Space-Time-Matter-Energy emerged in the Big Bang from nowhere & nowhen. Anything existing "prior" to that point-of-origin is inherently speculative and non-empirical (theoretical, philosophical), — Gnomon

I assume that the big bang has happened endlessly in our corner of the cosmos; we don't know if the same phenomena are occurring beyond what we are able to observe, which at this point in time, is "expansion." I assume that at some point, the expansion will reverse itself, and all matter will be drawn back into a mega-black hole that will eventually explode into another big bang.

Yes: beyond the capabilities of our telescopes, we have no idea if the same laws are being followed. As for the nowhere and nowhen: it seems logical to me to assume that matter has always existed.

I no longer live in the United States.
I’m just curious, who blames black folks for the welfare state? Any quotes, or... — NOS4A2

Lucky you! This is a very good article on these issues:
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/06/08/616684259/why-more-white-americans-are-opposing-government-welfare-programs

I also highly recommend Barbara Chasin's Violence and Inequality: Casualties of Capitalism, one of the very best books I've ever read. She ties it all together and shows how structural and organizational racism are woven throughout the entire fabric and all institutions of this country. This country is nothing if not paranoid and pathologically racist.

Who exactly blames black folks for the welfare state? — NOS4A2

Speaking of the United States specifically:

By asking that question, you invite me to conclude that you don't have any conversation for the folks who put Trump in office. Where I live, I do. Racists, who constitute the majority of white citizens of the usa, always blame black folks for the welfare state. And probably everything else. I think the state is also run by racists; racism is built right into the system. These are the folks who called Michelle Obama a gorilla and who seethed for 8 years while Obama was in office.

This is enlightening:
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/06/08/616684259/why-more-white-americans-are-opposing-government-welfare-programs

no longer relevant to the discussion

Mathematics is just some kind of extensive bureaucracy of excruciatingly annoying formalisms, not particularly much different from other such obnoxious bureaucracies: — alcontali

I love it.

While we eschew the responsibility of welfare to the government as a matter of habit, at the same time we continually absolve ourselves from the guilt of not providing welfare ourselves. — NOS4A2

That may have been possible in smaller communities in previous historical circumstances, but it does not seem possible now. I can't possibly imagine what kind of a set-up you imagine, if you'd care to clarify how your idea would work.

52% of those who benefit from these govt.-run programs are white, and yet white folks love to blame black folks for the welfare state. Racism continues to be a huge part of the problem, with all of its poisonous effects, including the prison industrial system and the organizational and structural racism that pervades the justice system and law enforcement. That's more than just the tip of the iceberg of why this country's so fked up.

I'll have to look into that, although I take a lot of the online information about Cannabis with a grain of salt, or less. There's a shit ton of shit information about Cannabis on the internet. There are a few medical researchers whose articles and books are trustworthy--Ethan Russo is one I trust. According to him, the benefits of THC and all other Cannabis chemicals on the Endocannabinoid System are not to be scoffed at.

That being said, however, of all the many things that impact the brain negatively--alcohol, cigarettes, air pollution, stress, poor diet, etc.--I'll stick with Cannabis.

Unless, one stays stoned all the time, but this leads to increased degradation in areas of the brain as well, and should be avoided for physiological and psychological reasons — Andrew Furr

I never heard before that Cannabis degrades the brain.

a technological god emerging on Earth — bronson

Bronson, can I please have your definition of what this god is?

I disagree - gossip, by definition, is idle talk about other people’s lives that may not necessarily be confirmed as true. It is neither harmful nor harmless by nature. — Possibility

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement :smile: You chose the first definition that pops up, but gossip is generally characterized by various pejorative characteristics like distortion, unvalidated heresay, and intrusion into and disregard for privacy.

I don't believe that any statement about another person is gossip--and I doubt that that's what you're trying to say, either. Here's an article that provides a different perspective on gossip's ability to give us "cultural competence": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.111

My concise definition of gossip: whenever I'm saying something about someone that I wouldn't say in front of them, it's gossip.

When face to face with one of these ‘very sick people’, could we NOT hate them? Could we treat them with the dignity deserving of a human being - or would it be very difficult to respond to the person and not the behaviour or mentality that we hate? — Possibility

I wouldn't hate them, but I'd probably be quite frightened of them; it would probably be very hard for me to control my fear. But I don't hate people--not at this point in my life.

That we can refrain from hating others by directing our emotions towards attacking the behaviour or mentality is certainly a step towards eradicating hate. — Possibility

I'm not attacking the behavior: I'm describing it. I have always sought to understand why people behave the way they behave, including myself.

but I think that until we can look at people like Trump or Hitler and see ourselves in similar life circumstances, we won’t be able to effect the kind of change that we want to see in the world. — Possibility

You know Stanley Milgram's experiment, right? Not everyone is going to be that obedient to authority. The Stanford prison experiment?Not everyone who gets into a position of power will abuse it, even if all those around are abusing their power.

It's patently obvious to me that not all humans have the same capacities for whatever we care to refer to: intellectual achievement or "genius," self-abnegation, goodness, badness, ambition, corruption, etc. There are anti-social personalities and there are social personalities!!

My point is not that I am an angelic being without flaws as far as my interpersonal relationships go, but to say that all humans can be this or that way seems (to me) tantamount to saying that all humans can be sexual predators, serial killers, psychopaths. This I absolutely do not believe to be true.

When we say they’re not the same type of information, I think we’re missing an opportunity to understand why we gossip and how we can alter its potential to cause harm. — Possibility

But that is not contained in the definition of gossip: gossip is, by definition, not harmless. You want to change the definition of gossip.

It sounds like most folks see gossip as an intentionally malicious or pitying form of communication, and that when we speak of others without malicious intent, it's not gossip.

1 Gossiping satisfies a need to feel superior to or better off than others. "Guess what: Bob met a nice girl" is not gossip; "Guess what: Bob has herpes," is.

2. Gossiping can also be a way of forming alliances against the person gossiped about by sharing the juicy tidbits with someone else, and it can also be a way of taking an indirect dig at the person with whom the gossip is shared: "Do you know what Bob said about you? He said you're ugly and stupid. Can you believe it??"

3. As implied in # 1, gossiping takes our minds off our own miseries. So Bob tells his co-workers, "Guess what: Joe has contracted HIV."

4. Gossip is a way of spreading lies and distortions: "Guess what: Joe got HIV from having sex with a gerbil."

I don't really want to generalize. — Coben

I believe that achieving emotional maturity is hard work, albeit different kinds of hard work for different people. Clearly there are innumerable paths...

Imagine cannabis, a plant, helping humans get along (socially conscious) and we have a harmonious society. — TheMadFool

That will be the day when the cows come home. I have no statistics on the subjective experiences of Cannabis, but there are far too many variables among people for us to imagine that everyone can use it the same way or achieve the same experiences. We're just too (self-)destructive a species...

I would like to know why we like to talk about others? — Fruitless

You're going to get a lot of different answers to that question; I think first of all, we need to define the term gossip: does it include any mention whatsoever of others? Or is it a narrower way of talking about others?

When we encounter someone doing something ‘immoral’ or hateful, do we strive to understand why, or do we blindly attack this threat to our ‘better loving reality’? — Possibility

Here are some concrete examples: the shooters at Black churches and synagogues break my heart. The history of lynching pains me deeply; so do the Holocaust, rape, incest, My Lai, serial killing, etc., etc. ad infinitum. The kind of mentality that is capable of such actions is a very scarey mentality to contemplate. In general, I conclude that probably the people in those categories never developed a conscience and experienced severe abuse and trauma themselves. I've read about Hitler and the German family unit for the generations prior to the rise of nazism (Rosembaum's Explaining Hitler, and Alice Miller has a few books on the German ethos of the period) as well as many books on psychopathy. I've read a lot about the kind of trauma and abuse that result in the developmental disabling of conscience and the ability to use other people merely as things.

I will admit that during the past three years, it's been very hard for me not to hate Trump. I am hoping that he will be impeached so that all the damage he's inflicting is stopped. I understand that he's deeply traumatized and that he has found it quite easy and probably comfortable to view other people more as things than as subjects like himself. So I guess I'd have to say that I hate the destruction, cruelty and deprivation that very sick people inflict on the world.

I'm more on the side of freeing it up, radically, though carefully over time. — Coben

If I understand you correctly, that is how real change--referring to emotional/intellectual/spiritual or ethical--occurs for humans. At least for me, and as I tell my students, growing up takes a lifetime. I've spent much of my 66 years coming to understand myself better, and the effort has been quite worthwhile. Something else I always tell students: just because someone reaches the age of 50 or 60 doesn't mean they're grown up. Many nod their heads affirmatively when I ask them if they know folks in their 60s who are still tantrum-throwing children.

I think HH the Dalai Lama's influence on many Westerners is a positive thing: he's a very special and wise man. But stuff like all the celebrities who got interested in Kabbalah, who hadn't spent years and years before that studying Hebrew and the fundamental Jewish texts like Torah, Tanakh, Talmud, etc.--that's a little silly in my book, although I hope they all got something good out of it.

I was being ironic, and yeah, we all shuffle along, finding our way...

I think in general, for most people, it functions as a short cut — Coben

I agree; most people probably want the easiest, fastest way to feel good, or to feel nothing at all. I make no judgements or "needs to be" about how and why other people use Cannabis. In an ideal world, we'd all be able to meditate for 7 straight weeks and attain enlightenment like the Buddha.

That is to say, I don't think it reasonable to assume you can illegally cross a border without repercussion and I think you are particularly reckless if you bring your children along and place them in peril, — Hanover

What if the peril of staying where you are--i.e., Guatemala, Honduras--is far worse than the peril of trying to enter the usa illegally? What if the threats at home put your childrens' lives in worse peril?

It’s almost impossible to think practically and rationally when every fibre of our being screams ‘NO!’ at the thought that human beings just like you and me - who live a life not entirely dissimilar to our own - are choosing to act this way. To acknowledge this is to accept our own capacity to do the same. Even worse, to acknowledge this is to recognise our neighbour’s capacity to behave this way. That’s some scary shit. Most of us don’t have the courage to admit this reality to ourselves. THIS is why we hate. — Possibility

I see hatred as based on projection, infantile rage and unconscious self-loathing. When people conclude that it's ok for them to hate, they also feel justified to do whatever they want to those they hate. There's a lot of self-righteousness that characterizes hate behavior, which creates a catch-22: I don't have to stop hating because I am right to hate. I'm "protecting Southern womanhood" or I'm "keeping the world safe for democracy." Of course, that's not what's really going on at all.

Anyone can choose to live without a moral code or can pretend to follow a moral code while not doing so in reality. I think those are the folks who tend to hate with the most impunity. When people feel no sense of responsibility in terms of how they relate to others, it's like an anti-ethics of anything goes--which is no ethics at all. It's fundamentally anti-social. Those who believe they have a moral responsibility to refrain from doing hateful things to others are practicing ethics. Practice is good!

Why can't they do something practical rather than gossip? — Fruitless

What exactly are you asking: why people do the things they do? Isn't that a rather strange question?

Sounds preachy and kind of elitist or snobby to me.
I did read some of it, but it doesn't really appeal to me. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, I can tell you don't like it; you made that clear twice. Me, I love the essay. If you know anything about Rushkoff you know that he's an admired intellectual and no elitist.

The Rushkoff stuff you're quoting seems kind of hyperbolic, sensationalized, overwrought, flowery to me, — Terrapin Station

To me, he exhorts: although his essay is written as a description of the way that Cannabis works on a mature mind, I came to the conclusion that in reality, Rushkoff is being hortatory, telling us, "Use Cannabis in order to break free of the constraints of bourgeois/white privilege mentality; use it to see clearly what is really happening in the world, and stop pretending that your life style isn't part of the problem; use it first and foremost to know thyself better."

But that's just my reading; you are welcome to your own, although I don't believe you've read the essay, have you? It appeals deeply to me, but de gustibus non disputandum est.

but to be able to take those steps oneself, rather than simply being shifted there and then falling back with a gap in between — Coben

This is interesting: there are some things I can do that way, like learning a new hobby or language, but there are other things I can't do that way, like alleviate depression/anxiety.

I use Cannabis primarily as medicinal: it has relieved depression and anxiety in me like no SSRI was ever able to do. It creates a wide-open space for me mentally/emotionally, where I'm less reactive and more rational. I've been making my own tincture for two years and the difference in my life is amazing. I believe tincture is a great medicinal way to take it. And growing my own, I know the quality and treatment have been guaranteed.

I like to keep my ECS saturated; the research being done now on how many illnesses can be linked to a depleted ECS is mind-boggling. I like to think of Cannabis as humans' best friend from the plant world, akin to the dog in that sense. Cannabis evolved right alongside humans, because they cultivated it and took seeds with them wherever they went. The plant was indispensible to humans: as a source of fiber, protein (from seeds), medicinal and spiritual use. She's been with us a long, long time.

Indeed: my existential terror is an old familiar friend. When it comes around, I welcome it in, get close up and personal with it. I am not longer afraid of pondering the stuff that terrifies me the most: people commiting evil and injustice, bad parenting, human traffikers, global warming, road kill, etc. When they come around, I mourn them as I ruminate on them one more time, and at some point they go away and leave me in peace for a while.

For me, one great thing about ageing is getting more comfortable with the utter abandonment that I feel at times. I kind of revel in the fact that I've learned how to do that.

I've been listening lately to Bowie's last album--especially Lazarus and Blackstar, and I find it so comforting how he made beautiful art out of dying. Bowie was sublime, and so is anxiety, in a way...

That's a good one. It gives me a true sense of confidence about my (temporary) existence.

This article may be of interest, hippocampal neurogensis and memory: — Pantagruel

I looked at it, but I see a lot of that research as, well, quite partial. Why on earth test THC on animals? This makes no sense to me. Further, there is a lot of research out there on how Cannabis (not an isolated cananbinoid or a synthetic version of THC, but rather the whole plant and all the chemicals in synergy, helps with ADHD. A few of my students say Cannabis tincture helps them to focus and concentrate better.

It's quite mysterious how it can have such different effects on different people. But I see that as part of the nature of Cannabis. How I feel using it now is nothing like what I felt in the 1970s.

[

it's a short step from Rushkoff's raised conscience to stoned unconscious. — TheMadFool

I'm not sure what you mean by "stoned unconscious," but that's not what Rushkoff is talking about at all. There are people who prefer that mode, who use Cannabis to melt into the couch and stop thinking altogether, but that's a different issue. Rushkoff's essay is descriptive of a very specific state of mind enhanced by Cannabis--a socially-conscious high is not like a couch-lock high.

yet wind the clock ahead several years and factor in the effects of global warming in third world countries and who fucking knows how things might escalate. — Maw

I've been scoffed at for my Trump-Hitler comparisons, but every day the parallels grow stronger. Interestingly, Hitler was a germophobe, as is Trump. Fear of contamination, projections of one's own imagined filth onto the other.

It's not about Jews, gas chambers and the conquest of Europe vs. Trump's agenda, as some folks would like to reduce the issues to; I'm certainly not wiping away historical differences between Nazi Germany and contemporary usa, but Trump's fascist, totalitarian mentality and his utter disregard for the lives of people considered inferior gives me goosebumps--as do his views on women (and Melania does remind me of some of those nude paintings Hitler loved so much; she's a thing, not a person).

Trump pushes his scarey stereotypes of Mexicans and Central Americans as Hitler did with the Jews. So there may not be gas chambers, but there are certainly places with uncanny similarities to concentration camps, as you pointed out. Trump may be a bit more old-fashioned than Hitler with his ideas of crocodile-filled moats, but it smacks of final solution type-thinking to me...

What I am saying is that, if you can talk the person out of it, then, you probably shouldn't. — thewonder

You've lost me again. Re-read, if you will, what I first wrote above. Of course forms of appropriate intervention are an ethical obligation, but should never be forced on anyone who's not delusional.

seems to advance that, in exceptional cases, it should be advocated. — thewonder

I don't know where this "advocated" thing is coming from. It seems to kind of sit there, in the middle of the discussion, without a clear reason for its presence. This has nothing to do with eugenics, so you have lost me.

I deny that the left or the right actively helps the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. That economic transformation is not partisan-directed, or helped. It is a system growing on a natural basis by itself. — god must be atheist

Can you clarify what you mean by a system growing, you seem to be saying, sui generis? That's not sounding very Marxian to me.

But what is there to exploit in people who are not even working? Or in the golden era of middle class (1950-2010) who wanted to fight against oppression and exploitation? — god must be atheist

Constituting 13% of the population in the usa, Black folks have never not been exploited and held back. And lots of white folks fought on their behalf, as you know, during the Civil Rights movement.

"What is there to exploit in people who are not working?" Are you kidding? Reagan's vast expansion of the prison system that revved up in the 1980s and has continued ever since, has made billions upon billions for all companies involved in constructing and administrating prison systems. The projects also "make" billions of dollars for other people.

That's what he thought the main secular goals of a Christian ought to be, and he saw it clearly that the communist party had the very same ideals in view. — god must be atheist

I think that's a really good story about your father: he saw the best ideals of Christianity and communism with none of the taint of greed, ambition or hypocrisy.

I said, I am not advocating.

You can not be of any decent Ethical paradigm and advocate that person commits suicide due to psychological durress. — thewonder

Certainly no would would advocate for someone's suicide (without being seriously sadistic and sick), but I think that someone with profound emotional pain who seeks an end that way has the fundamental right to make their own choice. I think that some people are so empathic and so sensitive to various things going on in the world right now and how nutes humanity is, (unlike millions of people who don't seem to be feeling or perceiving this at all). On the other hand, next time, they will come right back to the same karma, so ideally (from a Buddhist-type perspective), we man up or woman up and face our worst demons. Again and again.

I think it's a deeply tragic choice when someone does make it--like they never got the right support/medication/counseling that might have assisted in the process of coming to a desire to live and change. BUT since I've never been in that person's shoes, I absolutely will not judge them.

I posted this in a new topic on Doug Ruskoff's essay, "Cannabis: Stealth Goddess," and mostly got negative, nasty, and dismissive responses. WTF is wrong with so many people on this forum????

There are some of us for whom Cannabis stimulates deeper insight into whatever subject one is investigating, a relaxed capacity for self-reflexivity, a more secure grounding in one's own sense of authenticity in a phony, hypocritical world, deeper relationships with others and with self, and most importantly, an ethics of refraining from harming others. Rushkoff claims that Cannabis raises conscience.

Here's a quotation:

Cannabis will give you the greatest gifts she has to offer--but she wants something in return. She wants your soul.... In short, Cannabis raises consciousness, creates a relationship, and--immediately after its peak--forces a self-evaluation. That's the step that can't be avoided.... [T]he higher you go, the more intense a self-examination will be demanded once you crest....
Paranoia is reserved for the elder, more experienced users--and at that, only the ones who both hear Cannabis's messages and repeatedly refuse to comply. Who in their right minds would change their lives to conform to what they were thinking when they were stoned?
To put it most simply, pot stops time.... The lean-forward of your directed, intentional life ceases. You are still doing what you are doing, but the goal no longer exists. The simplest effect of this time-stoppage is to bring focus to the task at hand. There is no goal; there is only process.... The act in this moment is all there is....
For those accustomed to avoiding life's more existential dilemmas by busying themselves with activity, this slipping out of sequential time can be enough to induce some serious psychic trauma. For them, to just be is hard enough. Especially if they've been avoiding who they are for a long while.
Kids are immune to this effect.... Adults, however, make their own momentum.... Stoned, however, time stops. The self-generated momentum ceases, and whateer that motion was helping to hide comes to the surface.... Pot is a drug that requires a level of respect, trepidation and devotion that most people aren't prepared or expecting to give her.

I'm interested in hearing from other members who use Cannabis to enhance their experiences or activities: reading, writing, philosophizing, relating to others, self-exploration and problem-solving, communing with nature, feeling physically/spiritually/emotionally better, etc. — uncanni

What I find sad is how fast some of you are to denigrate what you don't agree with. It's pathetic how fast it happens around here.

The Rushkoff stuff you're quoting seems kind of hyperbolic, sensationalized, overwrought, flowery to me — Terrapin Station

Glad you like it! Now go read the article.

Not my problem if you are belligerent and obtuse. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You are absolutely right. I will try to mend my ways.

I like to think of the temporary loss of short term memory as a funny kind of blip, because I almost always am able to pick up the thread where it was before, provided I'm conversing with someone who's as focused on the topic as I am. What they don't mention in the research is how much deeper one can analyze. As for much of the lab testing of the effects of Cannabis, chances are that I'd be forgetful, paranoid and anxious if I were using the drug in such an environment.

I will read the article!