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 -
In case where people deliberately placed themselves in states where they have little capability of telling right from wrong, I have little sympathy. Though by default, one might assume that any homicide committed is reckless manslaughter rather than pre-mediated.
But suppose that instead, someone had slipped the shrooms into your food without your knowledge. In that case, I would support sending whomever drugged you into prison for manslaughter and let you off the hook, unless the DA can conclusively prove that you were thinking "finally an opportunity to go on a rampage without doing time afterwards".
From there, the next step would be to consider some fictional insect which bites you and induces a homicidal rage. If the insect was so rare that nobody took any precautions against it, it would still be the same situation on your part -- you did not make any wrong moral choices, but simply were unlucky.
The practical problem with the insanity defense is that we can never disprove it completely. If some mafia hitman claims that he entered a psychotic state before any of his killings, that is not something which could be ruled out from forensic evidence. So pragmatically, we might shift the burden of proof a bit -- make it at least plausible why you did not know right from wrong instead of having the prosecution prove your internal state of mind.
I purposely took what was suppose to be 3 grams of mushrooms in chocolates. The prior time I had took 1.5 grams and it was like cool visuals. My gut says poor quality control and they weren’t mixed well and I had a bigger dose. So hypothetically for some insanity defense when I took the shrooms I thought I was taking a reasonable and wouldn’t go crazy.
When you take a big dose of shrooms there’s something called an ego death. I guess I did something like that. I did imagine I was died and was in purgatory plus some things about thinking I was like Jesus brother which feels like a big ego to me.
My purgatory was hallucinating and seeing people in my life like my mom or gf. But they always turned out to be demons and I was robbed of having any human love. It got to the point where I would give anything to spend a moment with the person I find most annoying. So now in real life I love people more because being robbed of friendship and humanity is really not fun. I accepted I was in purgatory and would spend thousands of years of god molding me to be good or hopefully it doesn’t take that long.
I was begging for what felt like hours to get out of the alternative reality I had created. Purgatory is in fact quite painful.
Also I did shrooms with Jews. And obviously Jews are demons in my purgatory. They tempting me with unlimited power and wealth if I rejected Christ and joined them.
Whatever shrooms do to your mind I don’t know any cases where you end up killing the people your with. But I did have no sense of reality.
I have no idea if I would recommend for someone to do a big dose of shrooms or a similar thing. I had a semi-religious experience and I think some good mental work. But it was not fun. Purgatory is not fun.
But I’m writing this here because that’s my best understanding of some kind of temporary mental illness where you could like kill your kids but not understand what you are doing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link