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Thoughts on the Backfiring of Harm Reduction

Migrated topic.
I've been thinking about this and i've changed my mind. I also have been to agressive and dismissive towards this datura guy. I still think that time will show that he's not here to contribute in a serious and positive way, but everybody deserve's a fair chance and maybe he will prove me wrong.

It's not a nice thing if we all start bashing one guy. But i got some seriously negative vibes from that dude. He will have to drop that negative and superiour attitude if he wants me to change my mind about him.

This all reminds me of the split in budhism between the mahayana's and hinayana's: the ones who would want to give up their own enlightenment if it would contribute to the enlightenment of others and the 'elitist' budhists who withdraw themselves from the world to focus on their own enlightenment only.
Caring for others can seriously bring you down, but by not caring you will never reach the highest point anyway.
But it's not so clear who's who, everybody has a bit of both sides.

To remain positive towards a person, no matter what the person says or does could also turn into fake positivity. A kind of ignoring the person and actually even the reality you're dealing with. Wich is not less exclusive in the end than the exclusiveness you've been trying to prevent.
 
Uncle Knucles said:
So, again I'll say that if it seems to be what enough of the people here want, I'm happy to turn in my (love)gun and badge, and let someone else take a turn.
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Art, I definitely think of you as some sort of gnarly beast -- one that the nexus would be a much poorer place without! It saddens me to hear you talk of turning in your badge...are you not proud to wear it? Yes, sometimes you go further in aggressive attitude than many would care for but when you do so, it is simply an opportunity for others to step in and add their own contrasting say. I know I have done this in the past and will continue to do so.

The moderator selection on this board is brilliant. There seems to be no intention to have only one uniform view and way of going about moderating -- quite to the contrary, there is a great diversity of personalities and communication styles among the official badged moderators. Furthermore, the role of moderating is not that of the moderators alone, it is up to everyone in the community to speak when there is something to be said, to offer corrections, advice, and even to reprimand those reprehensible for reckless noobishness.

Thank you, Pandora for starting this thread. You have said what many have been thinking and what you haven't said, they have added themselves.

In the future, butt hurt noobs should be linked here to cool off.:p
 
I realize that I've probably been given more latitude here than most, and I understand I've stepped over the line on more than one occasion. I hear the criticism and will do my best to try and be less judgmental
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That is what matters most to me, thank you..
 
Art... Please don't step down from your moderator position.

I still laugh about that post about the life sized cream statue.... I damn near could not breathe after reading that post. I tend to be overly serious sometimes and need comic relief like that.

Also I am glad that people on here can call a spade a spade and express themselves as needed to get a point across. I guess what is important is to prevent the riff-raff from ruining the Nexus, but allowing people the freedom to be them selves if it causes no harm to our community as a whole.
 
Uncle Knucles said:
I realize that I've probably been given more latitude here than most, and I understand I've stepped over the line on more than one occasion. I hear the criticism and will do my best to try and be less judgmental - but feel free, one and all, to air out your respective beefs.
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I have no "beef", but I'll offer my opinion.

I'm kinda surprised by this. I had come to believe you didn't give the slightest shit what people thought or said about you. (maybe you don't) Personally I find your posts mainly funny, but then I haven't been on the receiving end yet. I think it's the fact that you never compromise or show any vulnerability that makes some people resent you to some degree. Very "alpha male"! :lol:

I guess the softening to those edges, are your great descriptions / warnings of the wonderful terror that is a powerfull spice journey. That's what unites us here after all - that most humbling of experiences. The Nexus is a better place with you as a mod for sure.
 
Polytrip said:

There was another dude some time ago who believed he was being haunted by electric jews. I told him that he needed to visit a shrink. He wouldn't listen and persisted that electric jews are real and that they live in electric wires all around.
Pretending that you could have a decent discussion is useless and even counterproductive in these cases.
There are no electric jews living in the wires. I aksed the electric palestinians and they clearly told me there could be no such thing.

http://www.psychonaut.com/post-33607.html?f=36&start=255 Halfway down. Maybe Vlad was a troll or a hoax- maybe his sock-master 'killed' him off- but maybe he was real and really is dead?
Only quoting you Polytrip because you brought him up:)
 
First off, I'd like to say thank you to all who've gone out of their way with support. I've not been particularly concerned with having a popular viewpoint here most of the time - but given the choice, I suppose I'd rather more people than not didn't hate me.

Now, with regard to Vlad and the electric Jews.... if it's true that he did in fact commit suicide, that's a horribly sad and awful reminder that we just can't be dispensing medical advice in situations like this.

 
fourthripley said:
Polytrip said:

There was another dude some time ago who believed he was being haunted by electric jews. I told him that he needed to visit a shrink. He wouldn't listen and persisted that electric jews are real and that they live in electric wires all around.
Pretending that you could have a decent discussion is useless and even counterproductive in these cases.
There are no electric jews living in the wires. I aksed the electric palestinians and they clearly told me there could be no such thing.

http://www.psychonaut.com/post-33607.html?f=36&start=255 Halfway down. Maybe Vlad was a troll or a hoax- maybe his sock-master 'killed' him off- but maybe he was real and really is dead?
Only quoting you Polytrip because you brought him up:)
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I'm deeply shocked by this.

He clearly had some severe psychiatric problem as you'd see in the thread.

I know all the advice about shamans and magicmarbles was meant well, but he realy should have gone to a shrink.
Unfortunately his situation was obviously so severe that he wasn't able anymore to judge for himself how bad his situation actually was.

Nobody here should feel guilt about not having been able to reach out to that guy. People tried as you can read, but he was out of reach.

I think the best advice members of a forum can give in such a situation, is not te seek advice on forums about psychedelic drugs.
This is a very sad thing.
 
I am reviving this topic to add an issue that I have had with some attitude that I have seen. There has been a lot of people who will reply to people who are stressed or having issues to "smoke," and maybe not dmt just a lil' weed. Really though I have a little list of reasons why I find that this behavoir can be extremely inappropriate.

1. What if someone does not smoke?
2. What if someone does and is out?
3. What if someone does not have good access and may have bad weed that's causing their problems?
4. It is not a magic everything medicine. There are different strains that produce different effects for different medical applications. Just as any medicine useing the wrong strain or formula at the wrong time will cause problems be it one that manifests physically, mentally, or emotionally.
5. Personally I find weed just as any psychedelic to amplify the mood I am in.... If someone is telling someone to smoke to just forget about their problems, they might as well go tell them to drink, or hell go do opiates and forget pains.

Please remember not to slip-n-slide into just SMOALKING MOAR!!!!! of whatever you find,... Because it might just be the cause of all your problems


Thank you for your time reading,
Tacodude
 
dear tacodude,

in general I agree that the whole smoalk moar attitude is a little bit difficult with respect to the harm reduction aspect we wish to have. On the other hand I would hope that people understand that it is in part a joke, with only a bit of seriousness in it. I agree that weed or dmt or whatever substance should not be used to *solve* your problems, or to flee from them.

But the nexus is also not a life-coach or advisor that should be held responsible for what people do. If it were then all members would have to have specific training in order to make diplomatic answers and in the end give no real advice at all aside from "you will have to look at this in a differentiated manner and judge for yourself which path you believe is best". Clearly this would kill all sort of discussions. In our attitude we state we want our members to be responsible. This goes for people seeking advice as well as people giving it. Should some advice seem irresponsible perhaps it should not be taken... I think if we start making more rules for things like this or adding more disclaimers we will end up with things like "WARNING THIS BEVERAGE IS HOT AND MAY CAUSE IRRITATION OF SKIN IF BROUGHT INTO CONTACT" or "WARNING: DO NOT PUT LIVING BEINGS IN MICROWAVE"... completely insulting the intelligence of everyone and basically denying them the responsibility to THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

At some point we have to allow people to be self-responsible and to use their own head. Of course we don't want people giving advice like "use heroin" or "go shoot yourself" but this is clearly disrespectful, and so I think that within the limits of good measure we can leave things as they are and just remember that everyone here is an adult and should be able to judge for themselves.
 
I am just saying this because I have seen it happen that in a middle of a discussion of behavoir and attitude that someone would come in with that as the solution randomly out of nowhere first just saying smoke and being serious and re clarifying "smoke a j." I had only listed a few reasons, but there are probably many more. I agree that it can be a joke, but in a serrious discussion when someone is in a negative mood as I said that could push it even further and put them in an even worse off position.

As well as who knows who there talking too? What if someone came on here pretending some JWH blend was bud and he ended up smoalking moar because everyone was just smoalking moar and he decided to share in the smoalking and smoalked more. Just as the person who is influenced should take responsibility for there actions I feel the guides or the ones who influence should take responsibility for their actions as well. It is never one persons fault... When you start pointing fingers always remember 3 will always be pointing back to you.

Tacodude

Edit: I have no reason to add another post... Discussing this is a waste of time and will end up causing an argument between more people that need to be involved... I made my point and I feel I have made it clearly and I feel everyone else has as well... If whoever is reading it does not get it they just do not get it.
 
One thing is being reasonably mindfull and thoughtfull and generally speaking in a way that aims towards harm reduction, trusting and at the same time trying to develop critical thinking in others. The other thing is being uptight and obsessively going "by the book", being paranoid about all the bad ways people can interpret one's words and hurt themselves.

One thing is telling jokes and being light-hearted, using slangs and memes that were invented in the forum to ease up the atmosphere, the other thing is being innapropriate and immature when a serious discussion is going on.

Now where is the line between those? What about all the levels between them? It's hard to say, because it is very contextual. I think it depends who is in the discussion involved, what is the discussion, what has been going on, etc. If there is some new member you think wont understand the 'smoalk moar' kind of posts/chat lines, one option is to simply explain to him/her. This way he/she will know from that moment on. Another thing one can do is to talk to whoever is saying those things and explain why you think its not right (and/or point to this thread). Just try to be reasonable and make sure that one's criticism is constructive and really relevant to the moment, and not just an automatic response to some specific kind of words or jokes.

Whatever it is, thanks for the feedback and suggestions tacodude, its always good that members say what they think and suggest how we can improve the forum or chat.
 
If you smoalk moar just because someone tells you to do so you seriously need to rethink why you are doing what you are doing.

Learn to not take things so seriously.
 
۩ said:
If you smoalk moar just because someone tells you to do so you seriously need to rethink why you are doing what you are doing.

Learn to not take things so seriously.
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As somebody who has on occasion dosed at the behest of The Holy Javelin himself, I agree with this statement.

Naw, but really... If somebody tells me to SMOKE MOAR, whether it be The Holy Javelin or some random dude on the street, I'm not just gonna light up at the mere suggestion. Sure, if I want to dose up I'm gonna do it... but really? Folks aren't robots.
 
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