This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
No kidding. I have a friend who I've known since undergrad. Very smart guy - graduated from high school early so he could play around with robotics, did an undergrad double major in math and philosophy, breezed through a T-5 law school and was doing really well for himself working BigLaw.
However, in addition to the smarts (or maybe as an adjunct to them) this guy was quite neurotic, and developed a quite serious fear of flying. Needless to say he wasn't happy about this, and so started self-medicating with THC whenever he needed to fly. This led to a discovery that he quite liked being high, and in short order he wound up escalating to quite heavy marijuana use.
I'm not sure how long he had this habit or how heavy his use had been, but one morning I got a call asking if I could come pick him up and maybe let him crash at my place for a couple nights...only to find out once I had got him that he was in the depths of full-blown (if well-mannered) psychotic incident, complete with auditory hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, erratic behavior, and mania. I spent about 18 hours convincing this alien inhabiting my friend's body that no, the cars parked out front of my apartment weren't there to surveil him, that the faint sounds audible through the apartment walls was just my neighbor watching a movie, and that no he really didn't need to go find a gun store.
He eventually calmed down and I let him loose when he seemed clearly in control of himself again. Three days later he called and let me know that his doctors had told him it was THC-induced psychosis, and that he really needed to lower his dose. Fortunately it hasn't happened again, but man was that a weird moment.
One thing that has happened is that modern weed is stronger than older weed (and therefore people are more likely to have severe shit happen). Synthetic marijuana is popular in some communities and can also cause extremely severe issues.
For a fun one: too much caffeine (and stimulants of any kind) can also cause psychosis.
I love college students who are super crazy because they are drinking too many monsters and not sleeping. One of my favorite presentations. Consistently hilarious to see when you walk into the ED.
A guy I knew a long time ago with no history of drug abuse got prescribed new sleeping pills (might have been Ambien), ”sleep walked” on those to taking an entire package of his ADHD meds (dexamphetamine) at once and promptly ended up in a psych ward due to acute amphetamine psychosis.
Ambien side effects include: sleep talking, sleep walking, sleep driving, sleep eating, death.
All the good drugs have death listed as side effect.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link