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[PA Comic] Friday, March 22, 2013 - The Emerald Dream, Part Three

GethGeth LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
edited March 2013 in The Penny Arcade Hub
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Posts

  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    Something about the art style has been different this week. Has anyone else noticed?

  • HewnHewn Registered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    Something about the art style has been different this week. Has anyone else noticed?

    Have you ever read Penny Arcade... on weed?

    Steam: hewn
    Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
  • TossrockTossrock too weird to live too rare to dieRegistered User regular
    @Rolo thread

    sig.png
  • TIFunkaliciousTIFunkalicious Kicking back in NebraskaRegistered User regular
    If it ain't toke, don't fix it

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Marijuana culture is kind of butts. Which is true for just about any culture focused on a single thing that they hype up to be the greatest ever.

    Marijuana is great though.

  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    Rolo Tony Brown Town

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • theResetButtontheResetButton Registered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    Something about the art style has been different this week. Has anyone else noticed?

    I'm guessing they traveled to PAX East earlier than we realize, so Mike's been using the Surface. The lines are slightly jaggy when he uses the Surface.

    Keep honking: I'm also honking.
  • Shakes999Shakes999 Registered User regular
    I guffawed loudly at todays comic.
    Hewn wrote: »
    Henroid wrote: »
    Something about the art style has been different this week. Has anyone else noticed?

    Have you ever read Penny Arcade... on weed?

    Then i read this and choked on my funyuns I was dipping in peanut butter.

  • flamebroiledchickenflamebroiledchicken Registered User regular
    Weed culture and weed activists themselves are a big roadblock to legalization, because usually the reasons they give for why it should be legalized are not the compelling ones. They couch it in terms of personal freedom because the reason they want weed to be legal is so THEY can freely get stoned. They have no ability to think of anyone besides themselves. The best reason to legalize weed is to bring down overcrowding in prisons and kick our horrible, racist-ass prison-industrial complex and War on Drugs in the nuts. That's what activists need to focus on. The personal freedom to smoke up without fear of legal consequences is nice, but there are a lot of people living in hell on Earth right now because weed is illegal.

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  • MalReynoldsMalReynolds The Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicines Registered User regular
    Weed culture and weed activists themselves are a big roadblock to legalization, because usually the reasons they give for why it should be legalized are not the compelling ones. They couch it in terms of personal freedom because the reason they want weed to be legal is so THEY can freely get stoned. They have no ability to think of anyone besides themselves. The best reason to legalize weed is to bring down overcrowding in prisons and kick our horrible, racist-ass prison-industrial complex and War on Drugs in the nuts. That's what activists need to focus on. The personal freedom to smoke up without fear of legal consequences is nice, but there are a lot of people living in hell on Earth right now because weed is illegal.

    This seems like a really huge oversimplification of people who use marijuana and want it to be legalized.

    Not that I disagree with the rest of your sentiment, which is pretty spot on.

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  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    Weed culture and weed activists themselves are a big roadblock to legalization, because usually the reasons they give for why it should be legalized are not the compelling ones. They couch it in terms of personal freedom because the reason they want weed to be legal is so THEY can freely get stoned. They have no ability to think of anyone besides themselves. The best reason to legalize weed is to bring down overcrowding in prisons and kick our horrible, racist-ass prison-industrial complex and War on Drugs in the nuts. That's what activists need to focus on. The personal freedom to smoke up without fear of legal consequences is nice, but there are a lot of people living in hell on Earth right now because weed is illegal.

    I think at least some people would argue that this is more of a reason for making weed a fining offense instead of an incarceration offense.

    The US incarcerates for way too many crimes to begin with, drug and non drug related.

    I ate an engineer
  • flamebroiledchickenflamebroiledchicken Registered User regular
    Weed culture and weed activists themselves are a big roadblock to legalization, because usually the reasons they give for why it should be legalized are not the compelling ones. They couch it in terms of personal freedom because the reason they want weed to be legal is so THEY can freely get stoned. They have no ability to think of anyone besides themselves. The best reason to legalize weed is to bring down overcrowding in prisons and kick our horrible, racist-ass prison-industrial complex and War on Drugs in the nuts. That's what activists need to focus on. The personal freedom to smoke up without fear of legal consequences is nice, but there are a lot of people living in hell on Earth right now because weed is illegal.

    This seems like a really huge oversimplification of people who use marijuana and want it to be legalized.

    Not that I disagree with the rest of your sentiment, which is pretty spot on.

    Maybe you're right. My experience is mostly from talking to folks tabling for NORML at college and folks trying to convince me to come to the Global Marijuana March. I always got the impression that they wanted marijuana legalized primarily for Personal Freedom reasons, and not because of how disastrous the War on Drugs is. When I was briefly involved in Occupy Wall Street, there were always a handful of legalize-weed people in Zucotti Park/at the rallies, and it was always kind of like... what are you even doing here? Your fight for the right to smoke pot is not really capital-I Important in light of what the rest of us are talking about. I dunno, I've dealt with a lot of lefty activists and the majority of them are annoying in some way, but the weed activists were always the most annoying. But YMMV.

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  • King KushKing Kush smoke weed everyday smoke weed everydayRegistered User regular
    thinly veiled attack on people's personal choices

    You don't care about "issues" with a capital I.

    You're just looking for an excuse to fuck with DEM STONERS, MAN! DEM FUCKIN' STONERS, SMOKIN' THEIR POT WEEDS. Fucking with them, with a capital F.

    It's a free country, you can get mad at people for doing things to themselves. Big deal.

    But don't try to act all altruistic and high and mighty about it.

    You are not a better person than them.

    You are not a better person for pretending to care about Issues.

  • King KushKing Kush smoke weed everyday smoke weed everydayRegistered User regular
    If it ain't toke, don't fix it


    SMOKE TILL YOU TOKE

  • flamebroiledchickenflamebroiledchicken Registered User regular
    King Kush wrote: »
    thinly veiled attack on people's personal choices

    You don't care about "issues" with a capital I.

    You're just looking for an excuse to fuck with DEM STONERS, MAN! DEM FUCKIN' STONERS, SMOKIN' THEIR POT WEEDS. Fucking with them, with a capital F.

    It's a free country, you can get mad at people for doing things to themselves. Big deal.

    But don't try to act all altruistic and high and mighty about it.

    You are not a better person than them.

    You are not a better person for pretending to care about Issues.

    ...I smoke weed on the regular, dogg.

    I also think weed culture and most "weed activists" are super annoying.

    Also, you don't know what I care and don't care about.

    y59kydgzuja4.png
  • King KushKing Kush smoke weed everyday smoke weed everydayRegistered User regular
    i found exactly one fuck in my stash

    it is my gift to you

  • ChromyChromy Registered User new member
    Interesting that G&T talk about how DARE and society have rammed lies and misconceptions about marijuana down our throats. I was a member of DARE at my high school many moons ago. Pretty much everything I was told/saw has come true in some form in my life. My father along with my best friend in those years both destroyed themselves and their lives through drug use. I wish to God(s) I was exageratting or lying here. Both started down that road with weed. My father broke his neck during a stupid stunt and my best friend literally went from trying weed from a friend to smoking crack and trying homemade LSD 6 months later. He is a semi-institutionalized pyschotic now.
    People generally hang around others of equal intelligence, income, background. Gabe might not look around in his life at present and see any 'damage' that drugs may do. Those that drugs have ravaged usually fall out of our social groupings I've found. Due to my job and social hangout I see those that have fallen to the chemical recreation trap almost on a weekly basis. I understand that many users lead normal, productive lives and dont let weed, or whatever, interfere. I know of several like this.
    I tried marijuanna myself twice when I was in high school. Didnt have any epiphanic moment or amazing fun. Never bothered going back.
    I see Gabe's story kinda like this:
    5 men play a form of Russian Roulette. Five guns in a box, only one has a bullet. The first man picks a gun and pulls trigger. Nothing. He suddenly is overcome with the realization of how precious life is and how this game has taught him how he should grasp every moment of it in sheer joy. It changes his life forever. The second man pulls his trigger. Nothing. He decides that though the immediate experience was exhilirating & scary, this really isnt productive and never does it again. The third man decides that the game just isnt for him in the first place and never participates. The fourth man pulls the trigger and *BLAM*. The fifth man has to clean the fourths brains off the wall.
    Gabe might be the first man.
    I guess I'm the second man.
    I've seen every one of these men in my life.

  • King KushKing Kush smoke weed everyday smoke weed everydayRegistered User regular
    the fact that you compared trying weed to russian roulette

    i just

    laughing too hard

    can't reply

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Chromy wrote: »
    My father broke his neck during a stupid stunt and my best friend literally went from trying weed from a friend to smoking crack and trying homemade LSD 6 months later. He is a semi-institutionalized pyschotic now.

    You could substitute "Games" for weed in this and you'd have the 'video games = killing kids' correlation spewed by the media. If you think weed is to blame for your friend's state, you may want to read up on addictive personalities and mental disorders.

  • glithertglithert Registered User regular
    Weed seems like a gateway drug because it's the first drug a person who wants to do all the drugs will typically get their hands on. I'd bet a million dollars that if your friend had been offered crack first he would have smoked it anyway. Because he's the kind of person willing to try crack. Or crystal meth. homemade acid. whatever.

  • Shakes999Shakes999 Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Chromy wrote: »
    My father broke his neck during a stupid stunt and my best friend literally went from trying weed from a friend to smoking crack and trying homemade LSD 6 months later. He is a semi-institutionalized pyschotic now.

    You could substitute "Games" for weed in this and you'd have the 'video games = killing kids' correlation spewed by the media. If you think weed is to blame for your friend's state, you may want to read up on addictive personalities and mental disorders.

    oh look, a rational response, i was expecting nothing but derp from both sides judging by how the thread was going.

    Shakes999 on
  • GodfatherGodfather Registered User regular
    Comic would have been funnier if Tycho had just been all "Did you wait fifteen minutes Tycho? Did you at least wait fifteen minutes?"

  • LeinnaLeinna Registered User regular
    People generally hang around others of equal intelligence, income, background. Gabe might not look around in his life at present and see any 'damage' that drugs may do. Those that drugs have ravaged usually fall out of our social groupings I've found.

    This. People with schizophrenia or drug problems tend to have trouble managing normal lives and are often isolated, homeless etc.

    Given that 1 in 100 people have schizophrenia, I was initially surprised that they are not as visible a part of society.

    It gives the impression that these problems are not as big as they are. They do exist but are hidden from the everyday lives of most people.

  • AurichAurich ArizonaRegistered User regular
    Shakes999 wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Chromy wrote: »
    My father broke his neck during a stupid stunt and my best friend literally went from trying weed from a friend to smoking crack and trying homemade LSD 6 months later. He is a semi-institutionalized pyschotic now.

    You could substitute "Games" for weed in this and you'd have the 'video games = killing kids' correlation spewed by the media. If you think weed is to blame for your friend's state, you may want to read up on addictive personalities and mental disorders.

    oh look, a rational response, i was expecting nothing but derp from both sides judging by how the thread was going.
    While I have seen people get hooked on WoW and tailspin into moderately reduced academic performance, I don't think you can actually draw a credible line between videogames and death.

    I also have a very negative bias against weed because of all the stoners I've met (many of whom would seem to be the mature responsible partakers I am often assured are everywhere) who are like a living gallery of cautionary tales.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Aurich wrote: »
    Shakes999 wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Chromy wrote: »
    My father broke his neck during a stupid stunt and my best friend literally went from trying weed from a friend to smoking crack and trying homemade LSD 6 months later. He is a semi-institutionalized pyschotic now.

    You could substitute "Games" for weed in this and you'd have the 'video games = killing kids' correlation spewed by the media. If you think weed is to blame for your friend's state, you may want to read up on addictive personalities and mental disorders.

    oh look, a rational response, i was expecting nothing but derp from both sides judging by how the thread was going.
    While I have seen people get hooked on WoW and tailspin into moderately reduced academic performance, I don't think you can actually draw a credible line between videogames and death.

    I also have a very negative bias against weed because of all the stoners I've met (many of whom would seem to be the mature responsible partakers I am often assured are everywhere) who are like a living gallery of cautionary tales.

    If you mean my comment, I was talking about the current trend of blaming video games whenever some nutball goes on a school/mall shooting rampage. That post seemed to be assuming weed was to blame for the friend's behavior when, as glithert said, weed just happened to be the first thing they did due to its relative ease of access.

    People who say weed is harmless are full of it too; it's a drug that affects people differently and like anything else, needs to be managed with care.

  • HumanmistHumanmist Registered User new member
    I was upset about the positive spin on substance abuse in the article, and it bummed me out all week that a fellow "Drugs are for Losers" believer had fallen from grace so to speak and I was going to post on that. Then I remembered these men have done so much for society by bringing laughter to millions and running one of the most successful charities formed in recent years. Do I think substance abuse is ok? Absolutely not but if Howard Hughs can still be a hero of mine so can Gabe and Tycho. Nobody is perfect. Just posting this is very therapeutic, sorry for waisting your time.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    Where are you getting that they are abusing anything? He's had pot once. It is entirely possible to use a drug without abusing it.

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  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Humanmist wrote: »
    I was upset about the positive spin on substance abuse in the article, and it bummed me out all week that a fellow "Drugs are for Losers" believer had fallen from grace so to speak and I was going to post on that.

    So do you define any use of a (now semi-legal for them) drug as "abuse"? If you're referring to Gabe's experience, sounds like that was as far from abuse as you can get - got it from a trusted source, used it under controlled conditions by being with someone who he trusted as well.

    Not trying to convince you to run out and smoke pot, just really curious about your belief (as I understand it) that any drug use makes someone beneath you and there's something wrong with them. If you haven't read Gabe & Tycho's posts about this topic, specifically how Gabe had what sounds like a similar attitude as you, please go read them now.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    In order for any substance to qualify as a drug of abuse, and therefore fit schedule 1 criteria (along with having no medical use or accepted safe standards of use), it must meet at least one of the following criteria:

    Work, school, or home failure to function or meet expectations regarding obligations
    Interpersonal problems made worse due to the drug's use
    Legal problems as a result of drug use
    Dangerous behavior regarding use

    Marijuana certainly fits the bill, albeit with a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy regarding the legal aspect. If you think that the three criteria applying to schedule 1 drugs (abuse potential, no medical use, no safe use) make no sense in the terms of the "badness" of the drug when compared to a lot of harder drugs that have lower schedules, you are mostly right, because the schedule system was primarily designed with medical purposes in mind. Marinol, which is purified THC, is actual Schedule III because of its primary medical use to stimulate appetite, even though Marinol, unlike marijuana, has had cases of overdose resulting in death. However, that doesn't mean that there is no sense to the schedule system: marijuana has suffered as a drug from its inability to be adequately regulated as a controlled substance, which is in part due to its ease of production. If you're wondering why alcohol and tobacco don't get such a rap, it's mainly because they got to be institutionalized and more importantly incorporated before the standards were set in place. That's it. They are far worse drugs but it is impossible to get rid of them, and we have distrusted ourselves regarding new substances because at the beginning of the century, cocaine was regarded in much the same way as spice melange, and that ruined it for all future drugs for what looks like the next few centuries.

    Marijuana has been shown through the literature to stunt growth in children (with about as much evidence as Adderall has for the same thing) and is a risk factor for the development of psychosis in people predisposed to schizophrenia. It's not a good drug for people suffering from depression, bipolar disorder, or anxiety, because while it can help people in those areas, it has also been shown to have the opposite effect, exacerbating those symptoms. It's not really a wonder drug for the treatment of any psychiatric problem, and its application in pain relief is in that grey area of neuropathic and neurogenic pain, where it sits in the back of a bus crowded with a lot of better studied therapies for that purpose. As a drug, it's really gotten the short shrift, but that doesn't mean it can suddenly start getting special attention. Working with what we've got, it's a really crappy drug medically, much like St. John's Wort, where the only thing that was proved for the latter was that it makes a lot of drugs, including birth control (!) drugs, more ineffective than anticipated with no proven benefit, making the drug overall harmful just because it's not as useful as other drugs with the exact same side effects.

    As for people with addictive personalities, addictions and stereotyped behaviors are usually generated to a specific substance or habit. Some people just lose control around video games, others around gambling, and others around drugs. Once your brain latches on to one behavior, it reinforces itself over and over, burrowing a dangerous habit reactive only to that one specific stimulus that triggered it and usually nothing else. It is, like AA says, kind of like an allergy that only occurs in your head, where you become a person forever incapable of responsibly dealing with one or more specific things. Regardless of the law, people with gambling problems should not ever gamble, but that doesn't mean they can't play video games or smoke cigarettes. It's not a problem with a person's overall personality; they just have a specific kryptonite of activity or substance that will forever affect their lifestyle. And like allergies and kryptonite, some people can be loaded with the stimulus all the time and never develop a harmful reaction. Video games can be harmful to individuals on a case-by-case basis, but that is not an isolated fault of the video game or of the person, who most of the time still retains the potential to function very highly in society. Some people can just not stand that combination, and it's really too bad for them.

    Any activity or substance that generates reward in a very efficient manner can be addictive. It's hard to draw the line at how efficient something needs to be to be considered an addiction risk, but you can ballpark it with prevalence measures and make a case to monitor or outlaw it based on the estimated epidemiologic harm. That's where science is supposed to come in, and unfortunately we are seeing the effects of people slacking off in that department. Sorry about that. Now that we've got a bunch of test subjects we can monitor over the next few years, we'll get the facts you need, I promise.

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Humanmist wrote: »
    I was upset about the positive spin on substance abuse in the article...

    Good news! It didn't do that.

  • pwn493pwn493 Registered User regular
    I too have seen a lot of drug abuse, mostly with alcohol, but also with other drugs (including pot).

    Every single person I've seen who relies on drugs for some reason has a non-drug related mental illness (e.g. Bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders). To me, this makes sense, if your experience of reality can change abruptly for the worse completely outside of your control, then anything that gives you control of your experience is going to be incredibly appealing. Would you rather be unable to experience motivation or joy (depression) for several days or be stoned and watching cat videos (at least you'll be happy)? I'd pick the latter, but fortunately I don't have to deal with that choice.

    D.A.R.E does people a huge disservice by lying about the dangers of drugs. Drugs are dangerous, but they aren't 100% dangerous in the way D.A.R.E. portrays them to be. This is bad, because healthy people will try drugs, have no problems, they tell all their friends that D.A.R.E. lied, and then people who have mental illness issues try drugs, and start to self medicate with them. I mean, D.A.R.E. even villainizes alcohol, which is legal and something almost everyone can handle.

    I think D.A.R.E. would be more effective if it was more honest about drugs: which kinds are addictive, what are their side effects, who is at risk to use them to self medicate, and how to identify and deal with mental illness so you don't feel like you need to turn to drugs.

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Aurich wrote: »
    I also have a very negative bias against weed because of all the stoners I've met (many of whom would seem to be the mature responsible partakers I am often assured are everywhere) who are like a living gallery of cautionary tales.

    If you met a stoner who was a cautionary tale, they aren't the mature responsible partakers.

    You probably haven't met the responsible ones because, you know, they're responsible and you have a very clear bias against them. So why would someone who responsibly (and secretly) used marijuana tell you?

    In my experience, the really responsible users keep it to themselves for the most part and don't use it as an excuse to act all CA-RAAAAZY. A responsible smoker is capable of being productive at work and does not necessarily dress or act the way you might expect them to. In other words, you would probably never ever be able to tell them apart from people who don't smoke.

    Such people exist.

  • glithertglithert Registered User regular
    I imagine if weed were legal you'd meet a lot of responsible stoners because you'd be able to just ask them. In the meantime, I get good grades, I have a job, and if you walked up to me and asked me to hook you up I'd pretend I had no idea what you were talking about.

  • glithertglithert Registered User regular
    And hell, out of all the 420 smoke weed erryday types I know only one of them is a burnout. I just don't see it happening. I see stupid people burning out, but they do that because they're stupid.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    I don't think it's that fair to make a judgment on people who can't use marijuana or really anything appropriately without providing more context of what they had done and what was done by their friends to improve their circumstances. I believe there are a lot of people out there who can't handle it but aren't "stupid."

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    I think the point that was being made is that some people have some personality issues. Weed didn't create those issues.

    A lazy slacker who is good for nothing would probably be that way with or without marijuana.

    To be fair, I'm sure there are people out there who start using marijuana and then they let it affect their work ethic. There are people who do the same thing with alcohol. Yet we would never consider banning alcohol again because we know what happens if we do that. The point is that these people who latch on to a substance and let it affect their daily lives have issues aside from the drug, and banning the drug does not do away with those issues, nor does it keep them from obtaining the drug. So ... what is the point of banning the drug?

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Put another way, people who are unable to moderate their behavior (because really, too much of anything is a bad thing) don't let marijuana affect their lives because of the nature of the drug. They do so because of their own personal nature.

  • LeinnaLeinna Registered User regular
    But if the drug wasn't available, could those people have remained well and avoided that situation?

    Isn't it our responsibility as a society to protect people from that scenario?

  • glithertglithert Registered User regular
    No, it isn't. We let people drink themselves silly, don't we? We let them smoke until they can't breathe. We let them eat unhealthy foods.

  • LeinnaLeinna Registered User regular
    Alcohol has been a large part of society for ever. Smoking for several hundred years. If they were new we would ban them. They are banned for children and their sale is restricted in both cases. We are working towards banning smoking but it is a few decades off. Plain packaging, graphic warning labels etc.

    Yes, marijuana is also an old drug, but its use did not ever become an integral and accepted part of society.

    Food is different as it is an essential for life. Hard to restrict that.

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