Mexican drug lord thanks El Presidente Obama for cannabis prohibition

[Jenova's Witness]

Here in the good old US of A (a phrase I use with more than a little sarcasm), outlawing irresponsible use and behavior seems no more or less effective a deterrent of that behavior than outlawing the substance itself. Even a fairly accurate (results may vary in your district) anti-drug education system seems to have little impact, as most of the people who were in my very same classes have gone on to make the decisions we were warned against. People accuse health education of lying at least as much as the drug proponents in the first place. My classes were a little overboard, to be certain, but mostly correct. The best we can do is try to eliminate the misinformation, which you can see from this thread alone is abound on all sides.

What can I say?  Kids are dumb, and getting them to not do dumb things is a mystery no parent can solve.

There are few options remaining. I would discourage the death penalty because we have more than the occasional wrongful conviction (results may vary in your state), and even with overwhelming evidence of innocence it's nearly impossible to reverse a death sentence. We could try even harder to keep drug industry advertisements from encouraging poor behavior, but freedom of speech protects even those who deliberately distribute misinformation en masse. I guess we could penalize doing such for profit. Most of the cultural encouragement to do drugs is more subtle and psychological than outright lying to you, though.

I think we should have a death penalty, but I don't like how it doesn't have any materia growth.  Also, I think the standards for applying the death penalty as a punishment for a crime should be higher than those required for life in prison, because the idea of executing an innocent is so horrifying.

 

[Cupcake]

They're wrong, of course.

But it grinds my gears when people act as if the whole argument for legalising it will crumble if this point is proven wrong. It's a straw man. It's bad form to only argue against the weakest point that is made in favour of a proposition.

I'm not saying it causes NO harm, but the harm it does cause, is negligible.  Especially compared to alcohol and tobacco.  As far as what Jenova's Witness said about people can't really remember what they do when stoned, I want to know what they're smoking, because that only happens to me if I smoke a lot of it in one sitting.

 

[DLPB_]

but the harm it does cause, is negligible

What don't you understand about research and logic that suggests it is just as bad (and worse in some areas)?  That it is pumping hot air and chemicals into the lungs?  It isn't negligible.  Your argument is based on a rosy picture created by your hope that you are right when you aren't.

They said these exact same things about Tobacco 40 years ago.  What is a hard to grasp here?  Either you are right, and pumping hot smoke into your lungs is cool, or I am right, and it isn't.

 

[Cupcake]

What don't you understand about research and logic that suggests it is just as bad (and worse in some areas)?  That it is pumping hot air and chemicals into the lungs?  It isn't negligible.  Your argument is based on a rosy picture created by your hope that you are right when you aren't.

They said these exact same things about Tobacco 40 years ago.  What is a hard to grasp here?  Either you are right, and pumping hot smoke into your lungs is cool, or I am right, and it isn't.

Based on personal experience, when I smoked cigs, I had a nagging cough, stopped smoking cigs, I coughed like hell for a few days, and then nothing, been smoking a lot of weed in the interim.  I'd say it's negligible.  Even if it isn't negligible though, why should you be allowed to tell me what I can and can't do to my own body?

 

[DLPB_]

BY that token I guess I shouldn't tell you to murder or not and you should be allowed to get on with it?

Doesn't work that way.  If you want to do it, I have no problems as long as you sign a form that every illness related to smoking you must pay for out of your own pocket and not tax.  The other issue I have is that smoke harms others, and will your own kids if you have them and smoke near them.

There is no such thing as second had liver disease (alcohol)

 

[Cupcake]

BY that token I guess I shouldn't tell you to murder or not and you should be allowed to get on with it?

Doesn't work that way.  If you want to do it, I have no problems as long as you sign a form that every illness related to smoking you must pay for out of your own pocket and not tax.  The other issue I have is that smoke harms others, and will your own kids if you have them and smoke near them.

There is no such thing as second had liver disease (alcohol)

and most studies that say second hand smoke is harmful are flawed by design and do not reflect real-world situations.

 

[DLPB_]

Oh please, not that one again.  If you are shoving something that is proven to be harmful into any lung, it is not a good thing.

 

[Cupcake]

You're rather good at dodging my question of "What gives you the right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body?"

 

[sl1982]

Why?

Because one individual, who shouldn't even be here, seeing as he has been permabanned 27 times, is extremely antisocial?

I don't see why we should all suffer the consequences of his actions. The easiest solution to this little problem (a storm in a teacup if there ever was one; it will be forgotten in a week) would be to ban the person who is on a lifetime ban.

EDIT:

And now that I think about it, is there even a problem?

If we can just put people on ignore whenever they disagree with us, there should be no more flame wars. That's a far less drastic solution.

Ignore is a voluntary thing that I can not enforce.

I see a few ways this will play out:

1. Everyone decides to play nice. Stop calling people idiots and whiners. Nothing happens.
2. People still call each other names and come whining to me when someone calls them something. I get pissed off and either, A: Ban everyone that was involved wether or not they started it, B: Remove completely unrelated entirely, C: Deny access to unrelated for everyone involved.

I would much rather the first option happened, but at this point it does not matter much to me. Completely Unrelated has nothing to do with the goals of this forum so it is of no significant loss to me. Just means less work for the staff.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Ignore is a voluntary thing that I can not enforce.

I see a few ways this will play out:

1. Everyone decides to play nice. Stop calling people idiots and whiners. Nothing happens.
2. People still call each other names and come whining to me when someone calls them something. I get pissed off and either, A: Ban everyone that was involved wether or not they started it, B: Remove completely unrelated entirely, C: Deny access to unrelated for everyone involved.

I would much rather the first option happened, but at this point it does not matter much to me. Completely Unrelated has nothing to do with the goals of this forum so it is of no significant loss to me. Just means less work for the staff.

Or you could make a rule against harassing the mods, if that's the problem.

Or you could just ignore people who spam PMs. Your main concern seems to be lightening your own workload, so this should work wonders.

You keep on acting like being a moderator is some kind of divine calling. It isn't. You don't have to do it and you don't have to take notice of every single PM sent because of every little squabble. The third thing in this thread that grinds my gears if you acting as if you're forced to do this job and then taking it out on all of us.

What confuses me is that for most of the first year or so that I was here, the forum worked perfectly well with hardly any moderation at all. There were no active global mods in them days; they just came when there was a serious issue. Now there are four of you and apparently the workload is so great that you're all having nervous breakdowns. I don't get it.

 

[DLPB_]

kud, we arent stupid.  It is clear to see that you were the first to try baiting and you did it blatantly, and then when a mod gets pissed you claim it is a conspiracy and bad 'ol seifer needs banning cause he shouldnt be here.

Get real.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

kud, we arent stupid.  It is clear to see that you were the first to try baiting and you did it blatantly, and then when a mod gets pissed you claim it is a conspiracy and bad 'ol seifer needs banning cause he shouldnt be here.

Get real.

I thought I was on ignore.

I also thought that I had adopted a pro-legalisation stance long before you came to the thread. Am I baiting if, after you come to a thread, I continue to make an argument that I was already making?

Completely Unrelated is going to be deleted all because you start harassing the mods every time someone disagrees with you. You're ruining it for everyone.

The hilarious thing is that this is exactly how your fight with Jari started. You were losing a fight that you started, so you started harassing him with PMs, ordering(!) him to get rid of those nasty people. It backfired. Then you started harassing Qhimm to get rid of Jari. It didn't work. Now you're still harassing people through PM whenever you don't get your way. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

It's a shame that CU is going to be deleted. So many people enjoyed coming here and chatting away, having fun. But some people seem determined to destroy everything.

Anyway, regardless of whether CU gets deleted and regardless of whether you have me on ignore or not, I'm putting you on ignore. In the unlikely event that your behaviour doesn't get the board deleted, it will be a breath of fresh air to be able to have a thread where we can talk about a controversial subject without resorting to name calling.

 

[DLPB_]

It was you who started the ad hominem dude, and it generally always is   We always seem to keep coming back to what I did (all for nothing hmm) over a year ago too, where you are concerned.  regardless yes, I think you having me on ignore as well will be great.\

While we are at it, your friend Jari tried sabotaging the forum, and don't think I am that stupid that I don't know what you are about as well.  2 peas in a pod.

 

[sl1982]

I cannot speak for when you joined as I was a year behind you. I do know that much of the time I have been here there has been need for moderators. Being an admin (or moderator) is not a divine calling, but it is a job that I take seriously. Part of that job is to try and make these forums run smoothly, reduce or eliminate flame wars, and try to encourage the main point of this forum; to learn about and improve the Sqeenix games that we all enjoy. Completely Unrelated helps none of these goals and hinders some quite a bit. In my honest opinion completely unrelated is completely useless. Theres a whole fucking internet out there to have squabbles on and read the latest news.

I need to think on this some more.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

I cannot speak for when you joined as I was a year behind you. I do know that much of the time I have been here there has been need for moderators. Being an admin (or moderator) is not a divine calling, but it is a job that I take seriously. Part of that job is to try and make these forums run smoothly, reduce or eliminate flame wars, and try to encourage the main point of this forum; to learn about and improve the Sqeenix games that we all enjoy. Completely Unrelated helps none of these goals and hinders some quite a bit. In my honest opinion completely unrelated is completely useless. Theres a whole fucking internet out there to have squabbles on and read the latest news.

I need to think on this some more.

Clearly you do need to think about it some more.

The forums would be much poorer for having lost CU. The number of posts you've had here suggests that you might miss it too.

CU has also been around for an awfully long time. How come it never caused problems before, but it is now apparently the forum's kryptonite? Don't say that it's because there are more flamewars nowadays, because there aren't. I genuinely don't see any difference between CU now and CU years ago, and yet you seem to think that CU is now the cancer that is killing the qhimm forums. The only cancer killing the forums is this attitude of "I must moderate every single post!". We don't need this attitude. We never needed it before and we don't need it now.

 

[sl1982]

Clearly you do need to think about it some more.

The forums would be much poorer for having lost CU. The number of posts you've had here suggests that you might miss it too.

CU has also been around for an awfully long time. How come it never caused problems before, but it is now apparently the forum's kryptonite? Don't say that it's because there are more flamewars nowadays, because there aren't. I genuinely don't see any difference between CU now and CU years ago, and yet you seem to think that CU is now the cancer that is killing the qhimm forums. The only cancer killing the forums is this attitude of "I must moderate every single post!". We don't need this attitude. We never needed it before and we don't need it now.

You must have a poor memory. I clearly remember Unrelated being the reason moderation was needed in the first place. Anyways you are entitled to you opinion, even though it has no bearing on what the staff decides.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

You must have a poor memory. I clearly remember Unrelated being the reason moderation was needed in the first place.

Oh yes, the forum needs some moderation. We need spambots and people with the wrong amount of chromosomes to be banned.

What it doesn't need is moderator intervention every single time two people disagree.

Anyways you are entitled to you opinion, even though it has no bearing on what the staff decides.

Oh no, it has no bearing.

You'll just realise that I was right six months after making a disastrous decision. That's how things work around here.

 

[Bosola]

Le sigh.

Locked until I decide what to do.

Good night.

 

[obesebear]

Well now, this thread has sure turned interesting all of a sudden.  Look, I won't lie to you guys, I kind of miss the days where I was the only one with power and could go around banning who I pleased and making all of the rules, but fact is, that was a lot of work and it made coming here quite miserable.


Here are my thoughts, this thread is fine and has had attention brought to it much to prematurely.  However, both sl1982 and Bosola appear to think otherwise, and though I may disagree, I will not be one to undermine either of them. If they choose to ban people or even close this whole forum, I will definitely express my opinion on the matter, but if they ultimately feel they are making the best decision, so be it.


HOWEVER, my whole point of making this post is to make it once again perfectly clear to everyone (specifically the 3 involved in this thread) that if I feel this thread or any future threads reach the point of flaming others, it doesn't matter how long you've been here or how much you've contributed, I will ban you and continue banning any proxies you may decide to hide behind.


Now then, here is what I suggest happen, the lot of you put each other on your ignore lists.  Why? Because whenever you're in a thread together it always turns to whining and finger pointing, and has really gotten old at this point.  It's not even interesting to read anymore.

 

[sl1982]

Access to unrelated has been removed from the offending members. Access to these forums is a privilege not a right.