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I don't really care about the good or bad effects of moderate alcahol consumption. The famous footballer George Best died today at 59 yeas old after a lifetime of alcaholism, my father died 42 years old a teetotaler. Non-hedonistic people die all the time, you know. ;)

 

Drinking gives you a happy buzz and makes you more friendly and sociable. It loosens your tongue and gets you talking and enjoying yourself. I don't want to be a perfectly healthy grump with no friends, cheers. :)

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I don't really care about the good or bad effects of moderate alcahol consumption. The famous footballer George Best died today at 59 yeas old after a lifetime of alcaholism, my father died 42 years old a teetotaler. Non-hedonistic people die all the time, you know. ;)

 

Drinking gives you a happy buzz and makes you more friendly and sociable. It loosens your tongue and gets you talking and enjoying yourself. I don't want to be a perfectly healthy grump with no friends, cheers. :)

 

Come on, that's a pathetic argument, and you know it.

Sure you can point to one individual who smokes, drinks and eats shit, and then goes on to live to 100, and point out an individual who lives a healthy life and dies at 30, but if you take 1000 of the former and a 1000 of the latter, the 1000 health people will on average live far longer.

Also the stupid idea that 'there's no point living to 100 if you can't do all the 'fun' things in life'. Well, that depends on your idea of fun. I get enjoyment from working out, I enjoy cooking good food., I enjoy having a good physique, and I enjoy the admiring looks I get from women when I wear ridiculously tight t-shirts.

There's really no room left for me to enjoy the consumption of noxious chemicals.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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So oddity what about hallucinigens or stimulants without negative effect?

WHat about them? Mind altering drugs are for simpletons. 9 out of 10 normal people prefer reality.

Let me ask you this question - would you rather live in a society where everyone takes mindbending drugs on a regualr basis, or live in a society where no one takes them ever?

I know the the answer is the latter, which means you think not taking drugs is better than taking them, yet at the same time you cling onto this idealistic notion of free choice and think it should e applied to everything.

THe fact that every society, even primitive ones, have always had laws, means than people have never really had free choice. Giving humans totally free choce to do what they want would be a complete disaster. It's just a question of where you draw the line, and I would draw it before the point where they're allowed the free chocie to take mind altering chemicals.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Also the stupid idea that 'there's no point living to 100 if you can't do all the 'fun' things in life'. Well, that depends on your idea of fun.

 

Exactly. You’re the one criticising my drinking of alcohol, remember. If you’re idea of fun is to prance around like a peacock in skimpy clothes go ahead – I’m not going to lecture you “you might catch a cold! Think of the ramifications for your health of wearing tight t-shirts in this whether!” This is how you sound; like a nagging old woman.

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It's only common sense that a lifestyle of regular exercise and healthy eating is much more laudable than hanging around a pub with a bunch of drunken louts.

So you see, I'm on the high ground, which entitles me to talk down to you....

 

What kind of cooking do you get into?

 

Well, I'm a professional chef, so quite a lot.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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What I was pointing out, is that people who drink alcohol, or take any other drug, are weak-minded and inferior to people who don't. That's not my opinon, but a fact.

Was the study you are referencing commissioned by a muslim supremacist group? I can't see how you can make that claim with a straight e-face.

 

Do you drink coffee? Do you take pain-killers? Is there no drug that you use in your life? If not, what exactly makes you better than someone who does? What exactly is weak-minded? What are we trying to be strong against? Life?

 

 

 

Edit: Happy American Thanksgiving, by the way.

Edited by Northeast
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OK. Tell me what reality is. Do colours exist? Does the universe exist? If yes, how do you know? Does a tree in the forrest make a noise when it crashes down, when nobody is around to hear it?

 

I do realize that it might be unfair to put this questions before you, because you are only fefteen, and you may not have learned much in the philosophical area. But it might get you interested to read some philosophers and learn whatour universe is made of and what our position in it is. Much better then dabbling into religion in my opinion.

What about people who are mentaly ill from birth on? I'm not nitpicking, I just want to get you thinking beyond what you think you know. There are all kind of cases and you don't know all of them, so you should keep an open mind abuot things and be aware that you don't know everything.

How do you know that? As I said, there is not a single cause for anything. It usually is a pile of causes which happen to have an effect, and this combination may not work the same on everybody.

Yeah, I know all these cliches, but they are not true. Of course some of them happen this way, but if these were the primary cases then we should expect much more cases in earlier time.

Well, when I read a good book, then I can see everything that I read like a movie before my eyes. In fact I can also recall these images just as I have seen it in a movie.

It depends on the dosage. :) As I said, there are cases, ranging from mild forms to serious ones.

Just because something is natural doesn't make it good. Consider digitalis. This is a poison that you can find in certain plants. If you eat enough of it you get killed, but applied in small dosis it is used in medicals for certain heart problems. Now what does this mean? Is digitialis bad or good?

Did you ever read the manual of your games? Why do you think that in most of them is a disclaimer for epileptics? If it doesn't influence YOUR orgnasim then why do you play? Because it does. :) If games can't influence your organism then why was somebody killed because he 'stole' a virtual item in World Of Warcraft? Apparently it influenced the owner of this item enough that he thought it a sufficient reason to kill somebody over it.

For you. That doesn't mean that this is the case for everybody else. There are people who get divorced because of excessive playing, or loose all they have because they don't care anymore beyond anything except their gameworld. That's also reality and you can't discrad these facts just because you or I are not affected in such a way. In fact I had times when I was younger where I also started down such a road, but apparently my safety catch is good enough that it prevented me sacrificing everything.

 

It was 7:00, I'm sick and definately wanted to sleep and you are asking me about philisophy? Ask some another time, not when I have the cold. Also, I have a bad additude towards religion. More or less agreed with oDDity's signature... No, I didn't started on philosophy yet, but my dad can sure plunge me in it sooner or later...

I have all my information I'm insisting on from books, mmy father, maybe some other sources. Biology one, for example. Please don't say biology books can't be trusted, because nothing can then, and therefore there is no such thing as an argument.

The same biology (well, physics this time) books says, that light is a part of the elecromagnetic spectrum, it consists of 7 waves of different colors, which combined are white. When all those waives hit an apple, the light is consumed, except the red color, which reflects, and the waive travels away. If that reflected waive meets our eye retina, we see the apple as red, well, I don't have to tell you the eye structure, do I? That is all I can say on the subject that I personaly believe. Well, that is how I remember it.

"Does the universe exists?" - if there were no such thing as the universe, there is no such thing as us. The universe can be completely different from what we think of it, but there is something out of materia. There can be no mind without matter if you ask me, and maybe that mind is matter, so there must be something.

If a forest crushes down and those who hear it are miles away, then the waives travel nowhere. There is no sound as we are used to it. Just a waive. If no one hears it, then it is just a waive... Same as apple won't be red if there is no one to look at it.

Reality - for us, it is something the majority of us see. For a drug person his reality is his halucinacions, but there is the majority to know that he is wrong. If everyone will do drugs, then the reality will be their halucinations. Speaking of reality as of something that really goes on, it can be absoultely anything. Maybe we all live on thousands of fields giving energy from our bodies to machines like in Matrix. The reality for me is what I belive it is. The majority around me tells me that it is so. This reality is OK with me.

People who are mentaly ill from birth get it from wrong reactions in DNA cells. The mother smoking, drinking alcohol, and drugs can have such. If she is ill for some reason with a serious illness it can result in a strange effect. People older than 35 can have larger problems with this for some reason. Maybe people eat too much of certain less-hazardous products. DNA is not a very studied field, and since I can base my claimes on others only I can't say anything about that.

Speaking of the cliches - what proof do you have that they are not true? That you are 30 or 40 years old? I'm afraid I cannot blindly believe you, or that will mean that I have no mind of my own and have to blindly listen to all adults. These cliches are what I read. Give a better book - I'll look into it. But taking your word for it is the same thing as starting to believe in ghosts after someone insists he saw one. Speaking of different things working differently on different people - that is what I think too. Because each human is something separete. Maybe just those DNA, maybe something more. It's an unexplored topic, it is useless to debate it.

What you see is what you wanted to see. Halucinations you cannot control. They can go beyond simple sight. I never seen a halucination, but I'm sure they feel different from what you make up in your mind.

"Just because something is natural" - it does not make it good or bad. It makes it regular. And using digitals in any way is not regular. They are natural themselves. But it is not natural to have them in your organizm. It is natural to have dreams. Digitals help, as does almost any poison, in small quantities. But is this everyday use? Do people eat digital plants every day instead of doing something else? Digitals are not good or bad. There is not such thing in nature. A digital plant may want to poison its eater so next time no one will touch the plant. And use of small dosage of the plant for good causes may mean that the plant can't protect itself from civilization.

I don't read manuals of my games because most of them are not even CD's. We may talk about dozage here too. Depending on age, mind, attitude, games there is different dozage of how long you can play. When I was 5, my parents let me play one hour and no more, because of they let me, I'll play too much. Now I can play as much as I want. People I see in PC clubs who sit there with amazed faces and play CS are just idiots who didn't grow up yet. And such people are usually to keep away from. I don't know what happens to them and I personaly don't care. But debating on what games cause or not cause needs a different topic. But I can sure say three hours of playing won't hurt anyone. Games don't influence my organizm on the bad side. I don't want to kill people because I just shot a bunch of terrorists. I don't want to become a racer because I played NFS for three days. And I definately don't want to go and shoot at ettins with wraithwerge because neither of them exist. I despise games like GTA because they are, in my opinion, idiotic. Normal people just don't play such rubbish. Same goes to MMORPG's. I tried one and still can't get how people like them and go crazy over them. I never started on the road you are talking about. My parents made sure I don't. I'm higly tied to PC's, but I don't go crazy over them. In fact, regions that I'm tied to are not usually games. Instead of alcohol there are games, internet is the library, and programming is a job. But I personaly care about physical issues. They are not present in in games. But are in the drugs of reality. Mind - I can control my mind when I see something. Visualization will never affect me more than geroine actually changing something in my brain, what I see I can control. I can turn my screen off if I feel my eyes water. But can I control myself after alcohol? How can I be sure? Alcohol grips the processes I can't control directly.

IMHO...

Too late to save us but try to understand

The seas were empty -- there was hunger in the land

We let the madmen write the golden rules

We were just Children of the Moon

We're lost in the middle of a hopeless world

Children, Children of the Moon watch the world go by

Children, Children of the Moon are hiding from the Sun and the Sky

 

© The Alan Parsons Project - Children of the Moon

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Of course there is. Only most people abuse it.

Too late to save us but try to understand

The seas were empty -- there was hunger in the land

We let the madmen write the golden rules

We were just Children of the Moon

We're lost in the middle of a hopeless world

Children, Children of the Moon watch the world go by

Children, Children of the Moon are hiding from the Sun and the Sky

 

© The Alan Parsons Project - Children of the Moon

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Was the study you are referencing commissioned by a muslim supremacist group? I can't see how you can make that claim with a straight e-face.

 

Do you drink coffee? Do you take pain-killers? Is there no drug that you use in your life? If not, what exactly makes you better than someone who does? What exactly is weak-minded? What are we trying to be strong against? Life?

Edit: Happy American Thanksgiving, by the way.

 

I dont' drink coffee, I drink tea, and while it does have some caffine, it's too small an amount to affect a brain in any significant way. Fortunately I never have to take painkillers, though I'm not against their use if necessary. There's nothing wrong with taking specifically targeted drugs for a good reason. That sort of equivocation is pointess anyway, you know perfectly well I mean peurile recreational drug use.

It the use and abuse of drugs for amusment, for a joke, in a totally flippant and careless way that's the problem. You can't be half-assed about your stance on recreational drug use, it has to be zero tolerance or nothing.

 

If not, what exactly makes you better than someone who does?

Because while conscious, I'm always in complete control of my mind and my actions, and they aren't.

What exactly is weak-minded? What are we trying to be strong against? Life?

Weak-mindedness is the inabilty or refusal to face reality and to seek some bolt hole as an escape, like drugs that alter you perception of reality for a while, or religion, which states that this isn't really reality we're in, this is just a small test, and the real eternal reality commences after you die.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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It's only common sense that a lifestyle of regular exercise and healthy eating is much more laudable than hanging around a pub with a bunch of drunken louts.

So you see, I'm on the high ground, which entitles me to talk down to you....

Well, I'm a professional chef, so quite a lot.

 

 

I cooked 10 years professionally myself, Im not a licensed chef though. I am an avid amateur cook, I have to admit I really started to enjoy it when I didnt have to do it for other people on a regular basis.

 

Whats wrong with drunken louts? Someone else said it best: Never trust a man (or woman) who doesnt drink. Its true, if you dont need to escape from reality once in a while, you cannot be fully human. Some sort of vampire thingy maybe, or an alien of some sort that feeds off of humans having fun. Be warned, I have a crucific shaped bottle of Muscatel next to my beside, dark creature of the night!

Edited by Maximius
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I dont' drink coffee, I drink tea, and while it does have some caffine, it's too small an amount to affect a brain in any significant way. Fortunately I never have to take painkillers, though I'm not against their use if necessary. There's nothing wrong with taking specifically targeted drugs for a good reason. That sort of equivocation is pointess anyway, you know perfectly well I mean peurile recreational drug use.

Well, I wasn't really sure. It seemed you might have an opinion that altering one's mind with drugs of any form is a sign of weakness.

 

Do you use tea as a way to stay alert? Do you drink it every morning before you go to work? Are people who con't function without caffeine weak?

 

It the use and abuse of drugs for amusment, for a joke, in a totally flippant and careless way that's the problem. You can't be half-assed about your stance on recreational drug use, it has to be zero tolerance or nothing.

I'm not half-assed. I think informed adults should be able to use any drugs they want without fear of judicial wrath.

 

Because while conscious, I'm always in complete control of my mind and my actions, and they aren't.

I really don't see how that makes you superior. It certainly isn't a fact. It's your opinion that recreational drug-users are beneath you.

 

Weak-mindedness is the inabilty or refusal to face reality and to seek some bolt hole as an escape, like drugs that alter you perception of reality for a while, or religion, which states that this isn't really reality we're in, this is just a small test, and the real eternal reality commences after you die.

Not everyone who drinks alcohol is trying to escape something. When I have a beer, I'm not fleeing the horrors of my past. Not drinking alcohol (or not using any mind-altering drug) doesn't mean that one is facing reality either, as you pointed out. I don't see "facing reality" and "taking drugs" as being mutually exclusive elements of one's life.

 

Video games are used to escape reality. Many books are read for escapism too. Many forms of recreation are used to take us out of the here and now. Many do use them to forget worries, but I wouldn't label them weak.

 

If someone has chronic pain, are they weak for wanting to escape their reality with a drug? If someone is taking drugs for depression? These seem more clear-cut cases where people are really wanting to escape reality. I don't think this necessarily means such people are weak.

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i think maybe we should let this subject be and move to a new thread? Gleeful started this thread to say "happy thanksgiving" not "cocaine shrinks yer brain", and especially with relation to thanksgiving, i think we should err, return his thread to him? Note that he has'nt said anything since his first post, i think we owe him an apology...or drop the damned topic?

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I don't care for the topic because the great philosopher and programmer sparhawk is nowhere to be seen. So I could as well drop it. Besides, I was interested in the use of alcohol in regular way, and here we trailed off to some people being superiour to others, cocaine and drug disscussion, and halucinations...

Too late to save us but try to understand

The seas were empty -- there was hunger in the land

We let the madmen write the golden rules

We were just Children of the Moon

We're lost in the middle of a hopeless world

Children, Children of the Moon watch the world go by

Children, Children of the Moon are hiding from the Sun and the Sky

 

© The Alan Parsons Project - Children of the Moon

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Note that he has'nt said anything since his first post, i think we owe him an apology...or drop the damned topic?

 

i watched in awe - never have i seen a topic this harmless get so out of hand. :P

 

never mind though as some of you really seemed to enjoy it.

 

kind regards

gleeful

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I didn't...

Too late to save us but try to understand

The seas were empty -- there was hunger in the land

We let the madmen write the golden rules

We were just Children of the Moon

We're lost in the middle of a hopeless world

Children, Children of the Moon watch the world go by

Children, Children of the Moon are hiding from the Sun and the Sky

 

© The Alan Parsons Project - Children of the Moon

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I don't care for the topic because the great philosopher and programmer sparhawk is nowhere to be seen.

 

I'm always here, like god. :)

 

You answeres were prtty much impressive, if you came up with them on your own. You only failed in one thing. I didn't post this question to you to get an answer to them, I just posted them to show you there is much more then just black and white. Nature is not stuffed into clean little drawers that we make to cope with it. Just as a gun is not evil per se, alcohol is also not evil per se. It's what you make of it, not what it is, because everything is nothing. Now that was the philosophical word for Sunday. :)

Gerhard

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Well, I wasn't really sure. It seemed you might have an opinion that altering one's mind with drugs of any form is a sign of weakness.

 

Do you use tea as a way to stay alert? Do you drink it every morning before you go to work? Are people who con't function without caffeine weak?

Yes, they most definitely are. I don't drink tea at any given time, I drink it randomly with a meal or a snack. Don't even bother to try to come up with some nonsense about me being addicted to it, since it'll only make you look like a desparate loser. The amount of caffine in a cup of weak tea would barely stimulate a mouse, and I hate stong tea.

I'm not half-assed. I think informed adults should be able to use any drugs they want without fear of judicial wrath.

I see, so you'd like to live in a society where everyone was wandering around high on drugs half the time?

I can guarantee you'd change your mind very soon after you got that wish to come ture.

 

I really don't see how that makes you superior. It certainly isn't a fact. It's your opinion that recreational drug-users are beneath you.

It is a fact. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see that a man in full control of his faculites is in a far superior position to someone who's high on alcohol or some other drug.

 

 

Not everyone who drinks alcohol is trying to escape something. When I have a beer, I'm not fleeing the horrors of my past. Not drinking alcohol (or not using any mind-altering drug) doesn't mean that one is facing reality either, as you pointed out. I don't see "facing reality" and "taking drugs" as being mutually exclusive elements of one's life.

Wrong, You're attempting to alter reality with the use of chemical stimulus, even if you only take it 'to relax' or 'loosen your tongue' or whatever other way you desparately want to justify it, the upshot is that you're trying to change you're real behaviour to an artifically enduced behaviour by consuming toxic chemicals, and therefore altering reality as percived by your brain. That makes you weak-minded.

 

Video games are used to escape reality. Many books are read for escapism too. Many forms of recreation are used to take us out of the here and now. Many do use them to forget worries, but I wouldn't label them weak.

Those things don't actually physically alter you and impair the function of your brain. Reading too many books has no harmful effects. I can put a book down at any moment and carry on as normal.

 

If someone has chronic pain, are they weak for wanting to escape their reality with a drug? If someone is taking drugs for depression? These seem more clear-cut cases where people are really wanting to escape reality. I don't think this necessarily means such people are weak.

Obviously people with depression are weak-minded - literatlly, they have a sick, weak mind or they wouldn't have depression in the first palce.

THe difficercene with taking medical drugs, is that pain and sicknmess is forced upon people, no one chooses to have chronic pain.

People take alcohol and drugs voluntarily to amuse themselves, there's no good reason for it at all.

 

Edited by Sparhwak: Removed excessive quote to fix quoting

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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i think maybe we should let this subject be and move to a new thread? Gleeful started this thread to say "happy thanksgiving" not "cocaine shrinks yer brain", and especially with relation to thanksgiving, i think we should err, return his thread to him? Note that he has'nt said anything since his first post, i think we owe him an apology...or drop the damned topic?

Have you ever seen a subject stay on topic in this forum?

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Edited by Sparhwak: Removed excessive quote to fix quoting

 

You were too late I had already fixed it myself)

At least wait till I've left the thread before deciding I had missed it)

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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*Books*

Those things don't actually physically alter you and impair the function of your brain. Reading too many books has no harmful effects. I can put a book down at any moment and carry on as normal.

 

Did you know that when Goethe wrote "Leiden des jungen Werther", which is about a guy who commits suicide, there were a strong increase in suicides in the same age of young man as Werther was, whcih was a fictional character. Did you know that people were killed because other people believed that they were Mr. Smith Agents out of Matrix? Did you know that there are people who jumped down a skyscraper bafter wathcing Superman? And the most famous of all: Did you know that even now people are killed on a daily basis because of books like Koran or The Bible?

 

If stories, in whatever form, wouldn't touch or alter reality around us, they wouldn't be around. Do you think think that Santa Clause exists? I do. Oh, I don't think that there is or ever was, or will be, a physical entity which was named or had the properties attributed to him. But there are so many people believing in this kind of thing that it doesn't matter wether this physical entity existed or not, because the believe in itself is alread a reality on it's own. There is an entire business based on this concept, which already prooves that it is reality.

Gerhard

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You can't confine those effect to books. What your'e talking about is information.

Of course when someone learns new information they can decide to act in a different way based on it, that's completely different.

When they take chemicals which affect their judgement and perception of reality, they no longer have the choice to decide to act differently, the chemicals are deciding for them.

 

The basic fact is (and no one can argue with this) that the amount of harm alcohol and other recreational drugs cause in society far outweigh any good they do , and therefore, the net result is that they are a bad thing.

It's really as simple as that.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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