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As a little bit of a palate cleanser for the Annunciation shooting and Scotland
All Female Braveheart Remakechildren-with-knives fracas, I thought we could talk about the financial state of internet whoredom:Matthew Ball Xwitter Thread on OnlyFans Financials
(Mod question: If linking to a Xwitter thread, are there any standard operating procedures considering some people don't have it?)
Big 3 Takeaways:
What actually got me to take the time to write this up was seeing this article on sports betting.
Sports betting, OnlyFans (etc.), and addiction level of marijuana use are, to me, the three horsemen of tolerated social degeneration. That these all disproportionately impact (there, I said it!) young males is all the more revealing -- society is still okay with disposing the disposables and is now more than happy to turn it into a multi-billion dollar industry.
If we could 1:1 swap every alcoholic for a marijuana addict, would that be better? I find weed a little more distasteful for some reason but it's hard for me to see it as more harmful than alcohol.
Talk to (literally- no, I am not misusing figuratively)any blue collar boss. Ask if he'd rather an alcoholic or a pot user for a new lower level hire. 100%(I am not exaggerating) will choose the alcoholic.
Talk to any cop- all of them will tell you, marijuana is a bad drug, alcoholics can continue to be functional but potheads? No way.
Pot also has mental health consequences absent from alcohol, particularly for teens.
I've literally been a blue collar boss, and found the opposite to be true -- construction trades are literally full of guys smoking up in the truck on breaks, and it doesn't have the same impact on them as it would on you or I; tolerance or individual brain chemistry? Don't know, don't care.
Some level of alcoholism is also tolerated, but anyone I've seen who gets too far into the day-drinking has been more trouble than he's worth -- honestly I think that 90% of the current OH&S BS stems from a desire to make the jobsite safe enough that you can't hurt yourself even if you're hammered. (doesn't really work; true alcoholics always find a way to be a better idiot)
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What?!?!? This is silly
There are very few non-functional alcoholics or potheads.
Also on the scale of shitty behaviors alcoholics have worse outcomes for others and health outcomes for themselves.
I also doubt police opinions on weed smokers is anything more than "I don't care" given the actual drug users they have to interact with. But you're also American so you folk still have ridiculous takes on weed.
I am not blatantly pro weed either, I'm very against teenagers having access to cheap distillate weed pens, etc
While I think OP is overstating the case I find that the majority of people underestimate how bad the weed crisis is, it's not that the majority of people have a bad outcome but culturally it has no immune system, many many people abuse it to an absurd extent and some of the problems (like addiction, hyper-emesis, psychosis) are super under estimated.
The people in society who we are always complaining about are all abusing weed. it might not be the cause of the problems but it is contributory.
I took a visiting friend to a weed store near my house the other day and he stocked up on some products. The store sold weed buds, like straight from the plant, but he bought gummies and a vape pen and a super concentrated weed juice cartridge to slide in.
I took a puff from the vape pen for about 1 whole second and immediately started coughing and then spent the night being fairly dumb and unable to follow conversations and also a bit paranoid over how dumb I was.
I was expecting a very light buzz, not to check out. Stuff is so potent now and it's quite cheap. I'm fairly experienced with drugs but this caught me by surprise.
Incidentally, this weed store near my house is a nuisance because it's like a beacon for strung out people to congregate by in the early morning while they wait for the store to open so they can self-medicate. Which would be fine if they kept to themselves but they shout all morning and wake up the people that live across the street.
The penjamin is insane
The lack of friction when you own one for going sober>high is insane
It is profoundly easy to smuggle them in anywhere and then get high anywhere
The potency, is insane
Ironically, one of my favorite things about them is if you're very delicate, you can take tiny hits and "surf" a mild high, which is really pleasant. But eventually you'll fuck up, take too big of a hit, and go non-verbal lol.
I'm so happy these didn't exist when I was in high school
Yes, I am pretty worried about our youth. We might have to check out of society and join a Christian commune or something.
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Just musing: is this a success for capitalism, in the way that the drive for efficiency and efficacy produced aspirin from willow bark? Or a failure, because the new enhanced product isn't actually what the majority of potential customers want, and may taint the old product? Now that the production process for cocaine is known, nobody gets to buy coca leaves to chew for their mild buzz.
Only tangentially related, but in South America people still chew coca leaves as a home remedy for altitude sickness.
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I guess it's a win for capitalism because the people that were spending $1000/month on weed ten years ago can get by spending significantly less now?
Re: coca leaves, on a distantly related note I was at some sweat lodge recently and some guy offered people a puff from his home grown tobacco (in his hand carved pipe, of course) and the uptake was like 5 out of 6 people. I'm very certain if he had handed out a pack of Marlboros he would have had 0 takers.
So... maybe chewing coca leaves has room to come back too?
Depending where you are, legal weed might not be any cheaper than it was under prohibition. Every state has its own idiosyncratic system placing artificial constraints on production, pricing, and availability. Where I live the prices are more or less the same as they were in the decade before legalization, and had been at that point since the late 90s. Overall quality has gone up in general, and the higher quality illegal cannabis in the past did cost more at times, but that was largely driven by wealthy consumers driving the price up to capture the limited supply. States are still artificially constraining supply through various licensing/acreage/plant # limits on growers, but prices are also controlled in many states so wealthy consumers can't really wipe out the market for high end like they did in the past. Now the dispensary just runs out of product pretty regularly. Cannabis is a very hardy, easy to grow plant. Its resistant to disease and drought. Processing the dried flower is also fairly simple and low overhead; even the various extractions and tinctures that power the wax/oil products and edibles are generally faster and easier than the process for other crops like tobacco. Without the states limiting production the various markets could be easily flooded. Its also quite easy for individuals to grow it themselves; its literally a weed.
On the subject of strength, you can get weaker products. I know because I prefer them. Since the cancer I've lost all of my tolerances for everything; I can't even consume alcohol in any amount anymore. The main problem is that potency information isn't always clearly labeled, is often inaccurate, and the weak stuff isn't as popular so there are fewer offerings. Its there though. You can also do what I do and slice the gummies with a razor into 10ths.
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I've never experienced the paranoia but 'being unable to follow simple instructions or participate in conversations that required concerted thought' was interesting to me. I spent the next few days somewhat disoriented and clumsy, but at the same time less worried about things that would normally bother me.
It did feel pleasant (I hurt myself and didn't really feel it, so the anti-pain effect works in a way it doesn't entirely for alcohol) though it also took a few days to get back to normal. I'm sure if I took the time to acclimatize I could handle it but unless I have a week free it's not something I'm going to really be able to play with (and even then, I still have places to go, and driving becomes actively difficult under these circumstances).
With alcohol, the physical effects are more pronounced (and are more generally entertaining, though I get this depends on the crowd) and more importantly, they very clearly expire. Weed does not; though I have the freedom to do it, I cannot take advantage of it.
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Yeah old heads will tell you the new shit is dangerous - which it is, permanent psychosis induced by marijuana is much more on the table now and while it's hard to assess is starting to seem "common."
Now that's in the under 3% of the population range for the more serious cases which is deleterious when we are talking deranged homeless people but not 100% something people will notice. What gets iffier is the "failure to launch" type problem you frequently see. I gotta imagine black Americans would do a lot better if you made all the weed disappear for instance.
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My vibe is Europe struggles more with alcoholism and public drunken disorder since drinking is so much more normalized.
Just from a sanitation perspective there were so many more drunken buffoons peeing on the streets around me compared to the US, including women.
I could see that tempering attitudes a bit as well.
San Francisco streetshitters notwithstanding, I suspect America is far ahead of the rest of the Anglosphere in terms of disorderly conduct by regular taxpaying individuals. I've known Australians, educated women, with college degrees, holding down jobs, just piss freely in an alley rather than find a bathroom. It's insane.
Depends on how you define ‘regular tax paying’. There’s definitely a social class which works and also just pees in an alley.
That social class typically does not hold college degrees.
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That could simply be a particular American hangup about public urination. It shocks my tiny European mind when I see guys in the US getting literally arrested and charged for pissing in an alleyway, as if that is an actual crime. Similar to jaywalking, I suppose.
Not only that, in most (all?) of the US, getting caught for public urination can land you on the sex offender registry.
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