You're wrong though. The social SCIENCES uses statistics to reach conclusions just as much as the hard sciences. Clean in the sense that I'm using is scientific. The difference between you and I is that I'm speaking from the relative anthropological viewpoint whereas you're coming from a purely mathematical perspective.
I realize the path our discussion has taken isn't directly relevant to this threads original intention but I also believe in the value of honest, frank, intelligent conversations, ones like these, ones that bluelight ostensibly fosters. If need be, it could be moved, but people deserve the opportunity to see the reasoning play out, that's why I'm not pm'ing you.
the social sciences are flawed for that reason though. Even the scientific method can't overcome its reliance on empiricism to the point where something can be stated as absolutely true. We only know what we can measure or perceive, that is in itself liable to error. The social sciences are subject to additional issues, especially using just statistics, they must be scrutinized and reproduced consistently to hold any weight and even then, there are no absolute claims that can be made. It's easy to show correlation but nearly impossible to prove causation with the social sciences. We see trends, patterns and can make predictions but it's not near as rigorous as a hard science nor near as reliable. The laws of physics and logic are also subject to change.
Ziiirp was setting up a logical argument (using predicate logic) for a working definition of being 'clean'. Which is admirable but doesn't really have relevance to this thread. Maths and logic do collide but that's just predicate logic being used, not pure maths.
I think essentially this is the argument:
1. Ideally, there is no reason for everyone to be on drugs to survive or function in this world
Argument for this premise: in the past humans did not require daily benzos/amphetamines/opiates to survive and function in this world
Counter argument: society has changed in such a way that such drugs are sometimes required for people to function in it.
2. If the counter-argument is true then that brings us to the Brave New World issue, where drugs are used as tools to enslave people by keeping them complacent, happy and oppressing their objections to a corrupt system, because essentially their core needs are satisfied.
That is by far the best argument i've seen to not use amphetamines/benzos/opiates/drugs daily. That is why one would aim to be relatively clean of drugs that especially affect you cognitively and socially. Drugs often immobilize people socially and politically by either creating apathy or just enough happiness for one not to provoke change or challenge the status quo.
The war on drugs itself is a facade as drug use increases and more and more drugs are available,
perhaps this is intentional? a complacent, happy, useless mass of consumers living in a throw away culture will bring tremendous capital to the state or the elite/capitalists. With this power they can then enact a system to ensure they gain more power and more capital to put a system in place to reign supreme.
If you look at the US for example, what is in place is essentially a loose caste system already, where the elite stay that way, the poor stay poor and people in the middle stay in their respective spots. There is room for social mobility but not a whole lot.
Big pharma produces many many drugs alongside a flourishing illegal drug trade, more and more people get on these drugs and become happy/satisfied with their shitty lives, won't even care that they are at the bottom of the totem pole because their basic needs are met through materialism, drug use, sexuality and a false sense of freedom.
That is the scary direction the world is going. Big pharma and the drug war bring in more and more capital to the elite who further oppress those below them. To prevent revolution, the social elite systemically get everyone on drugs that make them embrace this world, amphetamines for productivity, benzos/opiates for complacency, antidepressants so people don't care that their life sucks and antipsychotics for the radical thinkers (we can even class them as savages like in the Brave New World). Illegal drugs fill in the rest. It's clear the drug war has failed but it continues because it generates capital as well as enslaves people. For example, look at incarceration rates for african americans, the cocaine/crack sentencing discrepancy, plenty of other examples already.
This system keeps everyone happy and sounds like a utopia except people lose their freedom entirely to change who they are. They are born into a system where immediately they are placed in a social class where they will remain forever, as will their kids and grand children. Drugs are then a tool of enslavement and oppression. How do we fight this? by aiming to remain relatively sober, relatively clean, to recognize this problem and somehow fight against it.
However, if you're on methadone/xanax/methamphetamine every day, are you really going to fight it? I know i wouldn't, which is the issue itself.
it's an abstract argument but one that is coherent. It may not be necessarily the case that Huxley's predictions come true, an objection to this is that a large majority of people who use drugs do not become addicted to them anyway, so as a tool for enslavement, they aren't entirely effective. in the future a drug like 'soma' could be created though, a drug that is part psychedelic, benzo, opiate and stimulant that can be used every single day. That drug would be the downfall of all of humanity and would undermine freedom itself.
TL;DR sorry that was so long.
So staying relatively clean for me is a legitimate aim in life. There is no point other than that really. In the end this is a drug related forum and I should not expect, that everyone in here is getting close to be straight edge or willing to be, but sometimes it appears to me that both distopias from "1984" and "Brave New World" combined are already ongoing for years and get worse by the day, when I read through this and other boards. And then I play the anti pole in discussions, someone has to.
