn't surprising; as anyone knows, in science, different studies are going to get different results. I have no idea how to tell which sources are government propaganda and which are valid, or which studies cited on either side of the argument might have had significant biases concealed in them. Onewheelwizzard has a pro-psychadelics bias which might cloud his judgment (No insult intended - I don't know him!) just as much as a drug-war-funded government propaganda site may be biased. I can't tell.
That's why I'd suggest we leave it at "agree to disagree".
. . . .
Errata from elsewhere in the thread:
My personal choice aside, I support legalization, whether its come across that way or not. I've got an almost libertarian view on the issue; I can't see why there should be any legal distinction between tobacco, alchohol, and marijuana. I'd really like to see increased literature on it.
. . . .
For anybody who believe that the medical profession doesn't have kickbacks happening, I've seen it in action from a patient's perspective:
Went to a doctor I had not previously seen before, for assistance with some RSI pain. While waiting for him to enter the room, I noticed that he had posters, pens, and pamphlets all touting a prescription pain medication, Celerex. (sp?)
I described what I was taking for it (over-the counter naproxen sodium) which I reported to him was typically effective for me; what I wanted was a physical therapy referral.
He insisted on writing me a prescription for Celerex.
When I asked him why I should switch, he gave me a very vague, "Well, sometimes, pain medications can become less effective over time."
I believe to this day that he was accepting some form of compensation from the makers of the drug in question; of course, I cannot prove it - but I certainly never went back to him, either.
. . . .
Some one should create a Law similar to Godwin's Law. Instead of nazis references, it could mention that the longer a discussion progresses the higher the chance that some one will use Wikipedia to support their point. Now, we just need a name for it.
Uh, clearly this is now Cam's Law. 8-)
. . . .
Okay: next poster up, what's our new topic?
Make it something good!
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Who the fuck are you and why are you trying to change the subject of this thread.
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...and listen to Digitalism.
Brett you are addicted to hipster dance music and no matter how good it makes you feel now it'll come back to bite you later.
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I can't stop doing souless hipster dance music
I am getting the shakes something fierce
In my boo-tay
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I'LL HELP YOU
(http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000005IU1.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)
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And now we come back full circle to old men again.
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DRUGS
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PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
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Guys why arnt you on Gabbly? it is painfully empty.
Also WOO STUFF EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT IN THIS THREAD
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Further comments.
First of all, I think it would be pretty ridiculous to uphold the inhalation of hot carbonized vegetable particulates as a healthy activity. It's not healthy to smoke anything. The possibility that THC might actually have a preventative effect on lung cancer definitely warrants further study but hasn't been confirmed, although the results of the most recent research are a pretty telling exoneration of marijuana from a carcinogenic standpoint.
Oh, and marijuana does not need to be smoked. Vaporization is a substantial improvement from the point of view of the lungs, and choosing to cook with it and bypass the respiratory system altogether can effectively reduce negative health effects to nil (although eating pot has been known to fuck people who are not careful completely out of their heads for hours on end ... it's not hard to moderate dosage but if you somehow utterly fail and eat way more pot food than you should, you're not going to come down for the better part of a full day.)
I honestly don't believe that long-term psychological effects of marijuana are generalizable to any extent. Some people will become losers and slobs. Some people will just tend to be more artsy. There's no way to tell whether any given person will react well to the prospect of regular usage ... and even those who opt for heavy and regular use are sometimes also extremely productive and mentally active people (at least in my experience). I don't think it could reasonably be said that someone who smoked a joint a day every day for 5 years would be the same afterwards, but I also don't think it could be reasonably said that there is any way in which they would be reliably and measurably worse off for it. Some people probably would. Others wouldn't.
Simply put, weed's really not something to worry about. You are not going to suffer any serious health problems, short-term or long-term, if you use it in any kind of moderation (and especially not if you vaporize or eat it). You shouldn't get worried about your friends if they use it, unless you have a deep and persisting mistrust of their ability to take any kind of reasonable care of their life. It's not a big deal and there are so many more damaging habits out there that anyone whose worst vice is that they are always smoking weed is probably better off than anyone who went that deep into just about any other drug.
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I got a goat for my birthday once.
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Simply put, weed's really not something to worry about. You are not going to suffer any serious health problems, short-term or long-term, if you use it in any kind of moderation (and especially not if you vaporize or eat it). You shouldn't get worried about your friends if they use it, unless you have a deep and persisting mistrust of their ability to take any kind of reasonable care of their life. It's not a big deal and there are so many more damaging habits out there that anyone whose worst vice is that they are always smoking weed is probably better off than anyone who went that deep into just about any other drug.
Well said. I think you just made the same point about weed as I was trying to make about alcohol, actually.
Still, if one of them is legal and one of them is not, I know which one i'm going to stick to. For me, it's not worth the risk of being caught and given a criminal record just for the sake of trying something different, when I can enjoy a perfectly legal beer instead.
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DRUGS
PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
THE JEWS
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DRUGS
PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
THE JEWS
The diamond trade!
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I feel you guys are missing the true essence of this thread somewhat.
Or am I in fact the one who is missing the true essence of this thread?
It's a conundrum indeed.
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Guys my boogers are making my nose feel weird. What should I do?
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When people say "I don't do pot" I always laugh because that is like someone saying "I don't do cigarettes" or "I don't do apples" because you eat an apple and you smoke pot you don't do pot.
DISAGREEMENT
You can do tobacco because there are many ways to partake in it. You can do marijuana for the same reason, though admittedly for either smoking is the most common option. Personally, if I ever did marijuana, I'd be far more likely to eat some baked goods rather than smoke it.
Alternatively, you can really only eat apples.
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Lies!
You can also chuck them at shit and they explode!
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Primary school taught me they make amusing alternatives to footballs.
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This might just seem silly but I know people who swear by apples as ... instruments for smoking weed.
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Apple bongs are a childish novelty.
Also the reason saying you do weed sounds so ridiculous is that it is such a vague verb that it doesn't really give any context whatsover to the noun. I mean if you really wanted to say "I partake in marijuana in several different forms depending on my mood" you can always just say "I grill like a mad sucker" and people will understand you.
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Onewheelwizard, I want to thank you for your eloquent, well researched posts on this topic. They've led me, finally, to the conclusion that my personal aversion to weed is not at all a matter of worry about health concerns or what it might do to my ability to make good decisions or how it might affect me emotionally (and that it never really was about any of those things, though I sometimes told myself as much). Instead, it's for these two reasons:
(1) My only experience with weed to date was when I was thirteen and accidentally ate a pot cookie, which my parents had left unmarked in the freezer. I completely freaked out, because I had an appointment with my optometrist within an hour, and I was sure that it was going to be completely obvious when he looked at my eyes. My dad told me to drink a bunch of milk to counter the effects; I did and subsequently felt nauseous (probably because of all the milk). Thus, I associate pot intake with freaking out and stomach aches. Whoops!
(2) I really don't like the way it smells when smoked, just as I don't like the smell of gardenias or cabbage or bologna (and I've smelled weed pretty much daily for about ten years).
Thus, it's okay with me that my boyfriend gets high and my friends all get high and my parents get high. Good for them!
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I wonder what a pot Falafel would taste like.
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If falafel is what I think it is, it'd probably taste the same as a normal falafel. Those things are very flavourful.
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I would eat weed-laced strawberry yogurt. Strawberry yogurt is delicious.
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Man, your dad must have been so high to think that drinking milk would make you less stoned.
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This thread has made me want to try pot, which I can honestly say has never held an interest for me.
There are 3 reasons I don't want to:
1) I cannot bear the smell of the smoke. tobacco or weed regardless, it makes me physically ill.
2) I do not even like the feeling of being drunk (hence why i don't really drink), I like to be in control of myself. this is probably the biggest issue.
3) I don't like things being illegal! i don't let my boyfirend smoke pot because well, it would make me ill, but also because I live in this bizzarre fear of him being arrested.
Man, I make too many problems for everything.
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I never found pot to be very much fun to be honest. Mostly, it just made me sit there grinning like an idiot and laughing about stupid things. My old roomie always told me I needed to try it more often to really experience what it can do, but it just never impressed me enough to continue. Not having ever been a smoker, I never had much fun breathing smoke either. Considering that pot is illegal, I'd rather be using a more fun drug for the risk, like morphine. IMO nothing beats liquid morphine and some valium. Except maybe a gin and tonic with morphine in it.
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2) I do not even like the feeling of being drunk (hence why i don't really drink), I like to be in control of myself. this is probably the biggest issue.
That's why I don't drink much either. I'm not about to give up my control over my body and my actions, for anything. That's why I prefer pot, though I don't drink or smoke on anything resembling a regular basis. Like I said before, at least when you're high on pot you maintain some kind of wherewithal and rational thought process. The same's not true for being drunk off your ass.
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2) I do not even like the feeling of being drunk
Completely different feeling. When you're drunk, you don't know how fucked up you are. When you're high, you know damn well that you're high.
An interesting effect that weed had on me was that you feel like you've got Parkinson's disease, but you really aren't shaking at all. I found that out when I was pouring milk over my cereal afterward (the first of three huge bowls, heh). I was absurdly careful while I was pouring because OH FUCK I CAN'T HOLD THE CARTON STEADY WHAT AM I GOING TO DO.
I think that's actually what made me feel like I was so hungry, because I was shaking like I hadn't eaten for an entire week or something.
I never found pot to be very much fun to be honest. Mostly, it just made me sit there grinning like an idiot and laughing about stupid things.
Grinning and laughing are fun, I dunno what you consider to be fun.
I can tell you this much: If my friend wants to smoke after I get off work, I probably will. And when we do, we will eat a metric fuckton. And when I do, I will finally gain weight. If it works for people with cancer (it does, I've seen it), it can work for me!
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When you're drunk, you don't know how fucked up you are.
Don't you? I sure as hell do. It's a subtle combination of the way my vision goes fuzzy, my reaction times drop, my sense of balance gets thrown off and I have to concentrate to hear people properly. On the plus side, I relax, my sense of humour improves and there's a constant fizzy feeling at the back of my head.
It's like sensory deprivation but in a good way.
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If you consider being stupid good. Like I said before I enjoy a couple of drinks sometimes, at a social gathering or with friends, which helps me be more extroverted. Being drunk means you can't really think, certainly not in a logical and usual way, and can't control your body very well.
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Since I still have a degree of control when I drink, as I do not push my limit, I am like Switchblade. I can tell exactly how drunk I am by how much things make me laugh and how slow my motor skills become. It's not that my brain stops working, because I still make conscious decisions. Like when I was drunk and jumped into the pool fully clothed (everyone else was naked and I didn't want to get naked), I had enough sense to take off my shoes and belt, because I didn't want the metal on my belt to rust. In retrospect, the belt didn't make much sense, but the shoes bit did.
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Alternatively, you can really only eat apples.
Lies.
I drink them all the time.
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I'll join my voice to those saying that pot doesn't remove your control over yourself nearly as much as alcohol.
From a standpoint of physical coordination, you have to be REALLY stoned before you start losing motor control. Like, more stoned than is even close to reasonable. It barely ever happens, in my experience. Drunk people are often liable to at least be clumsy, and sometimes be outright falling over themselves, but the only way I've seen people get that stoned is by eating too many brownies, and that generally just results in being locked to the couch anyway. You're almost certainly not going to accidentally injure yourself (and I know there are several people here who have stories about doing that while drunk, I certainly do).
A step up from simple motor control is fine-tuned coordination (like riding a bike or driving a car) and again, being stoned doesn't impair you nearly as much as being drunk. I can ride a unicycle with one foot while stoned completely out of my head, and I can barely get on the thing while drunk. I'm also OK with riding shotgun with a stoned driver ... I've been driven around by stoned friends on many occasions, and they and just about everyone else I've ever talked to about it says that being high just makes you concentrate more. Here's a video that gives a good perspective on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJx0GqR3P_o
Somehow, though, I don't think this is necessarily what people are worried about when they talk about "losing control of themselves" ... enough people have horror stories about making huge mistakes while under the influence that any sort of inebriation or intoxication suggests to people that they might do something they will regret if they alter their mind. Clearly, saying that this will always happen is as foolish as saying that it will never happen ... but again, in my personal experience, weed doesn't impair judgment the same way alcohol does. I mean, it is capable of reducing inhibitions, in a certain way. But I wouldn't characterize it the same way. It's definitely a personal thing, so I'm not going to say anything definite, but ... well, I can't remember any time off the top of my head when I or anyone I know has looked back at a terrible decision thinking "Oh man, I can't believe I did that ... I was so stoned, I didn't know what was going on, what was I thinking?" I think it's safe to say that pot does not cloud a person's judgment to any unsettling, unsafe, or scary extent, but your mileage may vary, so it's a good idea to be in a familiar setting and around people you trust if you're going to smoke or otherwise ingest weed, at least until you're comfortable with what being stoned is like.
Basically, if you are thinking about using THC to alter your mind, here is what you can probably expect: disturbance in time perception, a higher sensitivity for the absurd, a heightened appreciation for art and music (or, to use less loaded language, a tendency to let yourself focus on a piece or art or music rather more exclusively and intently than you otherwise would ... whether this is "appreciation" obviously depends on whether or not you actually enjoy what you're paying attention to), some muddling of the thoughts (or alternately, increased clarity, depending on what you're thinking about), and some interesting sensory feelings that will almost certainly be pleasant (feeling "floaty" is common). It can act as a social lubricant and make your more talky and friendly, or it can draw you inward and just make you think a lot and not really interact with people very much ... a lot of people don't like it because they tend to react in the latter fashion, but I rather like smoking on my own and enjoying that aspect of it, especially right before bed. People also say that pot makes you paranoid, which I have only found to be true in a very small minority of situations, but it's certainly possible (especially if you're not really familiar with the drug) ... overall I'd call it a bit of a myth but every so often I find a little truth to it.
Things not to expect: blurry vision, slurred speech, poor motor control, and a hangover. You might make just as much of a fool of yourself as if you were drunk, but it'll be a much safer and friendlier foolishness (you probably won't be really offensive without realizing it, just really silly) and you'll probably be quite conscious of how silly you look and laugh along with everyone.
Maybe this will help people understand why so many folks prefer weed to alcohol. I certainly do.
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No no no no no no. Seriously guys, please do not get into cars with stoned drivers, or let your friends drive around stoned, (British youtube videos aside). It's totally beside the point here whether or not it's worse or different or whatever than other intoxicants, it's still an intoxicant that pretty manifestly interferes with your ability to operate heavy machinery. Please, please do not do this :|
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Yeah... maybe you are right, onewheel, but I am not letting someone I know to be under the influence of just about anything drive me around, whether it is alcohol, weed, hallucinogens (definitely not hallucinogens), or even just being too tired. I might be more careful than I need to be, but I would rather be more careful than I need to be than not careful enough.
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I know better than to get into a car with someone who's been drinking, and there was one time that I was forced into a situation in which I was in a car and everyone including the driver was tripping, and that was a terrible idea as well and we all knew it and we all breathed a huge collective sigh of relief when we got home and agreed never to do anything like it again. Never do either of those things, ever. Also, I would actually say that sleep deprivation is considerably more dangerous than marijuana when it comes to driving, so avoid that too.
But in all seriousness! Maybe I just hang out with a lot of huge stoners (true story, come to think of it) but in my experience, someone who has been smoking pot (and nothing else) is generally good to drive (and furthermore, will know if they're not). This is assuming I trust their driving skill to begin with! Some people I know can't drive no matter what. But if I trust someone to drive safely under normal circumstances, and I have recently smoked with them, and both of us have a good idea of how altered we are, and my trustworthy friend tells me "I am capable of driving you wherever we need to go, despite that joint we just smoked," and I say "Are you sure?" and they say "Yes, I am sure," I will get in the car with them.
I definitely think people need to have smoked a lot of weed in their life before they can know that they're good to drive after smoking. If you don't have a lot of familiarity with being high, I wouldn't trust you to operate machinery in that state. But people who smoke a lot as part of their lifestyle are generally quite comfortable with being stoned in general and it really does not interfere with their ability to function completely normally. I think you'd be absolutely amazed at the number of people who drive around safely after (or even during) smoking weed. Yes, there are incidents in which someone has smoked AND drank, or a 17-year-old who has only been high once or twice smokes too much, and in situations like that, the driver is absolutely impaired to the point of being a danger on the road. But for the most part, stoned drivers almost unanimously drive more slowly and carefully and with more intent focus than sober drivers. I've been passed too many joints in too many passenger seats to make a blanket statement saying that all stoned people are incapable of driving safely. Shit, I've known people who can roll, light, and smoke a joint while driving and STILL drive better than most people I know throughout the whole process.
Basically the biggest risk in driving stoned is getting lost. Obeying traffic laws correctly and not crashing into anything won't be hard, but knowing where you're going might be a challenge. (Again, though, I can't stress enough that this only becomes true through a long history of being comfortable with being high. Sure, there are people who are high all day long from the moment they wake up and still drive to work every day without even the slightest trouble, but the reason they can drive high without trouble is that they're high so often. You could reasonably say that the safety of driving stoned is a direct function of the THC tolerance of the driver.)
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I'm just passing on what I've been told, by people and sources that I trust implicitly (and with good reason), and what I've experienced for myself. Although you can't cite anecdotal evidence in a research paper, it really ought not to be discounted in this kind of a discussion because it's being used to underpin valid points.
My own experience and research tells me that Marijuana is Bad, Alcohol is Not Bad (it's not necessarily Good, but few things are). Clearly you have arrived at a different conclusion, and I suspect that there's little I can do to change your mind.
Switchblade, supporting an argument on anecdotal evidence is like trying to float a pebble on water. Sure, if you give it enough spin in the right direction, you can make it skip along the surface for a while, but it eventually sinks.
Notice how your trust in your sources is the reason you think we can't discount your points, but think more on it: how can you expect us to have similar trust in you? Your own experience is a fine reason to make a decision for yourself, but I, for one, know that personal experiences are subject to self-deception (rationalizing) and illusion.
It's not that you can't change my mind, but that my mind won't be changed just because you say so. You'll need some real evidence.
You've misinterpreted me here, I'm afraid. I was actually refuting the argument that medical groups are biased by pharmaceutical corporations giving them money, not supporting it. My argument was "Even if that is the case, it cannot be the case in this situation because there is no drug for them to push that has any effect". Maybe the tone was cynical, but it certainly wasn't meant to be in support of the statement that
If you think doctors don't push drugs to get money from big pharmaceutical companies then you're living in imaginary land my friend. At least here in the U.S. medical organizations and care providers get BIG MONEY for pushing certain drugs.
.
I agree with you, dennis, that this statement is incredibly cynical and insulting to the profession of medicine.
What are you afraid of?
Anyway, my apologies, I did misinterpret your statement.
See, this is the problem - Alcohol gets you killed quickly, weed doesn't. What it instead does is cause long-term health problems that don't show up until years or even decades later. I'd wager that the percentage of cancer-related deaths that were ultimately triggered by marijuana use is surprisingly high, for example.
The thing is, this serves to camouflage the risk it poses. Because it's not an immediate and obvious cause of death, it's easy to overlook.
It's also easy to pretend that cannabis has long-term risks that haven't come up yet. Also, if alcohol kills you quickly, why is alcohol "Not Bad"?
Besides (this is purely my opinion this time, I have little to no evidence to back it up)
It's been your opinion (and the opinions that you are repeating, there isn't really a difference) this whole time!
I reckon that the major reason that alcohol is such a big cause of death in the States is at least partially founded in the country's attitude towards it. If you treat Alcohol as this Big Bad Scary Thing that should be avoided, Then the attitude towards it shifts. Round here, a single beer at lunchtime is nothing out of the ordinary (assuming you're having it as part of a meal, at least). On the other hand, from what I gather in certain social circles in the US, drinking quite often revolves around getting as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. I bet if you study the demographic of alcohol-related deaths, you'll discover a pattern - the vast majority will be in their early 20's, having only just been introduced to legal drinking, been thrust in at the deep end, and wound up doing something very dumb (like drinking waaaay too much) because they just didn't know how to cope.
Binge drinking happens everywhere.
Alcohol generally only kills people because they get stupid when they drink too much of it. That's not an inherent flaw with the drink, rather the flaw belongs to the way people treat the drink and handle its effects. Weed, on the other hand, does Bad Stuff to you even when you don't have a lot of it. It won't (usually) make you do stupid stuff, sure, but it will inevitably affect your health in the long term - Alcohol only does that if you don't handle it responsibly and drink far too much.
Alcohol will kill people directly if they drink too much of it. It's called alcohol poisoning and it makes up a large fraction of alcohol-related deaths. This is not to mention diseases like cirrhosis of the liver which can be caused by alcohol, and other less obvious damage caused by the drug.
True, every time cannabis is smoked, some tar is deposited in the lungs, your teeth get a little dirtier, and you expose yourself to a lot of possibly nasty chemicals. However, these are the negative health effects of smoking, which is only one of the many ways cannabis may be used. I have no problem with the statement that smoking causes health problems. It does.
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Seriously guys, please do not get into cars with stoned drivers
Hahaha too late. I was stoned myself though, and I was able to pay attention to the road as a passenger, so eh. That was the funniest damn car ride ever, though. We talked about politics, specifically about how all the world's problems could be solved with a single nuke to Moscow.
When you're drunk all you talk about is "fuiosjerimfashitfuck im drunkoklpok fuckfkijng haell i cant stasnd uop okhsretmgggggaerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"
When you're drunk, you don't know how fucked up you are.
Don't you? I sure as hell do. It's a subtle combination of the way my vision goes fuzzy, my reaction times drop, my sense of balance gets thrown off and I have to concentrate to hear people properly.
Oh, no, I know I am fucked up, I'm not saying that. I just don't know how fucked up I truly am until the next day. Whereas when I got high (for some reason I stayed that way for 15 hours, holy fuck), I was still high at work, but I was able to function properly. I could work with the fry vat, I could do anything normally, I just was a lot more grinny than usual. Which turned out to work wonders on my drive-thru customers, because they were like "Well you're mighty chipper today!" and it cheered them up.
This clearly means that everybody who works in the service industry should go to work high, amirite
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Like many in this thread, I don't consume pot because of its illegality. The couple of times that I did get high, I certainly didn't find any thing worth going to jail or losing a job over. I was in a mellow mood, giggled a lot, got hungry, ate a lot, and then went to sleep. In fact, both times, in the middle of being high, I got tired of it and wanted it to wear off. Still, I think it should be legalized and treated exactly very, very similar to alcohol. Then, it would provide another cash crop, a new source of taxes, and could be used medically.
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I'd suggest that we lay off; we're dangerously close to - or past - turning this into a political debate.
I think we can pretty much agree to disagree:
blah blah fucking balh blah hurrrr waste of space
There are few things that annoy me more than people suggesting we let a subject die or agree to disagree and THEN spout their opinion. Seriously, there's no more blatant and shallow attempt at getting in one's word and then pretending you're the bigger man for wanting to "move on." Because of that, I skipped over much of your post.
The other reason I skipped most of it is because you tried to justify the pot is bad issue by linking to a site with a dot gov. Seriously, you want me to take the word of a government run sight on whether or not pot is bad for me? El oh fucking el.
Anyways, the main crux of the argument from my point of view:
If you don't wanna smoke pot, don't smoke pot. If you don't like pot, cool. If you don't see the upside as being worth the trouble, cool. If you don't wanna fuck with John Law, cool. If you are avoiding pot on a principle relating to it being scary or bad for you, but you drink? Yeah, I probably think you're kind of a putz.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be in control of your body and maintain peak health. On the other hand, if you're basing your entire decision on the basis of "drugs are bad, m'kay," then you're basing your decision on a load of BULKSHIT. Especially if you drink. If you enjoy drinking and don't see it as exceptionally harmful for your body, avoiding pot on because you think it's bad for you makes you an absolute tit.
Vaguely related, I totally feel Patrick on the "POT OMNOMNOM." I still vividly remember my first experience with pot. It was only about two years ago. I had a few hits off a pipe with my ex and all I could do for the next hour was shovel Cheez-Its. When I finally got up off my ass again, it was to find more food. If you're a fat kid and you don't wanna get fatter, that's a good enough reason to not smoke pot. I've gained like twenty pounds since I started smoking and drinking. On the other hand, I was underweight before I started and now I'm fit as a fiddle, so to speak.
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my first experience with pot involved smoking way too much followed by several hours of hallucinations and completely freaking out. the next day i found out it had been laced with pcp. i guess i was maybe 14 at the time.
this is probably the main reason i don't smoke pot anymore but am pretty much okay with anyone else doing it. i've smoked lots since then but it just never sits quite right with me. last year i finally decided to quit altogether since clearly it was kind of a waste of money,
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Yeah, that exact thing happened to some friends of mine, but they brought it on themselves. They bought it in from a guy they didn't know in an incredibly sketchy neighborhood.. I've been lucky, really. There's been only two occasions I've gotten pot from people I didn't know and one time it was really good and the other it was really crappy, but never have I had anything laced. The really good pot I bought from a stranger was an occasion of asking for trouble. We bought it off some dude with a really obscure name (I wish I could remember, it was one of those names you know exists but you never meet, like Conrad or something) on a beach in Cape Cod for like fifteen bucks. Other than taking a while to kick in, it was a good time.
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Eugene thinks my 15-hour high was laced weed. I wouldn't know the difference, I've only smoked twice, and the first time I didn't get high at all.
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Sounds that way. I've never had a high last more than a few hours. Fifteen seems a bit ridiculous for standard weed.
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Also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1068625.stm
"However, reaction times to motorway hazards were not significantly affected."
Guys basically being high just makes you really, really careful. And you drive slower than normal.
edit: I still am not advocating driving stoned, just saying it is not the worst thing in the world.
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I've only smoked twice, and the first time I didn't get high at all.
well im pretty sure its normal not to get high the first time
but does anybody know any ways to make sure you get high the first time? ive never smoked before but i know im smoking at the end of the sememster for a silver mt zion and a i wanna make sure i feel it. tips?
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I wouldn't recommend your first time smoking to be out in public. Get some friends together and practice beforehand!
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I've smoked pot a few times, my brother has a pretty regular supply so it's almost always available. I honestly don't believe it is that bad for you and I know it's much better than alcohol and that is coming from someone who is in training as a psychologist. Being high for me just makes me sleepy and giggly. I'm not really all that big on it anymore and I never smoke it during the semester just because I find that it generally leaves me feeling like shit for a couple of days but I reckon it's probably the least dangerous drug available. That said I want nothing to do with anything harder than pot and I don't even like talking to people who take a shitload of drugs (outside of rehabilitation centres which is probably where I will be working for a bit when I finish uni). However I am firmly of the opinion that if you want to take drugs and you have actually done the appropriate research on them then go for your life. I think it's a bad decision but it is of course, yours to make.
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One downside: if you've ever used illegal drugs, you can never be in the FBI or CIA.
Fuck it, I don't wanna be a G-man anyway.
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That is untrue. If they every catch you lying about former drug use, you can be denied the necessary security clearances. Having smoked a joint or two as a kid isn't enough to preclude you from the clearances. In fact, when you're doing your security interview(s) and/or lifestyle poly they look at you pretty funny if you say you've never done drugs. That's a red flag for them right there to dig a little.
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Nah, dude, CIA and FBI clearances are different from regular Fed clearances. I know people with both.
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Nah, dude, CIA and FBI clearances are different from regular Fed clearances. I know people with both.
Well there go my chances of ever becoming a CIA analyst.
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in response to the sissys who won't get in a car with someone who's stoned from earlier:
i drive home stoned almost every night of the week and i've never had a problem. if anything, i'm more cautious so i'm much safer than normal.
also, i love driving on mushrooms. mushrooms just make me really happy and focused so driving is incredibily easy and enjoyable.
(for the record, i don't drive drunk. that's just bad news.)
as much as i advocate driving stoned, let me say this: if you're new to driving and/or smoking i wouldn't recommend it. it's sort of a strange skill that some people seem to possess and others don't so be careful because it's not for everyone.
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Oh, yeah. Some people totally possess the skill to drive drunk. They tell me it's okay they do it all the time. Never killed anyone, dangit.
Wait, hold on. Still bullshit. Even when you substitute alcohol with pot or mushrooms (jesus christ, really?).
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I sat there in DARE class in elementary school and went 'oh damn, I'll never do drugs or drink anything or get in a car with someone who drank!'
And yet here I am, smoking pot and drinking socially, and I ride in cars with people who have been drinking on a pretty regular basis.
I know the drunk driver part is unintelligent, but some of you are seriously still stuck in scare-tactic DARE-land.
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Or people who would rather not end up being that dude on stage in elementary school telling everyone about how he killed a kid while driving under the influence.
People are generally idiots while driving SOBER. I trust no one under the influence of anything with a frickin' CAR, of all things.
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I'd say that driving stoned isn't much better than driving drunk. It can depend entirely on the user. I get wicked drained and tired when I smoke. I'd never get behind the wheel after smoking as I'd be afraid of dozing off at the wheel.
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stuff
Bravo, you're admitting that you're regularly committing a gross misdemeanor. In writing. In a medium you don't have control of. You idiot.
RCW 46.61.502
Driving under the influence.
(1) A person is guilty of driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug if the person drives a vehicle within this state:
(a) And the person has, within two hours after driving, an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher as shown by analysis of the person's breath or blood made under RCW 46.61.506; or
(b) While the person is under the influence of or affected by intoxicating liquor or any drug; or
(c) While the person is under the combined influence of or affected by intoxicating liquor and any drug.
(2) The fact that a person charged with a violation of this section is or has been entitled to use a drug under the laws of this state shall not constitute a defense against a charge of violating this section.
(3) It is an affirmative defense to a violation of subsection (1)(a) of this section which the defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant consumed a sufficient quantity of alcohol after the time of driving and before the administration of an analysis of the person's breath or blood to cause the defendant's alcohol concentration to be 0.08 or more within two hours after driving. The court shall not admit evidence of this defense unless the defendant notifies the prosecution prior to the omnibus or pretrial hearing in the case of the defendant's intent to assert the affirmative defense.
(4) Analyses of blood or breath samples obtained more than two hours after the alleged driving may be used as evidence that within two hours of the alleged driving, a person had an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more in violation of subsection (1)(a) of this section, and in any case in which the analysis shows an alcohol concentration above 0.00 may be used as evidence that a person was under the influence of or affected by intoxicating liquor or any drug in violation of subsection (1)(b) or (c) of this section.
(5) Except as provided in subsection (6) of this section, a violation of this section is a gross misdemeanor.
(6) It is a class C felony punishable under chapter 9.94A RCW, or chapter 13.40 RCW if the person is a juvenile, if: (a) The person has four or more prior offenses within ten years as defined in RCW 46.61.5055; or (b) the person has ever previously been convicted of vehicular homicide while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug, RCW 46.61.520(1)(a), or vehicular assault while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug, RCW 46.61.522(1)(b).
How bad is a gross misdemeanor? It's bad enough.
A gross misdemeanor is a criminal offense for which an adult could be sent to jail for up to one year, pay a fine up to $5,000 or both.
But I'm thinking that the above post is a joke. A joke that you should probably delete.
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Driving after drinking is a completely different thing from driving after smoking. There's really not much of a comparison. Driving after drinking is a much, much, much riskier thing to do. I've done a LOT of things that require extremely fine coordination, multitasking, and constant attention while high. I once face planted just trying to get on a bike while drunk and sported a huge stripe on my cheek for a week. The two forms of inebriation are completely different and drinking is FAR FAR more incapacitating.
I'd balk at driving on psychedelics, though ... if I was stranded somewhere and the only person who could drive me home was tripping (which has happened once, as I mentioned), I'd probably get in the car, but it would have to be an absolute last resort. Biking on psychedelics is different! I'm really comfortable on a bike and tripping makes it way more fun. But driving, not so much. I might learn in future years that driving on low doses is relatively OK, but it's really not something I want to stick my neck out to try.
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I sat there in DARE class in elementary school and went 'oh damn, I'll never do drugs or drink anything or get in a car with someone who drank!'
And yet here I am, smoking pot and drinking socially, and I ride in cars with people who have been drinking on a pretty regular basis.
I know the drunk driver part is unintelligent, but some of you are seriously still stuck in scare-tactic DARE-land.
LOL I AM A CHILD BECAUSE I DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO DIE
35% of all car related fatalities in my state are drunk drivers. It's horrifying when I drive between Socorro and Albuquerque and there's basically a cross next to the road every two miles.
I am reasonably paranoid, I think.
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Bravo, you're admitting that you're regularly committing a gross misdemeanor. In writing. In a medium you don't have control of. You idiot.
you're kidding right? if everything anyone ever said on the internet was admissable in court, 90% of America would be fucked. we have this thing where we can claim to have done whatever we want as long as it can't be proven. it's pretty sweet.
ever wonder why rappers don't get arrested for singing about drugs and guns and shit? same reason.
FOR THE RECORD I HAVE NEVER DONE DRUGS EVER. YOU HEAR THAT, AMERICAN GOVERNMENT?!
there.
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America's actually pretty efficient at protecting people from those minor stupidities we all commit once in a while.
For example, did you know that in some states a former employer cannot give a prospective new employer a bad reference unless authorized by the applicant? This comes in very handy if one were to, hypothetically, cuss out the boss's wife/your coworker for fucking something up. If something like that happened, your former employer couldn't legally say they fired you or why you were fired.
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I wasn't calling you a child, and I know perfectly well that driving drunk is a moronic, risky thing to do. However, I do agree with several people's posts here saying that drunk vs stoned are very different. It also varies significantly from person to person, in their general driving skill level and smoking experience.
BUT I would venture the unpopular notion that this also applies a bit to the question of driving under the influence of alcohol. People have varying tolerance levels, varying definitions of 'drunk', varying driving and decision-making skills...
I think it is a little too DARE to blanket-condemn at the same level of horror and indignation someone who has had a few drinks and decides they are safe to drive home versus someone rip-roaring drunk, or a 17-year old with 3 beers in him versus a 47-year old with the same.
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Claiming to have committed a crime does provide probable cause to be investigated for committing said crime, but that really doesn't matter when it comes to something like DUI. No police organization in the country would start an investigation into someone having claimed to have committed DUI. Now, people who claim to be routine drug dealers, or to have committed various acts of assault are pretty stupid. Here in PA there is a 12 year statute of limitations on felonies, so keeping your mouth shut about that sort of thing is smart.
I think the reason rappers aren't always investigated for claiming to have committed crimes is the fact that every time someone like that is arrested it causes a huge media storm. We all know that people with the serious cash to fight criminal charges in America get treated with kid gloves by police organizations. It sucks, but oh well.
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@rgc: While it is true that you're still fine to drive after having a drink at a dinner party, putting things in that way is too granular for such a dire issue. The unfortunate fact is that most people don't think in nuanced terms, only yes/no, so the important message to promulgate is that one shouldn't drink and drive.
Put another way, people who are still fine to drive deciding not to is not a problem, so in this issue it is much better to err on the side of caution in one's rhetoric.
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Claiming to have committed a crime does provide probable cause to be investigated for committing said crime, but that really doesn't matter when it comes to something like DUI. No police organization in the country would start an investigation into someone having claimed to have committed DUI. Now, people who claim to be routine drug dealers, or to have committed various acts of assault are pretty stupid. Here in PA there is a 12 year statute of limitations on felonies, so keeping your mouth shut about that sort of thing is smart.
I think the reason rappers aren't always investigated for claiming to have committed crimes is the fact that every time someone like that is arrested it causes a huge media storm. We all know that people with the serious cash to fight criminal charges in America get treated with kid gloves by police organizations. It sucks, but oh well.
Absolutely, but there could be an investigation if poster were to be involved in an accident. While it's definitely not likely that a pseudonymous post like the above could come back to haunt the poster, it's far from impossible. Given that you get nothing from posting on a forum other than the fleeting satisfaction of killing time and communicating with mostly strangers ... I'm not clear on why this is a good idea.
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See, Manda, I got hit by a drunk driver at 3am the day before Christmas. They tried to pass me and didn't clear the front end of my car, and the roads were wet and I ended up spinning out across 7 lanes of traffic and smashing into the median wall. The other guy hit the wall too, but then he tried to drive off. One of my passengers ended up with a concussion, and my car was totalled.
My aunt was hit by a drunk driver when she was 19 and in college, and she was subsequently in a coma for 6 months and now she is partly paralyzed on one side of her body, has some paralyzed vocal cords, and has tunnel vision and no short term memory. Needless to say, she never graduated, and she cannot really hold down a job, either.
I could have told you before that I would never have gotten into the car with someone who was under the influence of anything, but now? Shit, if the local chapter of SADD didn't require dues I would probably join it. I have written a couple of letters to local congressmen about raising the penalties for DUI. You do not fuck around with this shit. Maybe once you get hit by someone who is enough of a dick to decide to drive drunk you'll understand where we are coming from.
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I'm very sorry for both you and your aunt Katie, the people involved should not have been driving while at that level of intoxication, and it was irresponsible with horrible consequences.
I'm just saying these people did not have a glass of wine at dinner and drive their wife home in time to get the babysitter back to her house on a school night. People should be intelligent enough to know their own limits, and if they are not, the people around them should take responsibility and keep the rest of the public safe. People who DO know their limits should be commended rather than treated like they're running around jabbing little children with AIDS needles.
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Drinking wine or a beer or two with dinner is not the same thing as being intoxicated. The fats affect the way the alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream, and the mere presence of something else in your stomach slows down that absorption. Drinking with a meal does not get you drunk, at least not in the same way, and most people who drink with food are not out to get drunk anyway.
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Yes. The operating word is "drunk". You can drink without becoming drunk.
Drunkeness is a state of impairment. Cannabis and alcohol are different drugs that act on the body in completely different ways. I think it is possible to be impaired on cannabis, but I also think it's possible to use cannabis and not become impaired.
I'm not so sure about blood alcohol thresholds for defining "drunk". There are people who can have a BAC above various legal limits and not be impaired, and people who can have one lower and be highly impaired.
On the other hand, I'm not so sure that giving patrol officer back discretion in judging DUI is a good idea, either.
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@rgc: While it is true that you're still fine to drive after having a drink at a dinner party, putting things in that way is too granular for such a dire issue. The unfortunate fact is that most people don't think in nuanced terms, only yes/no, so the important message to promulgate is that one shouldn't drink and drive.
Put another way, people who are still fine to drive deciding not to is not a problem, so in this issue it is much better to err on the side of caution in one's rhetoric.
This.
Also, what the fuck is wrong with the idea of putting other people's safety over your own desire to prove that you're okay to drive?
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If you're going to be driving, what the fuck is wrong with water? If I ever learn to drive, I certainly won't be taking a 1 ton+ machine that can go fast enough to smash all the bones in a body and wrap itself around a tree if my reactions are slowed and senses are impared, even if it's only a little.
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I frankly don't think it's smart to drive while under the influence of anything, but between the two, pot would be the much safer choice.
I used to see a therapist, during my angsty teen days, and when he was younger, the guy (really cool dude actually, he gave me all my recording software and we still hang out occasionally) was addicted to just about every drug under the sun, as well as an alcoholic. He managed to clean himself up, and that's why he took to being a psychologist. Anyway. The one thing he still does is weed, and he's made it clear on several occasions that he thinks the potential benefits from it--when used, safely, in moderation, and among trusted people--outweigh the potential risks. Frankly, it was a welcome reprieve for me, who had been brought up on a zero-tolerance policy and forced to go to a catholic elementary and middle school, despite me being an agnostic. This is really one of the most cognizant, insightful people I've ever met, and that he is so while using weed on a regular basis is enough reason for me to see it as nothing near the dangerous drug that it's made out to be. Yeah, it's circumstantial evidence, but sometimes that's more convincing than scientific evidence when it comes to this sort of thing.
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If you're going to be driving, what the fuck is wrong with water?
I know from personal experience that sometimes people will pressure the DD to drink. I know a guy who will just as quickly say "Looks like somebody's sleeping over tonight..."
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DARE is mostly a lot of bullshit, but... they're pretty much right about peer pressure not being enough of a reason to do something stupid, like, say, drive home when drunk. If you're the DD, you've got to hold true to your promise not to drink, no matter how many of your drunken buddies push drinks into your hands (unless, of course, you can get everyone else to take cabs instead).
I could add some sort of qualifier, like, "in my opinion" or "in most cases," but frankly I don't think they apply. One's ability to drive while stoned is debatable. Alcohol impairs your decision-making ability and your lowers your inhibitions, and I have known at least three drunk people who have thought they were fine to drive (people who, while sober, had claimed they would never, ever drive while drunk!) and managed to completely total their cars. That's not debatable.
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Some of my friends will regularly drive under the influence of...well anything they can get their hands on. Basically these people are idiots and I don't actually speak to them anymore. Driving while under the influence of any substance that drastically alters your brain chemistry (read: enough to slow reaction times, decrease inhibition, whatever) is a pretty stupid thing to do. I'm starting to get pretty unpopular with my drinking friends because while I haven't had a drink in about 4 years I also don't have a car and I don't know how to drive. I am essentially a waste of space at pubs and parties etc...
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I am essentially a waste of space at pubs and parties etc...
Now you're selling yourself short. You could be the bringer of drinks! Also, whatever happened to the fine art of conversation.
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BUT I would venture the unpopular notion that this also applies a bit to the question of driving under the influence of alcohol. People have varying tolerance levels, varying definitions of 'drunk', varying driving and decision-making skills...
I think it is a little too DARE to blanket-condemn at the same level of horror and indignation someone who has had a few drinks and decides they are safe to drive home versus someone rip-roaring drunk, or a 17-year old with 3 beers in him versus a 47-year old with the same.
I will second this unpopular notion. I will generally say that most people who condemn all drunk drivers have never known a person who was arrested for a DUI. Plenty of these people will go out to dinner and have a glass or two of wine, which could possibly put them over .08 BAC, and still talk about the evils of "drunk" driving.
I might be unwise to admit this, but I have been arrested for a DUI. I was pulled over for an expired plate (I had the new sticker in my glove box, but just hadn't gotten around to attaching it), the cop said he smelled beer and asked me to blow in a tube, and shortly thereafter I was being cuffed and read my rights. I had been carefully following the "one drink per hour" rule and hadn't had anything in two hours.
I was pulled over while giving a friend a ride home. I had been to his place maybe three times, but I easily knew where I was going. My friend was tested and determined to be safe to drive. He proceeded to get lost, in his home town of under 6000 people, driving from a main road to his own apartment that he has lived at for almost two years. I do appreciate that he was able to drive my car legally and keep me from having to deal with an impounded car in addition to all the other crap, but his inability to find his own home makes me seriously question the accuracy of BAC in determining impairment.
I will never say that I didn't make a bad decision. I claim full responsibility and will be careful to the point of paranoid for the rest of my life. However, I can say that harsher penalties (at least for a first offense), are unnecessary. Getting a DUI is horrible, if you aren't made of money. The fines and fees are huge to a college kid, and they take away your driver's license which makes getting to work so you can actually pay for everything twice as hard. You have to be assessed for addiction, which leads to either rehabilitation or a five week education course, which, if you're like me and a full time student who started working full time to pay off the financial aspects, is really fun to add to your schedule. The night I spent in jail doesn't seem like anything in the grand scheme of this, and I haven't even thought about what my insurance costs are going to be like.
Driving drunk is a bad thing. I can agree with that. But in my opinion the legal system surrounding it is flawed. Harsher punishments, at least for first time offenders, won't help anything. I had no idea what kind of shit I'd have to deal with for a DUI, because I sure didn't say "hmm, I drive around wasted a lot so I should really learn what the punishments are for these things." First timers are usually honest mistakes of not knowing what .08 means. People with second, third, and more, on the other hand, deserve strict punishments, although I think the current approach of "jump through these hoops and we'll say you're not a problem drinker" should be revised to focus on individual rehabilitation, not paying a certain dollar amount and meeting some requirements. Based on my experience, if you get more than one of these bitches you are clearly very addicted and need some real intervention, because seriously, after all this shit I don't think I'll get near a car if I've used mouthwash in the last 24 hours.
This might be tl:dr, but I've been debating making this post since the topic was brought up.
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Sorry, but driving after you've had a few drinks is incredibly stupid. I know plenty of people who are fine after three pints and you wouldn't be able to tell that they'd been drinking, but none of them would be dumb enough to drive a car afterwards. The alcohol will be impairing their reaction times and it's going to have an effect on their decision making abilities. They might not be so fucked that they're going to just weave off the road but if something surprising were to happen they won't react as well as if they hadn't had a few drinks. When you're driving the safety of other people relies on you being able to react swiftly and sensibly. If anything at all is impairing your ability to do that (you're tired, upset, or you've had a couple of drinks) then you shouldn't be doing it.
Darkbluerabbit, when you mention the "one drink per hour" rule are you referring to how long it takes for alcohol to get out of your system? Because I always understood that to be one unit of alcohol per hour, and very few drinks are only one unit (a pint of average beer is about 2 I think).
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what Pack of Wolves said.
I am pretty much ALWAYS the designated driver, because I know I can trust myself to be true to my promise. There's been a grand total of one occasion where one of my mates tried to press a drink into my hand and said "you can handle one, dude". he kept pressing even when I turned him down, so eventually I just upended the damn thing over his head and told him he was being stupid.
It did the trick. He thought it was funny as fuck, too.
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Interestingly enough, there have been a few instances of bars getting their liquor licenses suspended for trying to compel designated drivers to drink (the "everyone in the bar must have a drink" rule). I forget I which jurisdiction but I believe it was in New York state. So pressuring DDs isn't unheard of, but it's a legal (and moral) no-no.
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That's rather odd and I've never encountered a bar like that. Shit, in NH, most bars will give the designated driver free soda!
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I'm not surprised you've never encountered it given that the bars in question are probably shitholes that no one who wanted beer other than swill would ever go to, and given that the practice gets your bar's liquor license suspended (which means you could be bankrupted if you don't have a lot of operating capital lying around). Also, it wouldn't surprise me if NH was one of the states where the bar can be liable if they permit a clearly drunk patron to drive home and they get into an accident. In which case, it's in the bar's best interest to make DDs as comfortable as possible so the other patrons can get hammered without them worrying.
Not every state has these laws though.
EDIT: This apparently happened in Florida (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250793,00.html) as well.
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NH is one of those places where you pretty much absolutely have to have designated drivers. There's really barely even a semblance of any kind of mass transit (Shy of a couple limited bus systems in Nashua, Concord and Manchester that don't really run much past ten PM anyway) and so few cities that you can't really walk home from the bar either. If you go out, you drive there or pay like $20-30 each way for a cab.
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For sure. I'm surprised that the "Dial a DD" programs that are popular in Europe, Japan and Korea aren't more popular in the US (outside of LA and the Hamptons, where apparently lots of people use them). I guess people don't want strangers messing with their rides or the population is dense enough or something.
It's not really an issue in Manhattan for obvious reasons.
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Darkbluerabbit, when you mention the "one drink per hour" rule are you referring to how long it takes for alcohol to get out of your system? Because I always understood that to be one unit of alcohol per hour, and very few drinks are only one unit (a pint of average beer is about 2 I think).
Oh, it's clearly a very ineffective rule. My problem was that I was following a guideline for an average person, and I am a pretty small person so those suggested amounts don't directly apply to me. It seems so obviously dumb in retrospect, but at the time I thought I was being smart.
Believe me, I am the first to admit that I was fucking stupid. When I describe the circumstances of my arrest, I'm not making excuses, I'm trying to emphasize just how easy it can be to get a DUI. Maybe it's different in other areas, but where I live (a city too small for reliable mass transit in beer-soaked Wisconsin) it's pretty normal to drive after a couple of drinks, and most people who do so have no idea that they could be considered legally drunk if they were to get stopped, which could be for any reason. People around here need to be better educated about the issue, but since they don't think of what they are doing as "drunk" driving, they just don't pay attention.
We do have bars around here that let designated drivers drink soda on the house, which is a pretty nice offer.
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I always make sure that the person who says they will be DD actually holds up to their word. If they don't, I take their keys and sober myself up if I'd had something, because I usually don't drink much anyways. I don't really see why others should pressure the DD or that they should give into it, at least not around here as public transport is decent.
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yeah, pressuring the DD into drinking is a real bitch move. i don't know who does that but that's ridiculous.
luckily, this doesn't come up in my life often because i don't drink much these days and all the bars are in walking distance of several friendly houses to crash at anyway, and anywhere we might go that's not within walking distance is usually a friends house where we can stay so it works out pretty good.
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I always play DD and don't cave to offers for drinks, but that's because I don't drink to begin with. So I will always be the DD, and I am ok with that.
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The only time I've been DD I did have one drink but we were gonna be at this party several hours. Eventually we just decided to crash there and leave the next morning, and I proceeded to get shitfaced. So really, it was pretty pointless for me to be DD.
That said, I'd make a good DD now, since the most I've had to drink at one time in a couple years is a glass of white wine, and I go a couple months between that even. Only a DD is unnecessary when I go out because I live in the middle of a big city, so it's not like we need to drive home from the bar. Also, I have no friends.
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Someone needs a cuddle
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Pick me!
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Also, whatever happened to the fine art of conversation.
Fuck that shit. Also: Hey, can I have cuddles too?
The solution to people always wanting to cop out of being DD: don't get a license. It's what I've been doing.
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I'm trying to emphasize just how easy it can be to get a DUI.
It's not that hard, unless you're too drunk to get into/start the car.
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@rgc: While it is true that you're still fine to drive after having a drink at a dinner party, putting things in that way is too granular for such a dire issue. The unfortunate fact is that most people don't think in nuanced terms, only yes/no, so the important message to promulgate is that one shouldn't drink and drive.
Put another way, people who are still fine to drive deciding not to is not a problem, so in this issue it is much better to err on the side of caution in one's rhetoric.
This.
Also, what the fuck is wrong with the idea of putting other people's safety over your own desire to prove that you're okay to drive?
Yeah, that.
Also, while we're throwing around anecdotes -- years ago, I was in a car with a stoned driver and he was driving like a complete asshole, because in his stoned state he thought it would be HI-LARIOUS to zoom around little residential streets yelling immature things at people's houses, and then he got into an accident and immediately fled the scene also because he was stoned (he was terrified of the cops figuring out he was stoned, and he still had pot on him), and it was awful. The end!
Oh wait, one more: Once a group of friends and I were going on a roadtrip. It was known beforehand among our group that some of us were regular pot smokers, but others were not, and so we agreed amongst our group that no one would "bring anything" with them, both out of simple courtesy to those who were uncomfortable with it as well as concern about getting in trouble with the law somehow. In the middle of the night, while we're doing 80 down the highway in the middle of nowhere rural America in our old beat up (read: suspicious looking) college-kid-road-trip-van, the guy in the back of the van suddenly lights up, with no warning to any of us at all, and as we're rolling down the windows to let the smoke out and asking him what the fuck, he coolly tells us that it's "no concern of yours." My point is, experiences like this are what make me really doubt that pot is totally fine -- it might not give you cirrhosis of the liver, but it sure does turn people into entitled assholes sometimes.
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There's something you either never thought of or are completely ignoring here:
Unless he was high BEFORE you got in (Which by the virtue of you guys being on the highway already, I doubt), the dude in the van was being an utter cunt BEFORE he got high.
So many people bitch about pot and what it does to people without taking into account that in pretty much all of these cases, the people were useless assholes BEFORE they started smoking pot. I don't know a single person who's become "addicted" to pot that, in retrospect, wasn't a pretty awful person before they started. I do know plenty of people who I simply do not like to drink around because booze changes them.
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the dude in the van was being an utter cunt BEFORE he got high.
THIS.
The tl;dr: Pot doesn't affect your inhibitions. Alcohol does. If you smoke pot, it doesn't release your inner douchebag, but when you drink, he comes out full-force and takes over.
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Personally, both bring out the person who laughs at stupid shit and falls asleep early...
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I can't sleep while high, I'm too busy making myself and those around me laugh like idiots. Seriously, when I'm stoned and talking to a stoned audience, I might as well be on a roll at the Apollo. I'm sure people who are sober looking in on the situation see a completely different story.
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*sigh*
I never said that he was an asshole because of being intoxicated off of that exact joint he was smoking in the van. What I was suggesting, and honestly, what I really do believe to be true, is that he was *generally* more of a jerk after he started smoking up every day, and he was especially a jerk *about* pot. This isn't directly related to whether he was in fact intoxicated at that very moment or not, but does speak to whether or not pot has a negative effect on your life.
In any case, does anyone want to also tell me that the guy driving the car in the other story would have gotten into the accident anyway if he were sober? I mean, you can say that, you can say it a whole bunch of different ways and argue all the nuances therein if you're so inclined, but it still won't be true.
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Simply speaking, you're wrong. I'm willing to bet either you didn't know the guy very well before he started smoking or you've never really thought about what he was like before/are so jaded towards pot that you refuse to believe he's not a cunt of his own volition. I am so confident in this statement that I am willing to guarantee you that you are 100% bullshit wrong on this without ever having even met the dude myself.
As far as the car crash, well, no one was arguing that then, but yeah, I think I would. All those stories you heard about as a kid about people smoking pot and thinking they were Superman? So much shit. Yes, pot impairs you. If the dude dozed off at the wheel and crashed, I'd believe it. Pot doesn't make you drive around like an idiot, being an idiot makes you drive around like an idiot. The latter part where he fled the scene only had to do with pot in the vague sense that he was aware he was going to get busted. If the dude got caught, he would have most definitely gotten some serious shit heaped on him. I'm pretty sure the dude would've gotten in the same accident with or without the pot since the guy sounds like an utter tit.
My diagnosis? You don't have the slightest real knowledge of pot. You seem to be utilizing decades worth of propaganda that school and G.I. Joe PSAs grind into you in order to rationalize the fact that you seem to just have piss poor judgment when it comes to who you associate with and would rather blame a plant than admit it. Stop hanging out with morons and twats and this problem will go away.
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you seem to just have piss poor judgment when it comes to who you associate with and would rather blame a plant than admit it. Stop hanging out with morons and twats and this problem will go away.
Your debating skills are amazing.
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@idiolect: You're not really answering the question that Jon's implying. Was the guy an asshole before he ever started lighting up regularly, or was it a new development?
Also realize that people change a hell of a lot between 12 and 25. I am not the same dude I was a year ago, you might want to keep that in mind just by itself. Until you can narrow things down to one variable only, I'm still going to say that the 'research' is invalid.
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Oh, fuck! I figured it out!
I started turning into a narcissistic douche bag at around the age of seventeen.
I lost my virginity at around the age of seventeen!
Sex makes you a bad person, guys! One happened and the other happened, so they must be connected!
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I find it hard to believe there was ever a time when you weren't a narcissistic douchebag.
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(http://www.pollingpoint.com/files/images/charts/charts_mv1.gif)
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I note they didn't poll independents, that would be interesting to see.
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@idiolect: You're not really answering the question that Jon's implying. Was the guy an asshole before he ever started lighting up regularly, or was it a new development?
I believe that was here:
What I was suggesting, and honestly, what I really do believe to be true, is that he was *generally* more of a jerk after he started smoking up every day, and he was especially a jerk *about* pot.
We have no way of knowing if this is true or not, so there's no point arguing about idiolect's judgment in this situation.
Simply speaking, you're wrong. I'm willing to bet either you didn't know the guy very well before he started smoking or you've never really thought about what he was like before/are so jaded towards pot that you refuse to believe he's not a cunt of his own volition. I am so confident in this statement that I am willing to guarantee you that you are 100% bullshit wrong on this without ever having even met the dude myself.
As far as the car crash, well, no one was arguing that then, but yeah, I think I would. All those stories you heard about as a kid about people smoking pot and thinking they were Superman? So much shit. Yes, pot impairs you. If the dude dozed off at the wheel and crashed, I'd believe it. Pot doesn't make you drive around like an idiot, being an idiot makes you drive around like an idiot. The latter part where he fled the scene only had to do with pot in the vague sense that he was aware he was going to get busted. If the dude got caught, he would have most definitely gotten some serious shit heaped on him. I'm pretty sure the dude would've gotten in the same accident with or without the pot since the guy sounds like an utter tit.
My diagnosis? You don't have the slightest real knowledge of pot. You seem to be utilizing decades worth of propaganda that school and G.I. Joe PSAs grind into you in order to rationalize the fact that you seem to just have piss poor judgment when it comes to who you associate with and would rather blame a plant than admit it. Stop hanging out with morons and twats and this problem will go away.
Jon, I like you. Please be nice!
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Every time i come into this thread i try and think of something to say that might be worthwhile. Then i think, well fuck everything has been said already and people are just going to have to agree to disagree. Then i think thats a bit of a defeatists argument and would like to say something blunt like *woo fuck yeah weed*. Then i think thats just stupid because people will just be like *fucking idiot*. So hear i am now saying that i smoke weed, sometimes quite alot, sometimes not. I like the feeling it gives me better than alcohol, i can actually stay up and have a sensible conversation with someone rather than just being like *FUCK YEAH LETS TALK REALLY LOUDLY ABOUT CRAP AND HOW GOOD FRIENDS WE ARE*.
I'm not saying there isn't a place for alcohol, i do like it, it's just that i would rather smoke Cannabis. I've seen people drinking alcohol that are normally excellent people, but when they have a lot to drink they will start fights with people. The same person smoking cannabis more resembles a teddy bear than anything else. I don't think anyones going to agree about this situation but oh well. If people don't drink to much it shouldn't be a problem but sadly some peoples idea of "fun" is going out and getting shit faced until they can't remember anything and are a danger to other people. Similarly, smoking to much weed at once is probably not a good idea if you are out and about in the town/needing to drive home, but staying at home and smoking a lot of weed will probably just make you fall asleep, whilst if people stay at home and drink alcohol, they can drink to much, get alcohol poisoning, get incredibly stupid ideas etc.
My reasoning is a little weak towards the end but i'm sure you get the jist of it.
tldr: I like Cannabis. I think its better than alcohol, lets agree to disagree and everything is good in moderation.
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Thanks ruyi, that's about what I would have said.
I am curious about one thing though -- are all you guys who spend a lot of time around pot saying that you've really never met someone who became more of a douchebag correlative to becoming more of a pothead? I've seen that so frequently, discussed that so frequently with other people (who themselves regularly smoke pot), seen that in people that *I* smoked pot *with* way back when, that I find that hard to believe. I'm totally willing to believe that might have as much or maybe even more to do with the cultural ramnifications of pot being illegal for so long (i.e. it going "underground") than it does with the actual chemical effects of pot, but the chemical effects of pot are not the only thing one has to worry about when thinking about whether or not becoming a regular pot smoker has a negative effect on your life.
Also, I still don't think people should drive while stoned. I mean, even aside from my own opinions about it, it's at least safe to say that there is a debate about whether being stoned impairs your driving, and so why risk it? If there's even the tiniest chance that you might be wrong, then you are risking people's lives, which is really not "worth it." If it turns out that somehow the debate is settled and I'm certainly wrong, then it shouldn't have been any skin off of your back to not drive stoned, because really, how often are you in a situation where you just can't possibly get around driving stoned anyway?
One more thing: to respond briefly to some of the personal attacks -- First of all, my friends aren't morons. My friends are actually pretty awesome. If this is just so terribly unbelievable to you that you absolutely must know how it could possibly be true, I suppose I could begin to list ways in which my friends are awesome for you. Secondly, my conclusions about the accident being because of the pot wasn't some abstracted thing where I heard about some accident and thought OH LORD JESUS IT MUST BE THEM DRUGS. I mean, I was physically inside a car that crashed into another car and it was awful and I'm really glad none of us got hurt. The driver of the car was acting in a way that he generally acted specifically when he was stoned, which I know because for a handful of years *I* smoked up with him. The next morning, he himself said that he was never going to drive stoned again. And just for the record, he never "thought he was Superman" when he was stoned, because like you said, that just doesn't make sense -- what he DID do was think that stupid things were hilarious, and he realized that he could in fact DO stupid things, thus increasing the hilarious. I suppose you can not believe me if you want, but don't presume to know positively what happened otherwise.
My diagnosis? You don't have the slightest real knowledge of pot. You seem to be utilizing decades worth of propaganda that school and G.I. Joe PSAs grind into you
Alternatively, isn't it funny how you can't even suggest to a pothead that pot may not be the best thing since sliced bread without them deciding that you must be brainwashed by the government? Hmm. I think that's kind of a jerk thing to do. Were you that much of a jerk before you started smoking pot?
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I've known a few people who've acted like more of a dick as they increased the amount of weed they smoked. One of them was me. The thing is, it wasn't the weed itself exactly that was the problem. I didn't do anything as dumb as crash a car or as obnoxious as light up in a van without asking people first, but I did become intensely boring and selfish and I had some bad mood swings. But weed didn't make me boring and selfish, I was being a boring and selfish person and therefore smoking weed all the time instead of doing interesting things. The mood swings were a result of the weed but they just made me depressed, not a dick. I've known other people who at one point were very interesting and active and then just descended into getting stoned all the time and being dull and just sitting around whinging. But again I don't think it was the drug messing them up, I think it was them messing themselves up and getting stoned all the time was a symptom and facilitator of that, but not the cause.
And seriously, someone who thinks it's a great idea to drive around yelling at people and then crashes their car is a wanker regardless of the drugs that are in them. I just hope the accident shocked them into not being a wanker anymore.
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In my experience people don't start actually being insufferable dicks until they get into cocaine. I've known many a jovial, friendly, and intelligent weed smoker who started to enjoy nose candy a little too much and ended up turning into a total tool.
Come to think of it, cocaine is the only drug that I've ever seen actually turn people into legitimately worse people. I mean, I've had some friends act like idiots while drunk, but I can't say I remember anyone whose actual motivations and loyalties changed due to the stuff (though I'm sure it's possible). Cocaine on the other hand is perfectly capable of turning otherwise perfectly fine people into genuinely shameful parodies of themselves.
There is definitely a vicious circle that can arise from extended patterns of smoking weed combined with consistently thoughtless behavior (which can sometimes dip straight into total-dick-move territory). That sort of thing is true about anything though ... sex, driving, having new friends, playing in a band, etc. It's always the thoughtless behavior that contributes to and is contributed to by whatever factor plays a role in the specific situation, and ultimately causes the problems. Anyone who keeps a healthy level of respect for themselves and the people around them is probably going to be fine no matter how much weed they smoke.
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me being wrong
I believe that was here:
example
Ah, thanks Cathy, I stand corrected.
Also, I still don't think people should drive while stoned. I mean, even aside from my own opinions about it, it's at least safe to say that there is a debate about whether being stoned impairs your driving, and so why risk it? If there's even the tiniest chance that you might be wrong, then you are risking people's lives, which is really not "worth it." If it turns out that somehow the debate is settled and I'm certainly wrong, then it shouldn't have been any skin off of your back to not drive stoned, because really, how often are you in a situation where you just can't possibly get around driving stoned anyway?
Eh. I'm pretty certain you're not going to be convinced until you've actually tried to do something stoned. Because seriously, it doesn't affect your mobility at all. If anything it makes you hypersensitive to tiny motions, and it really does seem to have a time-slowing effect, because damned if it didn't feel like an hour driving the mile and a half home from where we lit up.
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Whenever I get stoned my extremities feel really heavy and sluggish. My head also suddenly seems to increase in width and weight. Basically what I am saying is that if you got into a car being driven by me while stoned you would probably die. This is helped by the fact that I don't know how to drive but my point remains valid!
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seriously, it doesn't affect your mobility at all
One might make the point that a person who is stoned isn't in the best state to make such a judgement.
Also, why is Firefox thinking "judgement" is misspelled?
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I managed to not get burned/disfigured/killed by searing-hot fry oil.
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I'm intrigued by the graph in RedLion's post. Does it mean that a little over 30% of Democrats believe every Wednesday that marijuana is ok?
Maybe I'm not very observant, or maybe the weed that people I know smoke is less strong than in other places, or maybe they just don't smoke very much, but the few people who I know get stoned regularly never seem very different when they've had a joint. Their eyes are a bit more sluggish and they smell of cannabis but I can't see any visible difference in their behaviour. Having said that, I wouldn't get in a car with them (I wouldn't anyway, but that's not the point).
I will probably end up being DD in lots of situations in the future, because I'm one of those dull people who doesn't drink, smoke, take drugs or do anything like that. I do go to parties though. Also I love driving, but it might be a bit less fun when there are several drunk people trying to distract me.
It might not be a good idea to mix other drugs into this conversation but in terms of behaviour alteration (rather than health implications or illegality), is cocaine or cannabis worse? I know it's more illegal, but I've always assumed that's to do with the expense and therefore other criminal behaviour caused by it, and the health damage. Wrong?
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Eh. I'm pretty certain you're not going to be convinced until you've actually tried to do something stoned.
Guys, I don't know why you keep assuming that I've never done these things.
Because seriously, it doesn't affect your mobility at all. If anything it makes you hypersensitive to tiny motions, and it really does seem to have a time-slowing effect, because damned if it didn't feel like an hour driving the mile and a half home from where we lit up.
As far as I'm concerned, when you're flinging a multi-ton metal object around, it better damn well feel like it is.
Also, why is Firefox thinking "judgement" is misspelled?
Because it's actually spelled "judgment." I only found this out recently while writing this essay that uses the word "judgment" a bunch of times in it, and I still have to stop and think for a split-second in order not to put the "e" in there.
Edit! Apparently it's spelled "judgement" in British English, and "judgment" in American.
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it doesn't affect your mobility at all.
How it affected you isn't necessarily how it's going to affect others, though, not to mention the fact that people do have the tendency to think they're better than they are at things. I mean, just because you felt that it didn't affect your mobility doesn't make it true.
Besides, this idiolect person clearly said that driving stoned might or might not impair your driving; since there's still that shred of doubt, why would you risk it? Personally, every time I've gotten high I've felt light and airy, and paying attention to things other than "OH WOW YOUR HAIR IS SO SOFT" and "OH WOW THIS MUSIC IS EPIC" and "THIS IS THE TASTIEST PIZZA I HAVE EVER TASTED" was really really difficult. I could focus really hard one one thing at a time, but you have to focus on tons of things when you're driving. Other cars, pedestrians, traffic signals, speed limits; I'd probably run a red light and then giggle about it.
That person also said that they have smoked in the past, so I'm guessing they have tried to do something while stoned.
So basically, anecdotal evidence is shit! My experience, Jimmy's experience, Patrick's experience, Mr. Onewheelwizard's experience, a pack of wolves' experience... all our experiences with weed affected us differently, so any kind of "driving while stoned is ok/not ok" based on your own assumptions is obviously not going to work.
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It might not be a good idea to mix other drugs into this conversation but in terms of behaviour alteration (rather than health implications or illegality), is cocaine or cannabis worse? I know it's more illegal, but I've always assumed that's to do with the expense and therefore other criminal behaviour caused by it, and the health damage. Wrong?
A friend of mine refers to cocaine as 'twat powder'. It's well known for making many people be utter arseholes with a really mean, selfish edge when they're on it, even those who're extremely pleasant drunk, stoned, k-holed, tripping or anything else. Other people it just makes have a damn good time. But in general there's much more to be wary of them with weed.
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I used to be an enormous pothead. I don't think I ever drove stoned, and I don't think I would ever want to. Wait, scratch that, more recently I did drive stoned, true, I was driving my friend's car because he was far worse off than me, but the fact remains that I didn't notice that the E. brake was on until we were halfway back to his apartment, and I had some trouble staying in my lane. So I know that its a bad idea at least for me personally, and for some others. I once rode in a car with another friend who was high while I was sober, and I thought I was gonna die several times because he was in slow motion while driving. For instance, we were turning onto his street and there was another car driving the opposite direction, and he turns RIGHT in front of it, nearly causing an accident. I've ridden with him on other occasions and he doesn't act that way while driving.
I agree on the douche-bag part though, weed doesn't change anyone's personality to my knowledge. My good for nothing older brother was good for nothing before he started heavily doing drugs, and he's still a good-for nothing older brother now that he's clean, though at least he is trying now not to be.
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it doesn't affect your mobility at all.
How it affected you isn't necessarily how it's going to affect others, though, not to mention the fact that people do have the tendency to think they're better than they are at things. I mean, just because you felt that it didn't affect your mobility doesn't make it true.
Like I told Old Man Hocking, the true litmus test is to see whether or not you accidentally injure/disfigure/kill yourself while working with 350-degree (Fahrenheit) oil.
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i don't think that's a very accurate test. i'm almost positive i'd burn myself sober just because i have pretty clumsy hands.
and secondly, if i was stoned i'd be like "fuck that. i'm not doing that." and go play video games or something.
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Alright, let me jump into the drug discussion. There are two things that should be probably said right up front just for full disclosure:
1) I am a foaming-at-the-mouth Libertarian which means I believe that the Government has no business whatsoever telling someone what they can and can't put in their body. I believe the war on drugs should be ended immediately and anyone in jail for non-violent, drug-only related offenses should be released with a sincere apology.
2) I don't do drugs. Hell, I don't even drink enough to be worth mentioning. A six pack of beer lasts six months in my fridge.
It wasn't always like that though. I used to party hard. I tried everything that got put in front of me and hung with people who did the same. I was on under the influence of something almost every single day. It was very rare for me to go to bed at night completely sober. I had a lot of good times, I have very few regrets, and I lived through it just fine.
Not all of my friends did though.
I guess about '91 I started realizing I really wasn't being too smart. That if I continued to do what I was doing, I'd probably end up dead or in jail. So I started making a series of decisions that distanced me from that life. Some of those decisions were drastic, some not so drastic, but the end result was that by oh.... '94ish I was completely removed from the 'scene' I had been running in and I never went back. My friends didn't necessarily follow my path and our lives are very different now. For example:
I had this girlfriend when I was 18. She was beautiful. She was also an amazingly talented artist, was smart and funny, and basically just a blast to be around.
Then she got into heroin.
The last time I saw her she was living in a shit hole apartment, had a cup full of needles soaking in bleach on the back of her toilet, was dating/fucking a cab driver just so she could get rides, and was working in a Korean massage parlor giving $30 hand jobs to make her money. Is she dead? In jail? Got AIDS? Get clean and straighten her life out? I've got no idea. No one has heard from her in years.
I had another friend who got hit by a drunk driver and it messed him up. A year and a half later the court case finally settled and he got a check for about $25k which was supposed to be used for some plastic surgery to fix some scars he had from the accident. To celebrate finally getting the money, he bought an eight ball of coke from his scum bag cousin. We had a good time. I tooted lines of an Armored Saint album cover with him for a week.
Six, maybe eight months later he had spent every penny of that check, had sold everything he owned, and was living in a sleeping bag in the woods. He got his money for more coke by mugging people. That's when I lost touch with him. I have another friend though that said he showed up around '98 claiming he was clean and trying to put his life back together. So my buddy let him crash at his place. The next day he stole everything in the apartment while my buddy was at work and disappeared.
Another friend has never stopped smoking pot. To be fair... he's got plenty of issues that have nothing to do with smoking weed. The last email I got from him said "Hey... I got married and bought a house." He was very excited about 'finally starting to act like an adult' and working 'a real job'. He's 36. Now... I'm not going to pin his lifestyle solely on weed, nor am I even going to suggest that there is something wrong with staying single and not owning property. Different strokes for different folks. But you got to admit, by 36 most people have accepted the fact that they live in the really real grown-up world.
Then there is my best friend. He actually did the fewest drugs of all of us. BUT... He got a little desperate for money and agreed to assist with a little interstate crystal meth commerce. What he didn't know was that it was a setup from the beginning arranged by a guy we knew who turned snitch to get out of a one year sentence for third time pot possession. The guy who delivered the meth was a DEA agent. He ended up with a sentence for 8 years federal on a felony drug rap for a first time offense, while another friend ended up getting ten due to some prior misdemeanor convictions. He pleaded that down to two years in a 'boot camp' but got popped on probation violation almost as soon as he was released and ended up picking up a second felony conviction and doing the rest of his time. Now, I'm told he's living with his parents, working some shit-hole minimum wage job, terrified of picking up a third strike, hanging out with Mom and Dad every night. He turns 40 this year.
There are other stories too: Guys who dropped or flunked out of school (I probably need to raise my own hand in that group), ruined relationships, jail time, hospitalizations, material loss, girls who turned to stripping or tricking, and even a guy who became convinced that trash cans were bugged because the government was spying on him so he would cross the street to avoid them. None of us grew up in the hood, we're all middle class white kids. Every problem any one of us had, we brought on ourselves, no doubt about it.
Now, I'm not trying to preach or lecture. Seriously, have a good time doing whatever it is your doing. I just want to share what youthful drug use looks like with 15 or so years of perspective on it. You fuck around with any of it long enough and someone is going to have something bad happen. So be careful with it, ok?
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And this is where I rant about how just about every one of those problems could've been avoided by ending drug prohibition and integrating illegal substances into current medical and psychiatric practice (or at least more supportive addiction treatment programs).
I personally think that a large portion of destructive potential that drugs have is due to the fact that users of drugs are defined as criminals. The vast, vast majority of drug users are not criminals except by virtue of their drug use, and yet that definition is enough to turn someone into a career criminal with just one jail visit (sometimes not even that is necessary).
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Not only that, but decriminalizing marijuana alone would save so much manpower and money for fighting slightly more important problems, like, say, trafficking-in-persons, murder, grand theft, the various degrees and forms of assault, robbery, and a whole slew of others.
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I had a dream last night where I did cocaine and then I wound up owning a bank somehow.
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I would think that you'd be more prone to rob a bank after snorting some coke, rather than own one.
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Unless it was a snowbank.
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A Wet Helmet,
The thing on the folks you knew is that that seems like they lived a full lifestyle of that. Basing your life around any variety of stuff can and will likely ruin your life. I'm only twenty-four and most of the habitual users I knew as a teenager have already managed to fuck up their lives beyond repair.
One guy I knew was dead by twenty. He either ODed or someone dipped his needles in battery acid. I never got a clear answer on it. Guy was a sweet person, but hung with a wrong crowd and it did him in.
His cousin, who I was much closer with, had actually gotten away from it. He grew up in Lynn, MA, which for anyone who's spent time in New England, is infamous as one of the single worst cities in the entire area to live in. His parents made the smart choice and got him out of there in his mid teens. Unfortunately for him, his friends ended up following later and he fell right back into it and spread a bit of it around our suburban NH town. Last I heard, he's in jail for close to ten years over a hostage situation. I knew this dude pretty well and I can guarantee something like this would've happened to him with or without the drugs, though. He was always a rather sheepish and go along with the crowd kind of guy. He continued to follow the wrong one and it got his ass in jail.
Some people get out of it, some people don't, but nine times out of ten, it's the crowd mentality and the lifestyle that does these people in. A drink ain't gonna kill you unless you take your first one with a bunch of alcoholics (Though I honestly can't even say that fully, as my first drink was with three borderline alcoholics).
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Because it's actually spelled "judgment." I only found this out recently while writing this essay that uses the word "judgment" a bunch of times in it, and I still have to stop and think for a split-second in order not to put the "e" in there.
Edit! Apparently it's spelled "judgement" in British English, and "judgment" in American.
huh, thanks.
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None of us grew up in the hood, we're all middle class white kids. Every problem any one of us had, we brought on ourselves, no doubt about it.
What?
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Apparently middle class white kids can't have alcoholic or abusive parents, or if they do they bring those problems on themselves like all the others.
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I read it as more of a pointer that the media perception of drugs is often "only poor kids with no hope and no future do drugs" which is totally bullshit. Then the second part was admitting that it wasn't someone else's fault.
I read somewhere (and I can't remember anything about the article except the general premise so I can't link to it) that there is believed to be far more abuse and drug use in middle class families than was ever known before, because it tends to get hushed up. Families with a steady income and children with good grades at school (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7316891.stm) are less likely to be involved with government agencies like social workers and the like, so problems don't get discovered by the state and therefore are not included in statistics. Also, there is evidence that middle class people have better health in general, so they'd not be seeing doctors as often and therefore issues with drugs might not be noticed (sorry, can't find anything to cite this to but I think it was a survey we studied in Sociology). I don't know how much this applies to other countries than the UK but I'd imagine it does to varying extents.