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 -
I read a view diverse mainstream articles to see what is reported about UH-shooter suspect Mangionis, and it seems he is not connect (yet) to any right/left identity, instead vague statements that he was interested in video games and interned/worked as a software-engineer.
The BBC mentions his review of the unabomber manifesto, but selects two balanced quotes which are pro and anti Kaczynski.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9nxee2r0do
I had to laugh about this:
Technically the police did not promise to not arrest him if he said his real name, but what does one expect?
Getting injured and dealing with the medical industry was probably the motivating incident, but was frying his brains on psychodelics also a factor?
https://x.com/PepMangione/status/1750216347836145914
Book "How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics" shown as currently being read on his Goodreads:
https://x.com/AlexBerenson/status/1866251493839397270
Wait, the X Account was reinstated? I guess Elon intervened? I just skimmed his tweets (always wild) and he shares Luigi memes (even wilder, I would have guessed he doesn’t like assassins!):
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1866389839362359790
Edit:
I know marijuana can cause for some paranoia, I never heard much about negative effects with psilocybin. I am sceptical about the drugs-fried-his-brain explanation. But I don’t have experience with drugs.
Just because I have lots of experience in this department, I can understand your skepticism. However, drug and alcohol induced psychosis is absolutely a Thing, propaganda notwithstanding. My old roommate was recently dating a gal who reached the point of marijuana-induced psychosis during the course of their relationship, in fact. By the end of it she couldn't hold down a job and had been hospitalized a couple of times for her episodes, and IIRC her continued smoking despite all of that was a big factor in the break-up.
On an academic note we still aren't sure if the marijuana causes psychosis, reveals occult disease, or causes disease to manifest earlier etc (although researchers certainly have opinions).
We do see a TON of people who superficially seem to have driven themselves crazy (in the short term or permanently) with weed.
It's not a high percentage of people but a certain population absolutely needs to avoid it.
(Also tagging @Muninn)
Does weed - and, for that matter, alcohol - induced psychosis manifest all at once? rapidly over several days weeks? Or can it be gradual over months-years?
Seems relevant
Weed appears to work a little differently from most other substances, most substances mostly cause drug induced psychosis - you take the thing, you act like a crazy person, you sober up, uhhhh whoops OR you get some kind of medical derangement that involves substances. People with bad alcohol withdrawal having hallucinations is the common example of that.
Some things appear to cause actual psychiatric illness. Marijuana and synthetic marijuana are the biggest culprits here. This can manifest as drug-induced psychosis that takes a long, long time to clear (or never does), or as generation of typical psychiatric illness (like Schizophrenia). In the former case the onset is rapid, you get high...and crazy and stay that way. In the latter you seem to have some element of increasing/worsening disease over a variable onset.
This is complicated by the fact that we know the psychiatclly ill like drugs of all kinds (which includes everything from nicotine to Marijuana). Are they treating early prodrome symptoms with weed and the weed is a sign of illness instead of a cause? Were they always going to become schizophrenic and the weed makes it happen earlier? Were they at risk of getting schizophrenia and then get it because of the weed? We don't know yet.
It's also possible that most or all drugs of abuse cause this and we are only having a clear picture with the weed because it's now popular and legal in most places in the U.S.
I'm sure their is some research out there somewhere that feels it has clarified some of this (maybe something like looking at schizophrenia rates in places with recreational weed and without) but I don't think we have an excess of clarity.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link