676

(35 replies, posted in Politics)

"I like how you accepted his credentials as a "medical expert." wink"
Thank you. My 1 am head had to take some time to understand what you said. Too much studying for me today. Real medical studies that is.

"He's not going to mention gateway drug theory more than the passing reference. I ripped him apart when he brought up the issue of Libertarian positions on drugs in the past. He immediately stopped posting and gave up when I bombarded him with links making fun of "gateway drug theory."

I've repeatedly asked about alcohol, and recently nicotine and caffeine as well. He ignores these questions. If pressed he claims that alcohol's pretty harmless and marijuana is all kinds of things which literally no professional would claim it is."

That is always an issue in these discussions: Drug opponents tend to think marijuana is more harmful than drugs that are used everyday by a large amount of people, but not classified as such, such as alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. The standard doctors advise your family doctor, your cardiologist, any many other medical professionals will give you after examining your risk factors is: quit smoking, drink less and drink less cafeine! (although research has shown that small daily amounts of cafeine and alcohol can have benificial effects; nicotine on the other hand has only been shown to have negative effects, except perhaps its urine-production supressing effects which can be useful on a night out clubbing!)

677

(35 replies, posted in Politics)

"2 year degree"
What was the degree on, and where did you get it from? Important information if we are to ratify its value.

"12 years experience"
Experience in what? Please clarify.

"200 books read (including pyschologist books, treatment plan books, chemistry analysis books, and more)"
Medical science is one of the fastest developing sciences, what you have read in books that were written 5 years ago can be completely outdated today. Every so many years, a new psychiatric treatment plan book is brought out : The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association. I think part V is coming up soon. Would be nice to know which one you read?
Psychology is another fast-developing study, although I myself wouldn't like to call it a science tongue.
Chemistry analysis, by this do you mean the chemical analysis of compounds in a substance and their effects?

"Two jobs proffessionally handling drug addicts (Secured Medical Transport and Urinologist)"
Of course jobs handling drug addicts get you into contact with drug addicts a lot, I'll give you that. However these two jobs seem like ones that will get you in contact with them the fewest, let alone would you get into contact with the regular drug user.
If the medical transport is secured, I take it the drug addicts you were transporting were dangerous? When a drug user goes as far as abusing drugs and becoming dangerous due to their use, they aren't even comparable any longer to the mean drug user (marijuana, xtc, mdma, speed perhaps). We're talking about the drug heavyweights here. Plus, I doubt you had much contact with them since we're dealing with "secured" transport.
Urinologist is honestly a profession I have never heard of, and judging by your short description it is nothing more than a lowly lab assistant. Contact with test-subjects on this level is limited as well, as you're basically just the collector of samples and results; you are not the person interpretting the results nor are you actively involved in the recruitment of test-subjects. You simply tell them where to wee and performed a few basic chemical reactions. Also, the case here again being that you were in a court ordered program, dealing with the drug heavyweights.

"Associations with drug addicts and people in recovery."
Again, very vague: what kinds of associations were they exactly, what severity of drug users did they handle and what was your job in these associations?


"I know this better than someone who reads the Constitution, reads the Federalist Papers, reads the writings of the founding fathers knows the Constitution. The difference is they read it. I studied it, lived with it around me, I worked on it, and I read it."
This is of course an entirely true statement. If there is one thing medical professionals (or soon to be) hate, it is some political nitwit judging our work incorrectly and making wrong conclusions, either because they are  based on his wrong observations, incorrect interpretation of said observations or just incorrect argumentation using said interpretation, or of course the combination of them all.




What is generally disregarded in these sorts of discussions is that there are many gradations of drug users, that don't necessarily evolve through these gradations, increasing in severity. There are plenty moderate marijuana or MDMA users who would not even think about using heroine.
Plus if we are speaking of the severity of addicting substances and their works as gate-way drugs, it should be interesting for you guys to mention the likes of alcohol and nicotine as gateway drugs (first to softer drugs like marijuana, later to harder drugs like heroine).

678

(35 replies, posted in Politics)

"Two jobs proffessionally handling drug addicts (Secured Medical Transport and Urinologist)"

You mean urologist right? I didn't know you were an MD?

Wow, Einstein is a doctor, and not just any kinda doctor, a surgery subspecialist, an urologist! And all this time I thought you were just a veteran turned truckdriver!

679

(35 replies, posted in Politics)

Mdma! :d

680

(641 replies, posted in Universal News)

yikes

681

(641 replies, posted in Universal News)

You all suck balls. my balls to be precise.



waiting for the train is so boring...

682

(58 replies, posted in Universal News)

Has Flashy crashed his droids yet?

683

(12 replies, posted in General)

Well if you hate us that much, stay away! Stop digging holes in our beaches! Good riddance.


Na I'm just kidding, I love Germany but come football I hate them with a passion.
*Me hums "alle Duitsers zijn homo"*
Although we need an amazing song like this sad

684

(49 replies, posted in General)

Utrecht!

We have a beautiful city center here, very nice parks to visit and some fun musea if you're into that sort of thing, as well as plenty nice clubs and bars.


A few nice places to visit:
- De "Dom", the famous churchtower.
- Oudaen, a house (also known as "Stadskasteel", or city castle in English) from the period between 12-14th century. There are several more of these, but this one is by far in the best condition.
- De Winkel van Sinkel, a famous shop with very nice architecture.
- The Moneymuseum and the Dutch Royal Mint, both located in the same beautiful building.
- Wilhelminapark
- Just the city center in general, there's some nice architecture to be found.


Nice restaurants:
- I've heard good things about "De Thai", along de oudegracht.
- There's an Indian place close to the Mariaplaats that's quite nice, although I forget it's name.
- Eetcaf

685

(5 replies, posted in Politics)

This idea has been around since forever, and was actually part of the integrated society and government that the founders of the EU had in mind. But the EU grew too fast in amount of members, adding members such as the xenophobic Brits, who veto'd every one of these suggestions in later years.

I for one am in favor of centralizing the European economic block, so that it is no longer a collection of scattered states but instead one superpower.
The fact that it allows us wealthier countries to control the fiscal policies of those nations who have no idea on how to balance budgets, as to not have their policies backfire into our faces, is just a nice little extra we get for more control over global markets as a true economic superpower.

686

(2,141 replies, posted in General)

Reginald D Hunter?

687

(39 replies, posted in Politics)

In no way could mid-/low class housing support any such structures being built on top of it, lol.

688

(1 replies, posted in Ideas)

http://www.imperialconflict.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=132626

689

(39 replies, posted in Politics)

It is not realistic to use the earth's entire volume in these calculations. There's only a certain depth in the ground that humans can reach to inhabit or use for transport etc. Any deeper and you reach molten rock and metals and your body starts to melt, not to mention the extreme pressure and lack of oxygen you have to face.
Next there's the problem of reaching deep depths in water. Here the water pressure will simply make your construction implode.

Aside from that, Wornstrum's and your, xeno, numbers included the atmosphere. I'm pretty sure we will not be able to effectively and efficiently make use of any layer in the atmosphere above the troposphere, not for production of energy using solar panels (subsequent layers all the way down to earth would interfere with each other's efficience), let alone for residence (oxygen levels too low, UV levels too high, etc.)

690

(39 replies, posted in Politics)

lmao! nice burn zarfy big_smile

691

(641 replies, posted in Universal News)

> Flash[light]ning wrote:

> rephrase that. YOU WILL NEVER forget. or ever let me forget for that matter!


teehee.

692

(20 replies, posted in Universal News)

They were probably afraid of being farmed by FlashyTOXIC and offered half their planets...

693

(39 replies, posted in Politics)

those 3 levels you speak of are ways to change our consumer patterns by planning our infrastructure more wisely.
however they are unrealistic  in our world, as to build these we'd have to destroy a lot of infrastructure first. And, who is going to pay for this new infrastructure?

Hence the idea that with our CURRENT levels of consumption, our world wont be able to support our population.

And it is irrealistic to believe that our levels of consumption will change drastically for the better, hence to balance things out it'd be easier to change our population size by reversing population growth from positive to negative leves. THAT is the basis of Malthusianism.

694

(39 replies, posted in Politics)

xeno, you still haven't adressed the the idea that at one point in time, our population growth will have become too big for the amount of resources we have to support us.

According to research done in request of the WWF, with population growth rates and worldwide consumption per capita staying the same, in 2050 we'd need almost 3 earths to provide for our consumption.

Of course one could doubt this research to be unbiased (as it was requested by an organization with a stake in bad results), but still I think it corrolates with other scientific publications that show that our earth alone will not be able to keep up with our consumption patterns.

695

(641 replies, posted in Universal News)

I could never forget that, Flashy! tongue

696

(641 replies, posted in Universal News)

Forever, I completely agree.

Render, I, in fact, have won a few times the past few rounds! big_smile
And sure Flashy deserves it, and after he has he can pay me half of the price money for alimony. I'm still waiting for last month's payment, Flashy!

Arby3, please do big_smile.

Oh and Aldon, I hope your not making that nubtart some of those amazing fam pics you make! He's not worth it!

697

(641 replies, posted in Universal News)

Flashy is winning a round? That's an all time low.

Pinwheel truley is nothing without me...



<3

698

(20 replies, posted in Community)

happy birthday Genipoo! <3

699

(39 replies, posted in Politics)

if this were true, it's not working properly.

I'm assuming you'd want to breed as many upper class/higher middle class people, the people who rule, innovate, and generally make lots of money.
In practice however, the ones on the social ladder who are per person on average having the most children, are those in the lower/lower middle classes.
Malthus's ideas included restricting marriage from people suffering poverty or defects; his ideas were clearly aimed at reducing the population of the lower social classes.

How would you explain this phenomenon?


As a sidenote, I must say I agree with the fundaments of Malthusianism (not saying I agree with all sides to it). Malthusianism (and neo-malthusianism) are based on the idea that at one point in time, our population growth will have become too big for the amount of resources we have to support us (although I disagree in several of the tactics they would use to lower the population). In fact, I believe this is already happening: for example areas in Africa suffering starvation due to all their food being used in richer countries/amongst the rich or due to their land being used for different purposes than agriculture. This could  be an example of the "positive checks" Malthus proposed,that would lead to the Malthusian catastrophe, restoring human population to supportable amounts.

What a waste of money, don't you guys have debts to pay off?