Comment · Tue, April 2, 2013
young children doing drugs
Original post in this thread
Brainsailor · 13 points
The other day I met someone who claimed to start smoking weed at the age of four. I'm sure that was bullshit, but it made me think about the ethics of letting children/making children do drugs. What kind of drug do you think would be the best for a child? What do you think psychedelic use such as acid, shrooms, or DMT would do to a child's simplistic worldview? I've never really had a full on discussion about it, except to know that most people say it's wrong.
What they were answering
BlueCalx1 · 2 points
Well I'm glad that you have witnessed a lot in your life, that's excellent.
Of course every person is an individual who makes individual decisions. I'm sure that there are Native Americans who start off with nothing and end up with everything. The opposite is true also, rich people who make poor decisions and end up destitute. In a perfect world, the past wouldn't have any influence on people's successes and failures. But what you seem to be ignoring is that there IS a correlation between the past and how successful a group of people generally is. It's all circumstantial. On average, people of white, wealthy European lineage are going to stay generally well off, and people that have been given the shaft in the past sometimes never fully recover, and some have more to overcome than others. Obviously most people technically have a chance to change everything and succeed/fail, but not everybody is going to. Sometimes it will be because of individual decisions which may be influenced by upbringing/surroundings/the "past", but other times it will be entirely situational. Not every poor Indian man makes it out of the slums and saves your life, man. And just saying "they could" won't change the fact that they won't.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
I'm not ignoring that. I know that a person's background is extremely correlated with their success. I just don't think it should be brought up every single time something is mentioned about a group. I see how that mentality affects people. That constant reminder provides a subconscious spring board to shift blame externally. It's the reason that correlation keeps perpetuating itself.
but other times it will be entirely situational.
Nothing is entirely situational. Even if it was, thinking that way benefits nobody. Everyone can change their life. For some it may be next to impossible. However, the impossible happens all the time. I want more people to get into the mindset that Rama had. He saw no other option but success. It didn't matter that he was living in a slum. He made up his mind that he would become more than that. Not everyone will succeed like he did. In fact, most will fail. However, 100% of the people that don't try will fail. So why not change that mindset and at least have a chance?
We kind of went off on a tangent there, but ohh well. My whole first point was that saying, "American Indians let their children smoke peyote" as a basis, or even a starting point to a discussion about adolescent drug use, is flawed.